patrons." The Statesman In 1818, Pentland re-established control of the paper with printer Silas Engles and renamed it The Statesman. Pentland had by this time become less radical in his politics. Pentland's father-in-law, Senator Abner Lacock, who had regularly contributed columns to the Commonwealth, used the Statesman as a political weapon and was sometimes suspected of writing for the paper under the alias "Hannibal." The Statesman passed through the hands of John W. Young, and was owned in 1824 by John C. and P. C. M. Andrews. Looking toward that year's presidential election, the latter editors came out for caucus candidate William H. Crawford and against the popular Andrew Jackson. Opposition to Jackson was to be an enduring characteristic of the journal. An 1826 directory spoke of the Statesman as "in a more flourishing condition than it has been for many years, owing to the late improvement of its appearance and the addition to the editorial department." In the same year the paper announced a semiweekly edition with the title Statesman and Pittsburgh Public Advertiser, which is not known to have lasted long. Butler era In July 1827, John B. Butler, formerly of the Ravenna, Ohio Western Courier, bought the Statesman and assumed its management. Butler continued the paper's anti-Jackson stance, and during the presidential campaign of 1828, supposedly put out Coffin Handbills attacking Jackson. Under Butler's direction the Statesman became a proponent of the nascent Whig Party. An active Freemason, Butler feuded editorially with the Times and the Gazette, which in the 1830s were the local Anti-Masonic organs. Consolidation In 1836 the Statesman was sold to and consolidated with another Whig journal, the Advocate. Published daily, the Advocate also issued a weekly edition, which, as the successor of the weekly Statesman, was renamed the Weekly Advocate and Statesman. The Advocate was eventually absorbed by the Gazette, a predecessor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette''. References Defunct newspapers published in Pittsburgh Defunct weekly newspapers Publications established in 1805 Publications disestablished in 1836 1805 establishments in Pennsylvania 1836 disestablishments in Pennsylvania