Patrick Donahoe (17 March 1811 – 18 March 1901) was an Irish-American newspaper publisher and businessman who founded the influential Catholic newspaper The Pilot in 1836 and promoted the Union cause during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Patrick Donahoe was born in Ireland in 1811, and his family emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1821. Donahoe dropped out of school at age fourteen due to incessant bullying because of his Catholic faith, and he became a printer and compositor. He became editor of The Jesuit in 1832, and, in 1836, he established The Pilot, a weekly paper devoted to Irish-American and Catholic interests. Donahoe helped to finance the formation of the 9th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment at the start of the American Civil War in 1861 and was a staunch defender of the Union, and he became the president of a savings bank in 1870. He died in 1901 at the age of 90.