“She was a Holy Terror: Her Pen was as Venomous as a Rattlesnake’s Fangs; Former Washington Editress: How Ann Royall Made Life a Burden to the Public Men of Her Day.”- Washington Post headline from 1891
The newspaper called Paul Pry aggravated many readers, as it was dedicated to exposing political corruption and religious fraud. This was pre internet, so when postmasters refused to deliver the paper to its subscribers, the readers couldn’t read it. Undaunted, the editor and owner changed the paper’s name to The Huntress, and attacked nepotism and graft in the government, as well as political corruption and religious fraud. She also published the names of all the people standing in the way of her paper and her readers. She also made sure every article about financial waste ended with how that money could have been put to good use supporting the members of our society who needed it.
Before running the papers, Anne Newport Royall had traveled extensively in the young United States, as a solo woman. Her travel books also got her into hot water, because she named each inn that overcharged and took advantage of travelers. But it was the time between her travel books and the founding of her paper that got her into the most trouble. She took aim at a popular Reverend, exposing his religious fervor as a cover for his political ambition.
She wrote: “Their object and their interest is to plunge mankind into ignorance, to make him a bigot, a fanatic, a hypocrite, a heathen, to hate every sect but his own, to shut his eyes against the truth, harden his heart against the distress of his fellowman and purchase heaven with money.”
People hated her for this so much, they threw rocks at her windows, pushed her down the stairs, whipped her with horsewhips and of course, bought her books and burned them. She was 60 years old at this time. But when people prayed under her windows and tried to convert her, she told them off.
And that’s what led to Anne becoming the first person in America to be found guilty of being ‘a common scold’ at her trial in 1829. Punishment for this was supposed to be a dunking in water, and the chair was actually built just for her, but instead she was fined $10 and allowed to go on her way. Shortly after she started Paul Pry, with the aid of orphans of the city to set the donated type and deliver the papers. It was one of her young workers who named the publication.
Over the course of the 23 years she ran her papers, she wrote about land fraud targeting Native Americans, slammed abolitionists for their infighting, criticized the temperance movement, and argued against the interference of the government interfering in peoples lives. She was also a widow of a Revolutionary War veteran, at a time when each widow had to travel to DC to petition for their husband’s pension. She argued over decades that women should not have to be individually granted pensions, and in 1848, a new pension law was passed that reflected this. Her inlaws fought her in court, and gained her husband’s pension for themselves. They had previously won a case denying her anything from her husband’s property when he died 15 years after they were married, in 1812. After a seven year court battle, the courts annulled the will.
At her death in 1854 when she was 85 years old, her papers closed. But her writings shaped our country and kept people in all states informed. And though you may not have heard of her, you know one word she coined for her travel books: redneck.
