The Biographical Dictionary of America/Bailey, James Montgomery

BAILEY, James Montgomery, humorist, was born in Albany, N. Y., Sept. 25, 1841. His boyhood was passed in Albany and New York city, and he received a limited education in public schools. He learned the trade of a carpenter, and followed it until the breaking out of the civil war, when he enlisted in the 17th Connecticut volunteers, and served as private until the close of the war. His letters from the army printed in the Danbury (Conn.) Times gained him a local reputation, and in company with a printer, whose acquaintance he had made in a military prison at Richmond, he went to Danbury, and in 1855 purchased the Times, which was consolidated with the Jeffersonian in 1870, under the name of the Danbury News. Mr. Bailey's bright local paragraphs began to be widely copied, the Danbury News gained a reputation as a humorous paper in a few months, and its editor suddenly sprang into popularity. In 1874 he visited Europe, and on his return to America, he went upon the lecture platform, but soon retired, and subsequently devoted himself entirely to his newspaper. His books comprise: "The Danbury Newsman," being a brief but comprehensive record of the doings of a remarkable people (1872); "Life in Danbury" (1873); "The Danbury News Man's Almanac and other Tales" (1884); "They All Do It; or, Mr. Miggs of Danbury and his Neighbors" (1876); "England from a Back Window: with Views of Scotland and Ireland" (1878); "Mr. Phillips' Goneness" (1879); "The Danbury Boom: with a Full Account of Mrs. Cobleigh's Action Therein" (1880), and in 1896 a "History of Danbury, Conn., 1684—1896" was published from notes and MS, left by him and compiled with additions by Susan Benedict Hill. He died March 4, 1894.