Henry A. Peabody manager of the Santa Ana Blade, was born in Detroit, Michigan, Starch 19, 1837; in 1847 he was a newsboy in Cincinnati, Ohio; in March, 1857, as a journeyman printer. He started from Columbia, Missouri, for California, crossing the plains, and arriving at Colusa, California, September 1, 1857, barefooted and without a coat to his back. There he hired himself out to drive an ox team, three yoke, to Petaluma, California, earning his first money in the State. About September 20 he took work in the Democrat office at Santa Rosa, California, and from that time followed his trade at Santa Rosa and in San Francisco till June, 1859, when he returned East with the intention of completing his education and studying law. The war of 1861 broke into his pre-conceived plan, and he entered the Confederate service, filling the positions of private, ordnance sergeant, drill-master, sergeant major, lieutenant and adjutant, and captain, passing through the war, receiving but two wounds in the four years.
At the close of the war he returned to California penniless, and since then has steadily followed the business of printing, daring that time being foreman of the Sonora Democrat, Vallejo Daily Independent, Tulare Times, and the State printing office, and associate proprietor of the Sonoma Democrat, proprietor of the Mendocino Democrat, and now, in 1890, he is a member of the Blade Publishing Company and manager of the Morning and Weekly Blade, published at Santa Ana, Orange County, California.
He has a wife, two daughters and two sons, and hopes to live twenty or thirty years longer in the service of his country.