The Confederate Major Who Set Type in Seattle

Maj. A. M. Speights, the patriarch of the printers, died at Providence hospital yesterday afternoon. Maj. Speights was 70 years old and a native of Germany. Death was due to old age and heart failure and he had been an inmate of the hospital for about three months. He came to Seattle in 1889 and worked as a compositor on the Post-Intelligencer up to the time he was attacked by the illness from which he finally succumbed. For a man of his age he was a remarkably fast compositor, setting a string of 10,000 ems a night, where younger men only set from 7,000 to 8,000.

The old patriarch was full of reminiscences concerning ante-bellum days in the sunny South. Maj. Speights came to the United States when a child from Germany and the family settled in South Carolina, where his father became overseer for a large plantation on which there were hundreds of slaves. When young Speights was old enough to go to work he entered a country printing office and learned the printing trade. Subsequently he went to Atlanta, Ga., where he began the publication of a paper with the famous Alexander H. Stephens, afterward vice president of the Confederacy, but he and his partner disagreed as to the policy of the paper, and Mr. Speights retired and left Stephens to manage the sheet. Subsequently Mr. Speights was connected with other Southern papers as proprietor and editor. At the outbreak of the civil war Mr. Speights enlisted and was immediately appointed to a position on the staff of Gen. Beauregard. He saw the first shot fired at Fort Sumter and participated in the battle of Bull Run. For his gallantry displayed in battle he was made a major. During the reconstruction period he took an active part in politics, and during an election he is said to have killed a man. He was tried for the offense and was acquitted on the ground of self-defense. This and other political feuds led to his leaving the South and he wandered about the country, working as a compositor, finally bringing up in Seattle.

Maj. Speights left a son, daughter and brother behind him in South Carolina. His brother, E. M. Speights, resides at Whitehall and his son, Walter S. Speights, who is a successful railroad man, at Greenville. The residence of his daughter could not be ascertained last night. His relatives were apprised of his death by telegraph last evening. The date of the funeral has not yet been fixed.

Maj. Speights was a member of the Seattle Typographical Union, under whose auspices the funeral will take place.