Anne Royall, by some accounts the first professional woman journalist in the United States, was born Anne Newport Baltimore, Maryland.

Anne grew up in the western frontier of Pennsylvania before her family migrated south to the mountains of western Virginia. There she met American Revolution major and freemason William Royall. Anne wed Royall in 1797, who introduced her to the works of Shakespeare and Voltaire. The couple lived comfortably until his death in 1812, which touched off litigation between Anne and Royall's relatives, who claimed his will was a forgery. After seven years, the will was nullified and Anne was left with just a small amount of money.

Years of Writing
Anne spent the next four years traveling around Alabama, writing letters to a friend about the evolution of the young state that were eventually turned into a manuscript published as Letters from Alabama. She also penned a novel called The Tennessean before setting off for Washington D.C..

She arrived in Washington in 1824 to petition for a federal pension as the widow of a veteran — under the pension law at the time, widows had to plead their cases before Congress. She remained unsatisfied until Congress passed a new pension law in 1848. Even then, her husband's family claimed most of her pension money.

While in Washington attempting to secure a pension, Anne caught President John Quincy Adams during one of his usual early morning baths in the Potomac River. Reportedly, Anne gathered the president's clothes and sat on them until he answered her questions, earning her the first presidential interview ever granted to a woman.

Adams afterward supported Anne's petition for a pension. He also invited her to visit his wife, Louisa Adams, at their home in Washington, which she did. Mrs. Adams gave her a white shawl when she journeyed north to obtain proof of her husband's military service.

Afterward Anne toured New England, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts, all the while taking copious notes and using her Masonic connections to help fund her travels.

In Boston, she stopped in on former President John Adams to give him an update on his son and daughter-in-law. Then in 1826, at age 57, she published her notes in a book titled Sketches of History, Life and Manners in the United States. Her previous manuscript The Tennessean would follow a year later.

Her books and public stances on issues caused a stir and earned her some powerful enemies. In 1829, Anne Royall returned to Washington, D.C. and began living on Capitol Hill, near a fire house. The firehouse, which had been built with federal money, had been allowing a small church to use its facilities for their services. Royall objected to their using the building as a blurring of the lines between church and state. She also claimed that some of the congregation's children began throwing stones at her windows.

One member of the congregation began praying silently beneath her window and others visited her in an attempt to convert her, she claimed. Royall responded to their taunts with cursing and was arrested. She was charged with being a "public nuisance, a common brawler and a common scold," for which she was fined $10. Two reporters from Washington's newspaper, The National Intelligencer, paid the fine. Embarrassed by the incident, Royall left Washington to continue traveling.

Back in Washington in 1831, she published a newspaper from her home with the help of a friend, Sally Stack. The paper, Paul Pry, exposed political corruption and fraud. Sold as single issues, it contained her editorials, letters to the editor and her responses, and advertisements. Royall hired orphans to set the type and faced constant financial woes, which were exacerbated when postmasters refused to deliver her issues to subscribers.

The Huntress replaced Paul Pry in 1836 and continued to expose waste in Washington's bureaucracy. Anne Royall continued to publish The Huntress until her death at age 85 in 1854, bringing an end to her 30-year news career.

Quotations

"In all countries, and in all ages, from the Druids down to brother Beecher, priests have aimed at universal power."

"Fanaticism and bigotry require any food but common sense and reason, which would break the charm of those spellbound fanatics."

"These bible people remind me of another calamity similar to this missionary scheme, when our people, or any christian power would go to Africa for the pious purpose of kidnapping negroes, the mother would cry out to her children "run, run, the christians are coming," so when ever you hear "bibles," run for your life, if you do not want your pockets picked, or to be insulted and slandered as I was.... and if you hear "hopeful conversions" or the "gospel," don't stop to look behind you."

"I find that the whole weight of relieving human misery and distress falls on the shoulders of those Heretics and Infidels; and though great part of this distress has been occasioned by those ravening wolves' hopeful converts."

"The late proceedings of those daring invaders to establish a national religion have opened the eyes of all lovers of liberty and religion.... I have been told they have thrown off the mask and are preaching to the people to elect none but godly men to represent them in the General and State Legislatures; ... what they mean by godly people, is people of their own stamp..."

"[Like] a pestilence [they] cover the land; not to scatter blessings amongst the distressed, root out ignorance, ... or diffuse the lights of knowledge, to ennoble the age, or amend mankind; not to break the chains of slavery,or teach man his religious or political duties, or cultivate the arts and sciences, no; quite the reverse. Their object and their interest is to plunge mankind into ignorance, to make him a bigot, a fanatic, a hypocrite, a heathen, to hate every sect but his own, (the orthodox,) to shut his eyes against the truth, harden his heart against the distress of his fellow man, and purchase heaven by money."