the editor talks with you

My wife and I have a lot of sympathy for Godfrey M. “Josh” Harman. As a teenager, he tried to join the Confederate States Army. They sent him home. He waited 2 years and, still a teenager, tried again. That time it worked. Unlike thousands of other combatants in blue or gray, he came home in one piece after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. By 1870, he owned a general store where O’Hara’s Public House is now and lived next door where Billy Walker’s law office is. The county jail is where the old courthouse stands at Lake and Main.

Lexington bore little resemblance to the thriving mini-metropolis it has become today. Main Street wasn’t US 1 yet, nor was it paved. Power poles lined the middle of the road, and you could have taken a nap there for all the traffic that came through. The war had ended the short life of the town’s Lexington Flag, and people missed the little newspaper. Community leaders began a campaign to convince Josh to start another newspaper in what was a village. Josh was too smart for that. He was happy running a growing business. With the economic and political problems of Reconstruction, a newspaper looked risky. Something similar happened to us after we left the Dispatch-News in 1991. The community began urge us to start another newspaper. Like Josh, we resisted. Lexington couldn’t support 2 newspapers. The town leaders kept after Josh in 1870 as they did us in 1992. He finally relented and, despite the Recession, we did, too.

Josh was an adventurer at heart. His daring decision to join a lost cause in 1862 was an indication he was the right choice to start a risky business such as a newspaper. Josh also was a risk taker in love. One of Blondell Harman’s favorite stories about him was his secret courtship of Judge Lemuel Boozer’s daughter Pauline. The judge had been a staunch anti-seccessionist and advocate of preserving the union. He invited General Sherman’s officers to use his home during their brief occupation of Lexington. As a result, the Boozer home was one of the few the Union Army did not put to the torch. The judge knew Josh Harman had served in the CSA and fought for the cause against which he was adamantly opposed. Although young, single and owner of a business, Josh was not high on the judge’s list of eligible bachelors. But he and Pauline weren’t going to let that stand in their way.

With the help of a family servant, Pauline slipped out of the house after everyone had gone to bed, walked east with Josh on Main Street to a minister’s home, and there they were secretly married. Blondell didn’t tell me what happened when the judge found out, but we hope Josh and Pauline lived happily ever after. PS. According to the Library of Congress, Josh published the 1st issue of the Lexington Dispatch Sept. 17, 1870. We will celebrate the 150th anniversary of this newspaper in the coming year.

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