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William Brown Meloney (June 6, 1878 – December 7, 1925) was an Americanjournalist, writer, executive secretary to MayorWilliam Jay Gaynor of New York City and a historian ofshipping.
He was born on June 6, 1878, inSan Francisco, California.[1][2] His grandfathers were a ship captain and a shipbuilder, ran away to sea at the age of eleven. In 1896, when he was eighteen years old, he became a shipping news and political reporter in San Francisco and also started writing fiction and verse and "resolved to do what he could to further the establishment of a powerful Americanmerchant fleet."[3] Meloney was the son of James Meloney ofBoston, Massachusetts, and Addie Meloney. His father died inSomerville, Massachusetts, in April 1898.[4]
In 1899, Meloney, as a reporter for theSan Francisco Bulletin, was assigned by editorFremont Older to investigate Police Lieutenant Frederick L. Esola, who was a candidate to be appointed as city police chief. Meloney testified before the city's police commission, and the evening after his testimony was finished, he and anotherBulletin reporter were beaten by two men in asaloon at 206 Sutter Street. Suspicions were raised that the beating was connected to the hearing, but nothing was proven.[5]
Meloney moved toNew York City in 1901 and worked seven years for theNew York World newspaper, "part of the time as day city editor." In 1910 he was appointed executive secretary by newly elected Mayor Gaynor,[6] after which he wrote several novels and plays but concentrated on a history of shipping,The Heritage of Tyre. When his book was published,Secretary of the InteriorFranklin K. Lane praised it as the "best thing ever written on shipping," andTheodore Roosevelt wrote that Meloney "had the vision of one of America's great needs."[3]
He served with the Army in France, where he wasgassed during theMeuse-Argonne offensive. After returning to the U.S. in 1919, he wrote a handbook for soldiers:Where Do We Go From Here? covering practicalities such as insurance and job-search after discharge. TheWar Department published five million copies. He was an editorial writer on theNew York Tribune for six months and then worked for five years on a biography ofJohn Purroy Mitchel, mayor of New York from 1914 to 1917, which he completed months before he died in his country home inPawling, New York, on December 7, 1925.[3][7] The manuscript was never published but is on file in theRare Books and Manuscript Collection of the Columbia University Library.[8]
His widow, magazine editor and journalistMarie Mattingly Meloney, and a son, also namedWilliam Brown Meloney, survived him.[3]
Meloney also wrote aboutsea shanties, in a work that was published first inEverybody's Magazine in 1914, then in book form asThe Chanty Man Sings.[9]
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