The First Woman Editor
She lived back in Ihe days when no woman
worked in an office. Despite that fact,
however. Mrs. Holton made a success out of
her work and also out of raising a large
family.
К
FORE the Civil War when ev¬
ery mother preached to her
daughter, "the woman’s place is
in the homo,” Rachel Region Holton
, braved the conventions of that time to
become editor of The Xorlh Carolina
Whig, thus becoming the first woman
newspaper editor in the state and the
South, and probably the first southern
woman to work in an office.
Very few women bothered their
pretty heads about business affairs;
so Mrs. Holton’* knowledge of gal¬
leys of type, cnis and ens, and adver¬
tising rates was probably a matter of
much bewilderment to the population
of Charlotte. When other women her
age were worrying about the menu for
the next meal or the price of silk.
Mrs. Holton was at work, writing the
next day’s paper.
Mother of 11 Children
However, her talents were not lim¬
ited to the journalistic field. In addi¬
tion to being a successful newspaper
woman, Mrs. Holton should also be
given credit for having raised 11 chil¬
dren and having done a good job of it.
The old question of career or home
life for the woman of today has kept
inanv an ‘‘Advice to the Lovelorn”
column going, but Mrs. Holton seems
to have had it solved so that she was
both a successful business woman and
mother.
Although North Carolina may legit¬
imately claim Mrs. Holton as the first
woman editor, Richmond, too has
strings on her, since she was born in
that Virginia city in May, 1812.
Richmond know hor as the attractive
Rachel Jones, daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Leopold Jones, who, like her
other friends and acquaintances, was
interested primarily in parties and
dainty drej.»c» and never had the
slightest thought of sometime becom¬
ing the editor of a newspaper.
In 1831 Thomas Jefferson Holton,
who was also a native of Richmond,
wooed and wed Miss Jones and
brought his Virginia bride to North
Carolina to live.
In 1823 he had started a newspaper
in Charlotte which lie called the
Miners and Farmers Journal, having
By DOItlS (.OIIUII
had some exporioneo in the newspaper
business, working in Salisbury a tew
years before he came to Charlotte. In
1845 the name of the paper was
«•hanged to The Charlotte Journal and
in 1S54 the name of the publication
was again changed, this time to The
Xorlh Carolina Whig, which it re¬
mained until long after the close of
the Civil War.
The most famous issue »>f The
Whig was that published June 28.
1834, when Mr. Holton put the paper
in mourning, with heavily ruled col¬
umns on the occasion of the death of
Lafayette.
In 1800, Mr. Holton was acciden¬
tally thrown from hi- horse and in¬
jured so badly i lint lie never recov¬
ered from the full. He «lied two days
after Christmas leaving Mrs. Holton
the newspaper and II ehildren. She
saw the possibilities of making a liv¬
ing for her children by continuing
the publication of The Whig and so
she rolled up her sleeves, went down
to the office on the corner of Trade
and College street* ami edited the
paper for two years, thus becoming
the first woman newspaper editor in
the South.
A Woman of Wealth
After the war, Mrs. Holton gave
up her newspaper work and settled
down in an old three-story iinto-hcllum
frame mansion, situated* just east of
the railroad crossing on Knit Trade-
Street. By this time she had accumu¬
lated quite a bit of real estate in the
business section of town and from
this property she had a large income.
Mrs. Holton lived to he 92 year*
old and no citizen of Charlotte kept
in closer touch with tile activities
of the city than she did, even at such
an advanced age. Those who knew her
during the last few years of her life
have often remarked about her inter¬
est in current affairs. It i- said that
no one was prouder of the great for¬
ward strides Hindu by Charlotte than
Mrs. Holton. She often spoke of it
as she first knew it, comparing the
little scattered village that existed 80
year- before hor death t<» the beautiful
city of 1905, the year she died.
In spite of her wealth, one of her
choicest possessions was the hound files
of The North Carolina Whig. Six or
seven years ago they were sold to a
North Carolina library by Edwin J.
Holton. Jr., of Now York, n grandson
of Mrs. Holton.
Successful Children
Mr. E. J. Holton, *on of Mrs.
Holton, also made a name for him¬
self in the field of journalism, setting
type for over half n «-entury for the
papers of Charlotte when it was -till
a village, and later for the papers of
the Queen City.
Another son has gained recognition,
Charles 8. Holton, who was wounded
in the Battle of Seven I'iiics, during
the Civil War, and was Inter cap¬
tured and interned at Elinira. New
York, until Lee’s surrender.
His son i- popular hr. Thomas J.
Holton of Charlotte, who i- «loing out¬
standing work in the field of medi¬
cine. He. to.», rendered military serv¬
ice to the government, serving as com¬
mander of the ho-pital unit of the
Two Hundred and Thirty-fourth
Field Hospital and Twenty-sixth
Machine Gun M.-dical Detachment, nt
Camp Sheridan.
Still another outstanding ineinlx'i
of the Holton family i- <>. R. Strain-,
chief accountant of The Charlotte
Observer. Like so many of the other
member* of the Holton family who
had printer's ink in their veins, he has
to be in a newspaper office. Mr. Strntie
is a great grandson of the original
Thomas J. Holton.
With such a di-tingiii«lied record
as a mother ami a newspaper woman.
Mrs. Holton is looked upon with re¬
spect and amazement by the feminine
generation of loaluv. Her family na«
successful, only their records being
necessary to prove this fact; her busi¬
ness was successful, she died a wealthy
woman; her way «if life was excellent,
she lived to bo 92 years old.
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