Probably one of the best known men in journalistic circles of northern
Illinois is Edward A. Nattinger, of Ottawa, now connected with the
Republican-Times of that flourishing city. He has occupied numerous
important public positions of trust and honor and stands high in political
and fraternal organizations. His ability and direction of affairs entrusted
to him, and his worth and integrity, have won for him the friendship of all
who have been associated with him in any manner.
Born June 20, 1846,
a son of J. G. Nattinger, who for many years was a leading merchant of
Ottawa, the subject of this sketch claims this as his native town. In his
boyhood he obtained a liberal education in the public and private schools of
the place; but the excitement occasioned by the opening years of the great
civil war interrupted his studies, and in the fall of 1862 he ran away and
enlisted as a bugler at Peoria, Illinois. Ere long he was promoted to the
ranks and he served faithfully and gallantly until the close of the great
conflict, being but nineteen years of age when he was granted an honorable
discharge, August 5, 1865. The boy soldier's record is one well worthy of
many who were twice his years in age; and, summed up in the briefest form,
it may be stated thus: Participated in twelve battles of the war; was in
numberless skirmishes; went on the long and exciting chase after John
Morgan, who was at last captured near the Ohio-Pennsylvania line; went on
the several daring cavalry raids in Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and
finally was made a prisoner on the Stoneman raid in Georgia, and suffered
the horrors of the rebel prisons of Andersonville and Macon, Georgia, and
Charleston and Florence, South Carolina.
Resuming the paths of
peace, young Nattinger went to Chicago and pursued a course in Bryant &
Stratton's Business College and for some time was employed as a clerk in the
Ottawa post office and in dry-goods and grocery houses. Then he began to
learn the printer's trade, in the office of the Ottawa Republican, finishing
in the Lyons (Iowa) Mirror office. By degrees he worked up, taking various
positions, including those of reporter and advertising solicitor, and
started three Illinois journals — the Buda Enterprise, the Bradford
Chronicle and the Wyoming Blade — running the whole number for three months
himself. For six years he was the city editor of the Joliet Republican, Sun
and Record; and in June, 1877, in partnership with Mr. Fletcher, he started
the Ottawa Daily Times, the first daily established in this county of the
ten now published. A few months later Mr. Fletcher retired from the
business, and at the end of another year the weekly edition of the paper was
established also. In 1890 the Times and the Republican were consolidated, F.
M. Sapp, the editor of the Times, becoming the senior partner of the new
organization. Needless to say, the Republican-Times is recognized as one of
the representative papers not only of this county but also of the great
state of Illinois, and the high standard which it always has maintained is
steadily winning for itself friends among the most intelligent citizens.
An influential factor in the Republican party of this section, Mr.
Nattinger has been the secretary of the Young Men's Republican Club of
Joliet, and has occupied like positions in the Will county and LaSalle
county central committees of his party, and has been the president of the
Young Men's Republican Club of Ottawa, and chairman of the town committee.
From 1890 to 1894 he was the postmaster of this place, serving under
President Harrison's administration.
Mr. Nattinger is a past
commander of Seth C. Earl Post, No. 156, G. A. R.: is the chief of the staff
of the department of Illinois, and aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief;
is the president of the Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry Regimental Association;
a member of the committees having in charge the Illinois Soldiers' Home, the
Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home and the Illinois Soldiers' Widows' Home. In
the Masonic order he is identified with Occidental Lodge, No. 40, A. F. & A.
M., and Shabbona Chapter, No. 37, R. A. M.; and of Mary E. Chapter, Order of
the Eastern Star; and he is also associated with the Modern Woodmen of
America, the Knights of Honor and the Ottawa Boat Club.
Extracted 13 May 2019 by Norma Hass from Biographical and Genealogical Record of LaSalle County, Illinois, published in 1900, volume 2, pages 594-595.
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