Anton Caspar Hesing (1823–1895), known as "Boss Hesing", was a German-American newspaper publisher and political boss who became a prominent figure in Chicago during the second half of the 19th Century. The long-time publisher of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung and political boss of the pro-liquor wing of the Republican Party, Hesing is remembered as one of the most influential figures of the 1870s in the emerging metropolis of Chicago, responsible, alongside his compatriot Hermann Raster, for the adoption of a national anti-temperance platform for the Republican Party in 1872, the creation of the People's Party in 1873, and the subsequent election of Harvey Doolittle Colvin as Mayor of Chicago. During his final years, the wealthy Hesing engaged in a number of philanthropic ventures, including a large role in financing of Chicago's Schiller Theater.
Biography
Early years
Anton Caspar Hesing was born January 6, 1823, in Vechta in the German Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, today part of Lower Saxony in Germany. His father was a brewer and distiller. His mother died when Anton was 6 and his father made him an orphan at age 15. Although he initially apprenticed as a baker and brewer, he came to feel the relationship oppressive and his master unjust and resolved to make a new life for himself across the sea in America.
Upon arrival in the United States in 1839, Hesing settled in the German enclave that was Cincinnati, Ohio, where he first worked as a grocery clerk. Hesing saved his money frugally and within two years had accumulated enough money to launch a grocery store of his own — a business which he maintained until 1848.
A visit to Germany in 1847 ended with marriage to Louisa Lamping, with the couple returning together to make a home in the USA. Together they had a son, Washington Hesing, born in 1849.
The year following his return, Hesing sold his grocery business and invested the proceeds in a hotel located on Race and Court Streets in Cincinnati. This enterprise came to an end with the death of his business partner by suicide in 1854, however, causing Hesing to sell his interest in the hotel and to move with his family to Chicago.
In Chicago Hesing purchased brick manufacturing equipment and opened a brickyard a few miles away from the center of the city. The patented equipment he purchased proved to be inferior, however, and the venture proved to be a financial failure. Undeterred by his initial lack of success, Hesing made another entry into the brick manufacturing business in partnership with a man named Charles S. Dole, opening a more conventional brickyard at Highland Park, located just north of Chicago. This venture proved to be profitable although it ultimately fell victim to the economic collapse associated with the Panic of 1857.
After a brief and unsuccessful venture as proprietor of a resale shop, Hesing took a position as a clerk in the Chicago Board of Public Works. He was later appointed a deputy sheriff in 1858 and two years ran for public office for the first time, winning election as sheriff of Cook County as a Republican, running on the same ticket as Abraham Lincoln. Hesing thereby became the first German immigrant to hold elective office in the state of Illinois. Hesing would remain as sheriff for a single two-year term of office.
An staunch supporter of the Federal government in the American Civil War, Hesing helped to recruit soldiers during the conflict, playing a part in the organization of the immigrant-dominated 24th and 82nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiments as well as Shambeck's Dragoons.
Publishing career
In 1862, as his term of office as Cook County sheriff was nearing an end, Hesing purchased an ownership stake in the leading German-language newspaper of the region, the Illinois Staats-Zeitung (Illinois State News), a paper which dated to 1848 and which had been in daily operation since 1851. His new ownership stake did not initially mean a quick path to fame and fortune, however, as during the wartime years of 1863 and 1864 Hesing earned an income of just over $4,900 and slightly less than $2,800, respectively.
Despite his modest income from the paper, by 1867 Hesing was able to muster $80,000 to buy out his remaining partner, Lorenz Brentano, and to thereby attain complete control of the Staats-Zeitung. He would subsequently hire New York resident and Forty-Eighter Hermann Raster as editor-in-chief and build it one of the most successful German newspapers in North America, alongside other papers from St. Louis, Milwaukee, and New York City.