Short Biography of William H. McClung

JAMES H. McCLUNG, of the firm of Wildman & McClung, publishers and proprietors of the Muncie Times, was born in New Albany, Indiana, February 7, 1834. His father, also named James H. McClung, Sr., was a native of Rockbridge county, Va., born September 23, 1807; his mother, who bore the maiden name of Mary Collins, was born in 1810, in Madison county, Ky., whither her parents had emigrated from Virginia. The father died at Fredericksburg, Indiana; the mother, who, after her husband's death, had been married to W. H. Green, a prominent newspaper man of the state, died at Brookville, Indiana, June 5, 1887. James H., Jr., led the uneventful life of a boy about a printing office, with intervals of attendance at school in winter, until sixteen years of age, when he was placed on the footing of a journeyman printer and was paid journeyman's wages, at that time eight dollars per week. With the exception of an additional attendance at school in 1852, he worked as a journeyman until twenty-two years of age, and then purchased a half interest in the office of the Connersville Times, and in connection with Mr. Green, his stepfather, conducted the paper until December, 1856, when he purchased the office of the Liberty Herald, then called the Union County Herald, which he owned and conducted for almost eleven years. In August, 1856, Mr. McClung was married to Miss Clarissa Goodlander at Connersville. To their happy union were born three children, two sons and a daughter, all married and with families of their own. Mr. McClung enlisted in the early part of the war in company G, Thirty-sixth Indiana volunteers. He acted as orderly sergeant of his company at Camp Wayne, but before leaving camp was commissioned as second lieutenant. He served in various capacities in the field, being for a time A. A. A. G. on the staff of Gen. Jacob Ammen; adjutant of his regiment, and captain of his original company — G. His company was with the first of Buell's troops to reach the battle field of Shiloh, and besides many skirmishes and small engagements was present at Stone River, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga. On the 26th of January, 1864, Mr. McClung resigned his commission in the army, and returned to Liberty and assumed charge of his paper. He has, since selling the Liberty Herald office in 1867, been connected, as part owner, with the Connersville Times, Wabash Plain Dealer and the Muncie Daily and Weekly Times, purchasing in connection with his son, Charles, a half interest in the latter October 24, 1887.

William H. McClung, the eldest son of James H. McClung, was born in Liberty, Indiana, in September, 1857, and was married at the same place to Miss Georgia Pierce, who is now the mother of four children. William H. is now the foreman of the composition room of the Muncie Times. Charles T. McClung was born in Liberty, Indiana, September 28, 1864; was educated in the common schools in his native town, and spent his boyhood days in the office of his father. He was married in Muncie, Indiana, March 1890, to Miss Minnie Smith, born in Liberty, Indiana, in June, 1864, daughter of E. P. Smith, a prominent manufacturer of the city. May McClung, the only daughter of James H. and Clarissa McClung, is the wife of F. H. Barton, a bookkeeper of Champaign, Ill., and is the mother of six children.

Source: "History of Delaware County, Indiana" ⁶⁵⁷