William Loeb III

William "Bill" Loeb III (December 26, 1905 – September 14, 1981), was publisher of the Manchester Union Leader newspaper (later The New Hampshire Union Leader) in Manchester, New Hampshire, for thirty-five years from 1946 until his death. His unyieldingly conservative political views helped to make The Union Leader one of the best-known small papers in the country. The publication benefited from nationwide attention every four years during the New Hampshire primary.

Loeb was born to William Loeb, Jr. (1866–1937), and Catharine (sometimes "Katherine") Dorr on December 26, 1905.

His father was executive secretary to Theodore Roosevelt, and a nationally known figure in his own day. Loeb's grandfather was William Loeb, I, a German immigrant of Jewish descent. Loeb's siblings were Louisa Loeb-Neudorf, Amelia Olive Loeb and Lillian May Loeb.

Young Loeb attended The Hotchkiss School and Williams College, and soon met and married Elizabeth Nagy, a faculty member at nearby Smith College. They were married on May 29, 1926. Nagy was eight years older than Loeb, and his parents objected to the matrimony. Loeb's father excluded him from his will in light of the marriage. The couple divorced six years later on October 11, 1932, and Loeb received alimony from Nagy for several years. Later in his life, Loeb made efforts to hide the marriage, and records of the divorce (Loeb v. Loeb F-3144) were found missing at the time they were to be archived on microfiche.

Loeb partnered with his friend Charlie Weaver to buy the St. Albans Messenger in St. Albans, Vermont, in 1941 to enter the publishing arena. Loeb also received cash investments from a woman named Marka Loening, who indulged in an extramarital affair with Loeb while waiting for her divorce from her estranged husband to be finalized. Loeb later used funding from Loening to buy the Burlington Daily News in 1942. One of Loeb's first infamous journalistic exploits was the publishing of his own baptismal certificate on the front page of both Vermont papers in an attempt to disprove rumors of his Jewish ancestry.

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