Kinship: Third great-great-granduncle of the post–World War II Smith generation.

Early Life and Family Background Joseph Effingham Lawrence was born in 1824. He graduated from Columbia College in 1841, the only printed record in which his full name regularly appears. In later life he dropped “Effingham” and preferred to be known simply as Joe Lawrence.

His siblings were Lydia Ann Lawrence (1811–1879), noted Spiritualist known for her cousin marriages; Henry Effingham Lawrence (1810–1875), New Orleans merchant and father of six children, four of whom were deaf and subsequently significant in the history of deaf education in the Old South; and Effingham Lawrence (1820–1878), owner of Magnolia Plantation in Louisiana.

Journey to California and the Gold Rush He was in Louisiana, likely visiting his brother Effingham at Magnolia Plantation, when news of the 1849 Gold Rush reached him. At the age of twenty-five he crossed Texas and Mexico by mule to reach California, where he decided to pursue a career in journalism.

The Press and Public Life in Sacramento Lawrence became editor of the Sacramento Placer Times (later the Times and Transcript) from 1850 to 1854. Life as a newspaper editor in Gold Rush California was often hazardous, and Lawrence experienced several public confrontations. In July 1851, after a dispute over a published paragraph, the future governor of California, J. Neely Johnson, assaulted him by twisting his nose; Lawrence drew a pistol and might have fired had bystanders not intervened. In another incident, his criticism of the conduct of the Sacramento chain gang provoked threats and abuse. An assault in 1858 resulted in the attacker being fined. These episodes illustrate both the volatility of early California civic life and Lawrence’s willingness to expose abuses.

“Colonel” Lawrence Although frequently referred to as “Colonel,” Lawrence did not earn this rank through military service. He received the courtesy title when Governor John Bigler appointed him to his staff as an aide-de-camp, a common honorary appointment of the era. One contemporary writer observed that such offices were an easy way for the United States to acquire so many “colonels,” remarking humorously that in Lawrence’s case the appointment should have read “place him where France least wants a soldier.”

Editor of The Golden Era Lawrence’s greater legacy lay in literary culture. From 1854 to 1867 he served as editor of The Golden Era, a San Francisco literary weekly that became one of the most influential periodicals of the early American West and an important platform for emerging writers. His editorial office was regarded as a kind of Bohemian West salon. He was described as “the very pattern of paternal patronage”—a genial, pipe-smoking figure with “an air of literary mystery,” one writer calling him “a pillar of cloud” at his editorial chair. He encouraged the early work of several writers who later became significant figures in American literature, including Bret Harte, Prentice Mulford, and, somewhat later, Joaquin Miller.

Return to Flushing and Final Years Lawrence retired from the Golden Era in 1867 and returned to Flushing, New York. He purchased one of the old Lawrence family houses and became editor of the Flushing Journal. His sister Lydia contributed Spiritualist articles. Joe also held a position at the New York Custom House. One humorous contemporary sketch noted: “He presides with dignity over the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, nurses the same old meerschaum, and luxuriates on cold tea with a stick in it.” He remained active in the Society of California Pioneers.

Joaquin Miller left a memorable description of their last meeting: “Lawrence came to me in New York a few years back leaning on the arm of Prentice Mulford. The courtly, handsome, heroic gentleman of the old heroic days was dying. I took them to the theater, for Lawrence seemed so very sad. His brain was failing him—sunstroke, he said—but he could not stay out of the play. He arose with something of his old-time courtliness, for there were ladies in the box, shook hands gently with us all. And then he and Mulford went out into the night and—beyond the night, please God.”

Joseph Effingham Lawrence died at Toms River, New Jersey, on July 14, 1878.