Alexander McClure (9 January 1828 – 6 June 1909) was a Republican member of the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives from 1858 to 1859 and from 1865 to 1866 and of the State Senate from 1861 to 1862 and from 1873 to 1874.
Biography[]
Alexander McClure was born in Sherman's Valley, Perry County, Pennsylvania in 1828, and he apprenticed as a tanner in Philadelphia at the age of 14. He became a printer at the Perry County Freeman and the Juniata Sentinel in Mifflintown, and he became known for his Whig political views. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore appointed McClure Deputy US Marshal for Juniata County, and he moved to Chambersburg in 1852 and purchased the Franklin Repository newspaper. In 1856, he was admitted to the Franklin County bar, and he became an outspoken abolitionist and a supporter of the Republican Party. He served in the State House from 1858 to 1859, and, in 1860, he opposed fellow Pennsylvanian Simon Cameron's bid for the Republican presidential nomination and helped Abraham Lincoln win the nomination, leading to McClure being appointed to lead the Pennsylvania Republican Party. He wennt on to serve in the State Senate from 1861 to 1862, in the State House from 1865 to 1866, and again in the State Senate from 1873 to 1874. His home in Chambersburg was devastated by Confederate raids during the American Civil War, and he travelled West for a few years before supporting Ulysses S. Grant's presidential bid in 1868. However, by 1872, he switched to the Liberal Republican Party in opposition to Grant. In 1874, he narrowly lost for Mayor of Philadelphia, and he founded Philadelphia Times in 1875 and continued as its editor until 1901, when he sold it. He died in Wallingford in 1909.