Van Anden was born on December 12, 1812, in
Poughkeepsie, New York, the son of Abraham Van Anden and Mary Lawless. Van Anden grew up on his father's farm. At a young age, he became an apprentice for the
Dutchess County newspaper
Poughkeepsie Telegraph. In 1837, he formed a partnership with Alexander Lee, bought the
Westchester Spy from Samuel G. Arnold, and settled in
White Plains. He then sold the
Spy to Lee, moved to
Brooklyn, and published the
Brooklyn Advocate with Arnold. In 1840, the paper was merged with the
Brooklyn Daily News but remained under the same management. The
Daily News was a non-partisan newspaper, but William A. Green bought the paper to make it a
Whig paper. The firm Arnold & Van Anden was dissolved, but Van Anden retained much of the equipment from the
Advocate and conducted a small printing office. In 1841,
Henry C. Murphy and other Democrats in the city founded a
Democratic paper, the
Brooklyn Eagle, and made Van Anden the paper's manager and publisher. Murphy was elected
mayor of Brooklyn later that year, and in 1842 Van Anden became the sole proprietor of the newspaper. Van Anden and the
Eagle were Democrats, but under him the paper had an independent lean. Under him, the paper grew in prominence and eventually had the largest circulation of any evening newspaper in the country. He was also an early supporter and later commissioner of
Prospect Park and a director of the Mechanics' Bank, the Brooklyn and Standard Life Insurance Companies, and the Safe Deposit Company. Van Anden was a
presidential elector in the
1868 presidential election. He sold the
Eagle to the Eagle Association in 1870. He never married. Van Anden died at his brother William's home in Poughkeepsie on August 4, 1875. He was buried in the
Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery. == References ==