Samuel Hay Kauffmann

KAUFFMANN, SAMUEL HAY, journalist, traveler, president of the Washington Evening Star Company, was born in Wayne county, Ohio, April 30, 1829, son of Rudolph and Jane (Hay) Kauffmann. His youth was spent on a farm, and he received his early education in the common schools of his native county, after which he learned the printing trade. This he temporarily abandoned taking up telegraphy in its stead. He was employed as a telegraph operator for a period of about three years. He then returned to his original trade, and subsequently became an editor and publisher in Zanesville, Ohio, and was identified with Ohio newspaper interests until 1861. In that year he was appointed to a position in the office of the United States treasury, then under the secretaryship of Salmon P. Chase; and he retained this position until 1867, when he purchased an interest in the Washington “Evening Star,” with which he has been prominently connected since that date. Upon the incorporation of the Evening Star Company, in 1868, he was elected its president; and for nearly forty years he has retained that position.

In connection with his journalistic work, Mr. Kauffmann has been an extensive traveler; and he is a student and patron of art, especially of sculpture. He has written much as editor and in descriptive articles, upon travel and art. He is recognized as an authority on the equestrian statuary of the world, and has prepared material for an illustrated volume on this form of sculptural art. His travels have embraced all the countries of Europe, much of Asia, China and Japan; and he has visited Africa and the Hawaiian Islands. He was one of the first to suggest and advocate the establishment at Washington of the National Museum which contains some of the most interesting and important collections illustrative of anthropology. He was made a trustee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia, in 1881, and was president of that institution in 1894. He was one of the founders of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, and has been three times its president. He is a member of the Philosophical Society; the Anthropological Society; Columbia Historical Society; the Literary Society of Washington; the National Geographic Society; the Cosmos club, and the Chevy Chase club — all of Washington; and of the American Geographical Society; Shakespeare Society; National Arts club; National Sculpture Society; and the Grolier club — all of New York. He is fond of angling, and is a member of several clubs which encourage this sport.

On October 12, 1852, Mr. Kauffmann married Sarah Clark, daughter of John Tileston Fracker, of Zanesville, Ohio. He died at his home in Washington, District of Columbia, on March 15, 1906.