Dennie, Joseph

Dennie, Joseph, 1768–1812, American Federalist journalist, b. Boston. As editor, he made the Farmer's Weekly Museum at Walpole, N.H., an influential paper, particularly because of the "Lay Preacher" essays he wrote and printed in it. In Philadelphia he founded the Port Folio, which became a leading literary weekly, and edited it under the pseudonym Oliver Oldschool, Esq., from 1801 to 1812. In the Port Folio Dennie attacked Jefferson so violently that he was tried for seditious libel in 1805 but was acquitted. Dennie's "Lay Preacher" essays were published in two collections (1796–1817); both editions were published in one volume by H. M. Ellis in 1943.

Bibliography

See his letters (ed. by L. G. Pedder, 1936); study by H. M. Ellis (1915, repr. 1971).

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Dennie, Joseph (1768–1812) journalist; born in Boston, Mass. Known initially for his "Lay Preacher" essays on manners and morals, he edited the Farmer's Weekly Museum (1796–99) and, under the traditionalist name Oliver Oldschool, The Port Folio (1801–12), a successful pro-Federalist literary and political journal. In 1805 he was acquitted on sedition charges for allegedly anti-democratic writings.