Henry Alonzo Maltby 1830-1906
H. A. Maltby, newspaperman, the son of David and Lucy (Marsh) Maltby, was born in Ashtabula County, Ohio, on November 4, 1830. He moved to Texas in 1851. He served Corpus Christi as mayor and resigned in 1857 to join Gen. William Walker's filibuster forces in Nicaragua, where he commanded a company that he raised in Corpus Christi. Maltby began publication of the Corpus Christi Daily Ranchero in 1859. This paper continued publication erratically through the Civil War. He moved the publication to Santa Margarita, Willacy County, in 1863. Later issues were published from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, in 1865 and 1866 and finally in Brownsville from 1866 through 1870. In the final year the paper merged with the Rio Grande Democrat to form the Brownsville Democrat and Ranchero, which ran until 1880. In 1861 Maltby was elected to represent Nueces County in the Secession Convention. After returning from the convention, he started a paper in Brownsville called the American Flag, an organ of the Confederacy for foreign countries. When the Union seized Brownsville he moved the headquarters to Matamoros. He served on the executive committee of the Nueces County Committee of Safety in April 1861 and made an unsuccessful bid for the state legislature in June 1861. Maltby married Hannah A. Franke in Nueces County on March 21, 1862, and they had five children. He was a Mason and once was master of the Brownsville lodge. He died in Brownsville on May 18, 1906, and was buried in the Old Brownsville Cemetery.BIBLIOGRAPHY: Houston Post, May 19, 1906. Maltby Family Papers, Local History Archives,
Corpus Christi Public Library. San Antonio Daily Express, May 19, 1906.
J. L. Bryan
This information comes from the Texas State Historical Association Handbook of
Texas Online.