William Shreve Bailey

William Shreve Bailey (c. 1806–1886) was an American mechanic and printer born in Centerville, Ohio and who moved to Newport, Kentucky, notable for his abolitionist publications, and who received widespread support from the abolitionist movement when financially strained due effects of his work.

Abolitionist

Bailey was by trade a cotton machinist and steam engine builder and had established a machine shop in Newport. His religious disposition led him to abolitionism, and he contributed articles to the Newport News before buying the publication at the urging of its current owner, who felt himself unable to cope with harassment arising out of printing an abolitionist message in a slave-owning state.

Photius Fisk funded many abolitionists. Bailey was one of them. In the 1860s he gave him a sizable donation for his abolitionist activities. He continued funding his newspaper activities well after the Civil War. Bailey and Fisk were friends. When Bailey died, Photius Fisk paid to erect a monument in his honor.