William Henderson Maltby
Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born in Worthington, Ohio, on March 14, 1837, William Henderson Maltby served as a journalist and newspaper publisher for three Corpus Christi newspapers. While living in Cleveland, Maltby worked as a typesetter for the Cleveland Herald in 1859. That same year, his older brother, Henry, began publishing the Ranchero in Corpus Christi. Soon after, William left Cleveland to assist his brother with this newspaper. The brothers lived in a boarding house where William met his wife, Mary Grace Swift. They married on July 15, 1860. When the Civil War began, Maltby earned the rank of lieutenant of an artillery battery and later became its captain. This unit became Company I of the Eighth Texas Infantry Regiment and defended Aransas Pass. Union forces captured Maltby’s entire battery on November 17, 1863. Now a prisoner of war, Maltby found himself in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where his other brother, jasper, served as a union brigadier general. After being exchanged and released, Maltby returned to Corpus Christi and reunited with Mary Grace and their child born during his absence. Soon after, Maltby became publisher of the Corpus Christi Advertiser. A disastrous yellow fever epidemic swept the community in 1867, claiming the lives of at least 150 residents including Mary Grace. Maltby remarried Anna Marie Headen in 1870 and the couple had three children in addition to the two from Maltby’s previous marriage with Mary Grace. In 1877, Maltby and Eli T. Merriman established the Corpus Christi Free Press, which became the forerunner of the Corpus Christi Caller. Maltby continued to work in the newspaper business until his death on August 20, 1880. (2017)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Ohio-born William Henderson Maltby came to Corpus Christi in 1859 to help his brother publish the Ranchero, beginning a lifelong career in the frontier press. He served the Confederacy as an artillery officer until his battery was captured in 1863, survived the 1867 yellow fever epidemic that killed his first wife, and in 1877 co-founded the Corpus Christi Free Press, forerunner of the Corpus Christi Caller.
Why it matters
His life chronicles the local newspapers that shaped public life in South Texas through war, epidemic, and recovery.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Henderson Maltby
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
William DeRyee
Corpus Christi, TX
Born William Düry in Würzburg, Bavaria, this chemist, geologist and photographer fled to America after the failed 1848 uprising against King Ludwig I, remaking himself as William DeRyee. He built cottonseed mills, investigated copper mines, and pioneered photographic techniques among Texas's German immigrant community before serving the Confederacy as a state chemist developing nitrates and explosives. After the Civil War he opened a Corpus Christi drugstore and, during the 1867 yellow fever epidemic that killed his own son, developed remedies and an effective antiseptic.
The Ranchero
Corpus Christi, TX
In 1859 circus-promoter-turned-civic-leader Henry Alonzo Maltby launched a four-page weekly newspaper in Corpus Christi that mixed editorials, poetry, recipes, and a register of local cattle brands. When war came, the Maltby brothers threw the paper behind the Confederacy; William was captured defending Mustang Island while Henry fled with his press to Mexico and then Brownsville, where a Union colonel briefly suppressed it. After the war the Ranchero kept up its defiant opposition to federal military rule until Maltby sold it in 1870, the year Reconstruction-era occupation of Texas ended.
Matthew Nolan
Corpus Christi, TX
Orphaned and brought to Corpus Christi as a boy in 1845, Matthew Nolan served as a bugler through the Mexican-American War, rode with the Texas Rangers under 'Rip' Ford, and became Nueces County sheriff in 1858. He fought for the Confederacy along the Texas coast, returned to the sheriff's office as a major, and was murdered in 1864; he lies in Old Bayview Cemetery beside the brother who died as his deputy.
Louis de Planque
Corpus Christi, TX
Prussian-born Louis de Planque came to the Rio Grande borderlands during the Civil War, when Confederate cotton pouring through Brownsville and Matamoros made boomtowns of both. He photographed Union and Confederate troops alike and weathered devastating hurricanes in 1867 and 1875 that twice destroyed his studios. Rebuilding each time, the flamboyant "Don Luis" spent his final decades as Corpus Christi's celebrated portrait photographer, training his wife Eugenie to carry on the business.