Ned Buntline - Early Literary Efforts

Early Literary Efforts

Judson's first literary efforts began with a story of adventure in the Knickerbocker in 1838. He spent several years in the east starting up newspapers and story papers, only to have most of them fail. An early success that helped launch his fame was a gritty serial story of the Bowery and slums of New York City titled The Mysteries and Miseries of New York. An opinionated man, he strongly advocated nativism and temperance and became a leader in the Know-nothing movement. In 1844 he adopted the pen name "Ned Buntline" (buntline being the nautical term for a rope at the bottom of a square sail).

In 1845, Buntline's Cincinnati, Ohio venture Western Literary Journal and Monthly Magazine was facing bankruptcy. Buntline fled his debtors in Ohio. In Eddyville, Kentucky, he collected a $600 bounty for single-handedly capturing two murderers. He moved on to Nashville, Tennessee and used the money to start his own magazine: Ned Buntline's Own.

Buntline had an affair with the teenaged wife of Robert Porterfield in Nashville in 1846. On 14 March 1846, Porterfield challenged Buntline to a duel in which Buntline killed him. At Buntline's murder trial, Porterfield's brother shot and wounded Buntline, allowing Buntline to escape in the chaos. He was subsequently captured by a lynch mob and hanged from an awning. He was rescued by friends and the Tennessee Grand Jury refused to indict him for murder. He moved Ned Buntline's Own to New York City in 1848.

Through his writing in its columns and his association with New York City's notorious gangs of the early 19th century, he was one of the instigators of the Astor Place Riot which left 23 people dead. In September 1849, he was sentenced to a $250 fine and a year's imprisonment. After his release he devoted himself to writing sensational stories for weekly newspapers, and his income from this source is said to have amounted to $20,000 a year. He was later involved in a nativist riot in St. Louis while he was a member of the "Know-nothing" party.

Although a heavy drinker, he traveled around the country giving lectures about temperance, and until the election of 1884 was an ardent Republican. It was on one of his temperance lecture tours that he encountered "Buffalo Bill" (William Cody).