Thomas Jefferson Burgess was a native of Belfast and a printer by trade. During the Civil War years, he was drafted, but exempted from service due to a bad hip. In 1862, Burgess published the Evening Bulletin, which was a daily broadsheet containing all the evening telegraph dispatches from the war.

Before the war, Burgess entered into business with his brother, George Washington Burgess, and together they established the Progressive Age newspaper, a competitor to the Republican Journal.