James McCubbin Lingan (1751-1812)
MSA SC 3520-13803
Biography:
James McCubbin Lingan was a veteran of the Revolutionary War and is reported to be the first American journalist to die because of his profession. He worked for the Federal Republican, a Federalist newspaper published in Baltimore. Two days after Congress declared war against Great Britain in June 1812, the newspaper published an editorial opposing the war and urging Americans not to fight. Although it is not clear whether Lingan wrote the article, he did support its views. When Baltimoreans read the article, they attacked the newspaper's offices on Gay Street with axes and picks. The mob destroyed the printing presses along with the entire building. Lingan and his co-workers including Alexander Contee Hanson, the newspaper's founder and editor, barricaded themselves in the brick house of a former co-worker on South Charles Street. On the night of July 27, an angry mob surrounded the house, forced the men out and took them to the Baltimore City jail. Then next day, the mob returned to the jail chanting anti-British war songs and threatening violence against the newspaper men. They ransacked the jail, beating the Federalists with clubs, stabbing them with knives and pouring hot candle wax in their eyes. Although the mob was probably primarily targeting Hanson, they killed Lingan and permanently crippled another Federalist. Lingan's body was at first buried secretly in Baltimore, then moved a year later by his family to his farm in Georgetown and in 1908, was finally moved to Arlington National Cemetery where it remains today. Hanson moved the newspaper's offices to Georgetown in Washington, D.C., where he was able to continue publishing unhindered. Lingan's name is listed first on a the "Journalist's Memorial" dedicated in Rosslyn, Virginia in May 1996.
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