Edwin A. Myers

Edwin A. Myers
1835 – November 22, 1895

Edwin A. Myers was a newspaper man, a printer and partner in the ownership of the newspaper that is, today, the “Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.”

(Although the National Flood Memorial states correctly that Edwin A. Myers was associated with the firm Myers, Shinkle and Company, that company did not come into being until the year after the Johnstown Flood, that is 1890. It was the successor to Wilcox, Shinkle & Miller, "founders and machinists, grist and saw mill machinery a specialty” which had been in existence since the 1870s (if not before) and was founded by another South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club member, John F. Wilcox.)

Edwin A. Myers was early involved in the printing and telegraph business in Pittsburgh—which the “Post” pioneered. In 1847 their slogan was that their news was “Received by Lightening, Delivered by Steam”.

Here is a brief overview of Mr. Myers’ involvement with the “Post”:

James P Barr became editor of the Pittsburgh Post in May of 1857. At the end of the Civil War, Barr associated himself with Edwin A. Myers, William Schroyer and Joseph S. Lare to form J P Barr & Co. This was in 1866; Edwin A. Myers had been his former partner in the job printing business since 1855. The firm name continued till 1886, when it became “The Post Publishing Co.” Edwin A. Myers died on November 22, 1895, after forty years of faithful service to the paper.

(Source, “The History of Pittsburgh: Its Rise and Progress”, by Sarah H. Killikelly, 1906).

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Edwin A. Myers was born in 1835 and grew up in the city of Allegheny, as a member of a large household of Myerses. His mother’s name was probably Isabella. Edwin’s father (whose name we do not know) was deceased and Edwin was already engaged in the printing trade by the time he was fifteen (1850).

He married Helen M. (?) and they had at least one child, a daughter, Helen E. Myers who married William Hervey Allen—the couple named one of their children Edwin Myers Allen.

The Pittsburgh Blue Book reading seems to indicate that the Myerses were divorced as she is listed in the 1895 Blue Book living with the William Hervey Allen family as Mrs. Helen M. Myers—the socially correct way of listing a divorcee. They lived on Fifth Aveune nr. Shady Avenue. William Hervey Allen was a friend of and pall bearer for Stephen Collins Foster.

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For the record, the charter members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club were:R F Ruff; T H Sweat; Charles J Clarke; Thomas Clark; W F Fundenberg; Howard Hartley; H C Yeager; J B White; H C Frick; E A Myers; C C Hussey; D R Ewer; C A Carpenter; W L Dunn; W L McClintock; A V Holmes.

Edwin A. Myers was a member of the Duquesne Club. Mr. Myers and fellow Club member Sylvester S. Marvin served as directors of the Commercial National Bank located at 97 Fourth Avenue, founded in 1882.

By 1880 he lived as a boarder at a polite residence on Liberty Street in the East End. At the time of his death, Edwin A. Myers lived at 325 South Highland Avenue, also in Pittsburgh’s East End.

Edwin A. Myers was 54 at the time of the Johnstown Flood.