Search just our sites by using our customised search engine

Unique Cottages | Electric Scotland's Classified Directory

Click here to get a Printer Friendly PageSmiley

Scots and Scots Descendant in America
Part V - Biographies
Hon. Andrew McLean


ANDREW MCLEAN, Editor of the Brooklyn (N. Y.) Citizen, was born August 7, 1848, in Renton, Dumbartonshire, Scotland, on the banks of the River Leven. He came to the United States in the latter part of 1863, having worked his passage on the bark Agra, and at once enlisted in the United States Navy, where he served as a boy aboard the light-draft monitor Chimo of the Potomac flotilla until the close of the Civil War. He was honourably discharged from the service and returned to Brooklyn, where his uncle, Andrew, was engaged in the drygoods business, and after attending a commercial college at the age of twenty began the work as a journalist to which his life has been devoted.

Mr. McLean’s career is in many ways a remarkable one. At the age of twenty-four he was City Editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, later becoming Editor-in-Chief of this widely influential newspaper. He remained with The Eagle until 1886, when he was largely instrumental in founding the Brooklyn Daily Citizen, of which he became and is still the Chief Editor. He is a man of high character and forceful personality, and personally and through his writings has been a recognized influence in the community. He is as active and vigorous as ever in his profession and seems destined to many years of further usefulness. While not an active politician, his calling has often brought him into contact with politics, into which he has brought the same energy and enthusiasm and holds the same high reputation of integrity. He has represented the Democratic party in many conventions and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York in 1915. He was Chairman of the Democratic Campaign Committee of Kings County in the presidential campaign of 1912, when Woodrow Wilson received in Brooklyn the largest majority ever given to a candidate.

Aside from his duties as a journalist, Mr. McLean is in great demand as a lecturer and after-dinner speaker and is often called upon to address public gatherings, where his genial manner, ready wit, and wide knowledge of current affairs always assure him a popular reception. He has spoken before many Scottish audiences throughout the country. He is also widely known through his essays, poems and dramatic compositions.

It has been Mr. McLean ‘s custom for many years to visit his native land once a year, and in everything that relates to his fellow-countrymen in America he is warmly interested. He is a member of the St. Andrew ‘s Society of the State of New York and the New York Burns Society; and is a director of the Caledonian Hospital, New York, and a liberal contributor to its support, as to many other worthy causes. He is a Free Mason.

Mr. McLean married, 1876, Miss Ida L. Thomson, daughter of John Thomson, now deceased, of Kilmarnock, Scotland. Of their three children, two survive: Mary, who is now Mrs. Arthur M. Connett, and David J., at the head of the advertising department of the Citizen. He is extremely happy in his home life, his wife and he having succeeded in proving to their own satisfaction at least that marriage is certainly not a failure.

Mr. McLean’s business address is 397 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.


Return to Book Index Page


 


This comment system requires you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator has approved your comment.

comments powered by Disqus

Quantcast