Edward Thurlow Weed (November 15, 1797 – November 22, 1882) was a printer, New York newspaper publisher, and Whig and Republican politician. He was the principal political advisor to prominent New York politician William H. Seward and was instrumental in the presidential nominations of William Henry Harrison (1840), Zachary Taylor (1848), and John C. Frémont (1856). Born in Cairo, New York, Weed apprenticed as a printer under William Williams and served with him in the War of 1812 before winning election to the New York State Assembly. He met Seward in the assembly, and they formed a close political alliance that lasted for several decades. Weed and Seward became leaders of the New York Anti-Masonic Party, and Weed established the Albany Evening Journal as the party's main newspaper. Weed supported the American System of Henry Clay and helped establish the Whig Party in the 1830s. He helped Seward win election as Governor of New York and supported the successful presidential candidacies of Harrison and Taylor. Weed led New York's Whigs for much of the 1830s and 1840s but abandoned the party following the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He helped organize the Republican Party and supported Frémont's nomination at the 1856 Republican National Convention. He led the effort to nominate Seward at the 1860 Republican National Convention, but the convention nominated Abraham Lincoln. After the Civil War, Weed and Seward allied with President Andrew Johnson and supported Johnson's approach to Reconstruction. Weed retired from public life in 1867 and died in 1882. Early life Weed was born on November 15, 1797, in the hamlet of Acra, part of the town of Cairo in Greene County, New York. His father, Joel Weed (1773-1819) and mother Mary (Ellis) Weed (1771-1841) were Connecticut natives who moved to New York to farm, and Weed was the eldest of five siblings, three brothers and two sisters. Neither of his sisters reached adulthood. His brother Orrin was apprenticed to a New York City shipbuilder, Henry Eckford, and died in 1823 during a yellow fever epidemic. His brother Osborn moved to Tennessee, where he was a successful merchant and hotelier before he died in 1851. Weed was christened Edward Thurlow Weed, named for a presumed family connection to Edward Thurlow, England's Lord Chancellor. As a boy, Weed dropped his first name; as an adult, he attempted to document the family connection during a visit to England, but