QUITMAN TEXAS FREE PRESS. The Quitman Texas Free Press appeared in Wood County in 1856 after John Brown's raid and contributed to growing fears of slave insurrections in Texas. The paper, edited by Winston Banks and published by Banks and Turner, claimed to be Democratic but soon revealed its intention to foster a discussion of slavery. Free-Soil in its sentiments and against filibustering efforts in Nicaragua, the paper aroused fears that abolitionists prevailed in North Texas. It was subsequently disclosed that John E. Lemon, an abolitionist, had been the owner, or at least a major contributor, to the Texas Free Press and had been expelled from the state. The paper had disappeared by the summer of 1857.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Marilyn M. Sibley, Lone Stars and State Gazettes: Texas Newspapers before the Civil War (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1983).
