William Alexander Linn, Horace Greeley Founder and Editor of The New York Tribune

[22] Sunday, told him of an office at No. 85 Chatham Street, where a compositor was wanted, and there Greeley betook himself on Monday morning so early that the place was closed when he arrived. So uncouth was the lad's appearance that here again he would probably have been rejected had any one been at hand to undertake the work that was to be done. This was the putting in type of a small New Testament, with narrow columns, the text interspersed with references to notes marked by Greek and other letters. So complicated was this task, and so little could a man earn at it, paid by the ems set, that several compositors had abandoned it after a brief trial. This job the foreman offered to the country lad, confident that a half day would prove his incompetence to perform it. When the proprietor came in and saw Greeley at work, he inquired, “Did you hire that d-d fool?” adding, “For God's sake, pay him off to-night.” But the foreman did not pay him off. The one thing this New Englander, who had cleared land standing knee-deep in slush in the spring, and barefooted on thistles in summer, was not afraid of was hard work; the one thing he must have was an income sufficient to keep him alive. He set that Testament. When the foreman examined