A PIONEER EDITRESS.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4614, 18 October 1883, Page 2

A PIONEER EDITRESS.

In a tiny, rtry little cottage in Yazoo City lives the first r^ :\ newspaper woman in Americ:;. Wisteria vine) climb over the window's red lorr doorways, and magnolia tree"! c .st grac .-fal shadows over the wide worn 'porches. Here in this quiet house livc3 Urs Harriett. Piewett, the oldest newspaper woman in America. In 1848 Mrs rrewett wes left a w:iow, tbe Hurt important of ter porce^sions being tarae litt'e children and a w.-?kly newspaper, tbe Ylzoo City Whig, atter«-> wards The Banner. For more thrn 14 yci.s Mrsi Prewe-t was editor, proprietor, news editor, agent, book-keeper, and irafling cle.k for her plucky little p^per. Che also kept house, taw that things were tidy at home, aad did the sewing and p tehing and mendinjj and kniulirg forher three children. Her Li'tovials were strong and fearless, and exercised strong inflaency in Mississippi j clitics. Mrs Prewett held out a 1? long as sbe could against the extreme measure of secession; but when she did haul down her union flag che bee .me one o" the boldest, bravest defenders of the southern ciuse. At one time Mrs Prewett had an .diiorial Jit with Mrs Swisshe'm, who w?.s then ronning a paper in Massachusetts, regarding the respective merits of their babies. Mrs Prewett's wr.s the firsj paper In the country to announce the naice of Millard Fillmore for the presidency. This brave, hard-working woman used to fc..ke her sewing to the office with her, rad when interrupted by the pro* verbial fiends that haunted newspaper offices, even before the war, she would lay aside h^r pen and sew or knit while talking, so as not to lose any time. Finally, this grand women's strength gave way, and she became a helpless invalid. For twenty years she has been tied hand and foot to an invalid's chair, whence, with an eye as keen, and a mind as bright as it was when editress of a dashing, influential p per, she looks out on the world in which she has already accomplished her life's work. In her own room, walls and ceiling are deftly cohered with the pictures cut from the illustrated papers—ten years in the history of the pictorial publication of this country ara traced upon its walls. Mrs Prewett is a bright, cuN tivated woman. In her day she was one of the most beautiful women in the south, and was sought for her womanly graces, as well as for her brilliant intellect. To-, day she is a graceful writer, and occasionally daiuty poems, like white winged birds, flutter out into the newspaper world from her little home in the peaceful Yaaoo Valley.