Houk

proof-reader and eventually joined with his
friend Bolles in establishing a printing office on
Remington Street, in Cambridge. In 1852 the
firm became H. O. Houghton & Company, with
headquarters on the Charles River, at what was
soon known as the Riverside Press. For the re-
mainder of his life, Houghton was a printer and
publisher and made a special study of artistic
typography. Because of his good taste and high
standards of craftsmanship, he built up a large
and lucrative business. He actively opposed the
movement for the free admission of foreign books
into the United States.

Houghton's fondness for everything relating
to books led him to form in 1864 a partnership
with Melancthon M. Hurd, of New York, under
the firm name of Hurd & Houghton. Various
changes in personnel were effected until 1878,
when, with Kurd's retirement, the business was
merged with James R. Osgood & Company, as
Houghton, Osgood, & Company. This, in turn,
after Osgood's withdrawal in 1880, became
Houghton, Mifflin, & Company, and eventually,
Houghton Mifflin Company. The firm acquired
many literary franchises formerly controlled by
Ticknor £ Fields, including rights to the works
of Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Holmes, Low-
ell, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, and also published
the Riverside Classics and other series.

Houghton was married, on Sept. 12, 1854, to
Nanna W. Manning, by whom he had one son,
Henry Oscar Houghton, Jr., who became a part-
ner in the firm, and three daughters. He was
greatly interested in local affairs in Cambridge,
serving on the school committee, as a member of
the common council, and as alderman and mayor
(1872). In his later life he traveled extensively,
both in the United States and abroad. Infirmi-
ties came upon him gradually, but he coura-
geously resisted them and was still active in busi-
ness at the time of his death. He possessed a
vigorous and positive personality and in business
relations was somewhat autocratic and watchful
of small details. He died in North Andover,
Mass., at the country home of his partner, George
H. Mifflin. He established by his will a fund for
the relief of the worthy poor of Cambridge.

[Horace E. Scudder, Henry Oscar Houghton, A Biog.
Outline (1897); J. W. Houghton, The Houghton GeneaL
(1912) ; the New England Mag.t Oct. 1895; the Out-
look, Nov. 2t 1895 ; information as to certain facts from
Miss Alberta Houghton and Mr. Edward B. Houghton.]

C.M.F.

HOUK, LEONIDAS CAMPBELL (June 8,
i836-May 25, 1891), congressman, was born
near Boyds Creek in Sevier County, Tenn. His
father, a poor mechanic, died when Leonidas was
only three years old and his mother married

Houk

again in a few years without bettering herself
financially. His early life, accordingly, was not
an easy one and he went to school for only about
three months in an old-field school. He learned
the trade of cabinetmaking, was for a time a
Methodist preacher, and was admitted to the bar
of Tennessee at the age of twenty-three. When
the Civil War broke out two years later he was
a leader in the group that held the East Tennes-
see union convention and later organized the 1st
Tennessee Infantry, which was incorporated in-
to the Federal army in the state of Kentucky.
He, himself, enlisted as a private, soon became
lieutenant and quartermaster of the regiment,
and then became colonel of the 3rd Tennessee
Volunteer Infantry. After he was forced to re-
sign in April 1863 °n account of ill health, he
began to write for the loyal press with the same
vigor and force that had been so marked in all
his other undertakings.

In 1864 he was an elector for the Lincoln-
Johnson ticket and the next year was a member
of the state convention, whose radical reorgani-
zation of the state government he, however, dis-
approved. While he was judge of the I7th ju-
dicial circuit of Tennessee, from 1866 to 1870, he
ordered that all treason cases be stricken from
his docket as he held that the state of Tennessee
ceased to exist on May 6,1861, and he was prob-
ably the first Republican who publicly advocated
equal rights for former Confederates. Yet in
spite of such moderation he was emphatically
a partisan. His opinions and his expression of
opinions were strongly and often bitterly Re-
publican. In the Republican National Conven-
tion in 1868 he supported Grant, and he was one
of the "Stalwarts" who continued to support him
in 1880. After his resignation from the bench
Houk moved to Knoxville, where he took up
again the practice of law, but was soon drawn
into political life. He served as a member of the
Southern claims commission in 1873 and was
elected to the Tennessee legislature. In 1879 he
began his long term in Congress, which ended
only with his death. In Congress he served on
many important committees and by his charm
of person and manner won for himself the same
kind of popularity, which he enjoyed so abun-
dantly in East Tennessee. When he died of an
accidental dose of poison the mountain people
traveled on horseback and on foot for long dis-
tances to be present at his funeral, and the dis-
trict that he had made his own Republican
stronghold showed its loyalty to his memory by
sending his son to sit in his seat in Congress.

[O. P. Temple, Notable Men of Tenn. (1912) ; J. W.
Caldwell, Sketches of the Bench omd Bar of Tenn.
(1898) ; J. T. Moore, Tenn. the Volunteer State (19*3),

256