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Only months before his death in November 1938, Charles Livingston proudly posed for this portrait on the Kankakee County Courthouse lawn. The cannon behind him was one of a pair of Civil War guns that were displayed for many years before being melted down for scrap during World War II.
Publisher Charles Livingston and his newspaper staff were photographed in the composing room of the Kankakee Daily Times, probably about 1900. Livingston (fourth from left, wearing a hat) was responsible for changing the Times from a weekly publication to Kankakee’s first daily newspaper in 1885.
Livingston and his Kankakee Times were featured in the 1883 Illustrated Historical Atlas of Kankakee County. He spent nearly one-half century in the newspaper business.
This photograph of Sylvanus Cass “Urchin” Munhall appeared with his obituary in the Kankakee Republican-News on Jan. 11, 1943. He was Iroquois County’s last Civil War veteran.
Only months before his death in November 1938, Charles Livingston proudly posed for this portrait on the Kankakee County Courthouse lawn. The cannon behind him was one of a pair of Civil War guns that were displayed for many years before being melted down for scrap during World War II.
Publisher Charles Livingston and his newspaper staff were photographed in the composing room of the Kankakee Daily Times, probably about 1900. Livingston (fourth from left, wearing a hat) was responsible for changing the Times from a weekly publication to Kankakee’s first daily newspaper in 1885.
Livingston and his Kankakee Times were featured in the 1883 Illustrated Historical Atlas of Kankakee County. He spent nearly one-half century in the newspaper business.
This photograph of Sylvanus Cass “Urchin” Munhall appeared with his obituary in the Kankakee Republican-News on Jan. 11, 1943. He was Iroquois County’s last Civil War veteran.
Charles P. Livingston and Sylvanus Cass Munhall were the last of their kind — the final surviving Civil War veterans in, respectively, Kankakee County and Iroquois County.
Although they were in different Union regiments and fought in different theaters of the Civil War, the two old soldiers had an additional bond — both had “printer’s ink in their blood.” Munhall had worked as a printer before the war, and was a battlefield correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Livingston spent nearly a half-century as a newspaperman in Kankakee.
Born in Pennsylvania, Charles Livingston spent his early years in New York state. Following the death of his father in 1852, the family relocated to what is now Kankakee County. As a young man, Livingston became an apprentice in the print shop of Kankakee’s first newspaper, the weekly Gazette. When the Civil War broke out, he traded his printer’s apron for a Union Army uniform, returning to New York to enlist in that state’s 100th Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
“He was in the thick of the Civil War campaign, participating in some 20 pitched battles and skirmishes,” noted the Kankakee Republican-News in his Nov. 22, 1938, obituary. The 100th New York fought at Fair Oaks, Chickahominy, Fort Moultrie and other battles in the southeastern states. “He was severely wounded in the abdomen from a piece of shrapnel after three years of service in the Union ranks,” the newspaper continued, “but recovered to live a long and useful life.”
After his discharge, Livingston returned to the composing room of the Kankakee Gazette until 1868, when he bought a half-interest in the Kankakee Times, a weekly publication established a year earlier by W.F. Keady. In 1885, after nearly two decades of weekly publication, Livingston made a bold move — the Times became the city’s first daily newspaper.
Livingston became the sole owner of the Times in 1887. He later sold one-half ownership in the paper to pioneer newspaperman and local historian Burt E. Burroughs. Several years later, Hiram J. Dunlap purchased Burroughs’ interest in the newspaper. In 1903, Dunlap and Livingston incorporated the business and renamed their newspaper as the Kankakee Daily Republican.
Soon after launching the Daily Republican, Livingston retired from the newspaper business, but not from printing — he renewed his partnership with Burroughs and operated a general printing business (“job shop”) for a number of years.
“Mr. Livingston always maintained a lively interest in the paper he watched grow from a small country weekly to a daily with a circulation blanketing the entire trade territory of northeastern Illinois,” wrote the Republican-News.
The old soldier also remained active in the Civil War veterans’ organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, participating in activities of the local Whipple Post of the GAR and taking part in Memorial Day observances.
On Nov. 21, 1938, at the age of 97, Livingston died at a veterans’ hospital in Dwight, where he had been a patient for several weeks. Kankakee County’s last Civil War veteran was buried with full military honors in Kankakee’s Mound Grove Cemetery.
Iroquois County’s last Civil War veteran, Sylvanus “Urchin” Munhall, was a colorful character. He apparently gained the “Urchin” nickname because of his age and physical appearance. When he enlisted in Company B of the 76th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Munhall was only 18, and was slightly built, weighing less than 100 pounds.
His nickname was also his pen name: during the war, he regularly sent battlefield reports to the Chicago Tribune, signed with the name “Urchin.” When Munhall died in 1943, the Chicago newspaper headlined his obituary, “Tribune Civil War Reporter ‘Urchin’ is Dead.” Datelined “Watseka, Ill, Jan. 10 [Special],” the story began, “Sylvanus Cass Munhall, who in 1864 and 1865 sent penciled dispatches of Civil War battles to the Chicago Tribune, died at his home here today.”
“Urchin” sent his first report on July 7, 1864, detailing a fierce battle near Jackson, Miss., in which the 76th lost 102 men dead, wounded or missing. The dispatch was written on brown paper that had previously been used to wrap medicine bottles.
His final report was filed hours after the war had officially ended with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Va. “I sent in my last story of the war on April 9, 1865,” he recalled in a 1935 interview. “Our fighting was across the bay from Mobile, Ala., where there was a chain of forts connected by rifle pits....We went in with 362 men in our regiment, and in fifteen minutes, we had lost 118 men.”
After the war, Munhall settled in Watseka, where he would spend the rest of his life. He was the city’s Postmaster from 1874 to 1886, and worked as a compositor (he had learned the printing trade at age 12 and worked at two Chicago newspapers while still a teenager) for the Watseka Republican from 1886 to 1897. He served as secretary and organizer of annual reunions of the 76th Illinois from 1886 until the regiment’s last gathering (with only Munhall and two others attending) in 1933.
In the 1935 interview, “Urchin” told the reporter that he had two ambitions: “I want to live to be the last man of my regiment and I want to break all records for long time subscription to The Tribune.” He had begun his newspaper subscription in 1866, when he became a Watseka resident.
When Sylvanus Cass Munhall died in January, 1943, and was buried in Watseka’s GAR Cemetery, he was almost 99 years of age, and had been a Tribune subscriber for 77 years. Whether “Urchin” was able to achieve his two goals hasn’t been verified, but odds are good that he succeeded on both counts.
Jack Klasey is a former Journal reporter and a retired publishing executive. He can be contacted through the Daily Journal at editors@daily-journal.com or directly at jwklasey@comcast.net.
On Memorial Day, 1887, both Charles Livingston and “Urchin” Munhall were almost certainly present for the dedication ceremonies of Kankakee County's most prominent Civil War memorial. What were they dedicating?
Answer: The Soldiers' Monument on the north lawn of the Kankakee County Courthouse. The tall figure of a Civil War soldier stands atop a base with a plaque that reads, “In Memory of the Soldiers of Kankakee County who Fought for the Union, 1861-1865. Love of Country is a Nation’s Strongest Safeguard, 1887.”
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