I am researching the Edward Hopkins Cushing family and could use some suggestions as to new sources of information.

Mr. E. H. Cushing was the owner and editor of The Houston Telegraph from 1855 to the time he sold the paper in 1866.

His son Edward Benjamin Cushing was an early student at Texas A&M and worked for one or another of the railroads of the Southern Pacific from about 1879 to the time he was put on Pershing's staff with the AEF.

EH graduated from Dartmouth in 1850 and went to Texas. He taught school in Galveston, Brazoria and Columbia before taking over the Columbia Democrat and Planter in 1852. He was joined by his Dartmouth classmate, William Fellow Swain, who stayed with the Columbia DP and later became a (US?) Marshall in Texas. Both EH and WF were Masons, Swain becoming a Grand Master? in(of)? the state.

EH was an attribute to the confederacy by using his telegraph contacts and newspaper reporters in the field to relay information on Union troops and movement to the Confederate forces. He also maintained a pony express service between Houston and the field. One of the rarest Confederate postage stamps is the forward stamp he placed on the back of letters sent to him by families of troops in the field to forward their letters on to their boys.

Several posts on this site reffer to articles in The Houston Telegraph. I have yet to locate a site which has the paper avaliable in a digital format. Perhaps that would be a start.

Thanks

JRC