Isaac Austin Henderson was an American newspaperman and writer.
Early life
Henderson was born in Brooklyn in 1850 and was the son of Isaac Henderson and Margaret Henderson. He had three sisters, including elder sister, Josephine Wheaton Henderson, was married to Col. Henry Cary Weir, of West Point in 1865. During President Abraham Lincoln's presidency, his father was appointed Navy Agent in May 1861, "thereby becoming both a civilian employee of the Navy Department and a disbursing officer of the government subject to Treasury Department supervision." In 1864, his father was arrested and tried for issuing false vouchers when he was Navy Agent. After a well publicized trial, he was found not guilty on technical grounds. After an early education in private schools and under tutors, he graduated from Williams College with the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts, and Doctor of Civil Law.
Career
In 1872, Henderson became connected with the New York Evening Post, becoming assistant publisher in 1875, and from 1877 was publisher, stockholder, and member of the Board of Trustees. The Post was owned by his father in partnership with William Cullen Bryant, the editor-in-chief, and John Bigelow. His father had first joined the Post as a clerk in 1839, before becoming bookkeeper and, later, manager of a printing shop which allowed him to buy a one-third interest in the partnership that controlled the Post in 1854. His father's career at the Post ended in 1878 when an investigation revealed he had defrauded Bryant for thirty years. Henderson sold his interest in the Evening Post in 1881, he went to Europe and lived in London and Rome. In 1896, he became a Roman Catholic, adopting the name of Austin at his Confirmation. In 1903 he was appointed private chamberlain to Pope Pius X.
Published works
In 1886, Henderson published his first novel, The Prelate, and followed it two years later with Agatha Page. The latter, soon dramatized as The Silent Battle, was produced by Sir Charles Wyndham at the Criterion Theatre, London, another dramatic version, entitled Agatha, being produced the same year at the Boston Museum. His second drama, The Mummy and the Humming Bird, was presented at Wyndham's Theatre, 1901, the principal male part being again taken by Wyndham. In 1902 it was played at the Empire Theatre, New York.
Through his daughter Ruth, he was a grandfather of Kenneth Andrew Lindsay and Margaret Elspeth Lindsay. Kenneth married Kathleen Mary Lovemore and Margaret married George Shirley Rawlings, son of the Rev. George William Rawlings and brother of actress Margaret Rawlings.
