Mr. Hough was not without a com- petitor, even in this circumscribed newspawer field. "The Mirror," by Elijah Russell, was issued several years at the north end of Main street. It never, I think, equaled Hough's Her- ald, or his Courier of New Hampshire. Such numbers as I have seen lacked evidence of the good sense and cor- rect taste perceptible in sheets of which Mr. Hough had the supervision.
Many of the inland journals of that period partook of scrap-book charac- ter. Riddles, acrostics, bon mots, anecdotes, bad verses, weak communi- cations, and wretched " hits " at one another by rival local politicians, con- stituted the average bill of fare of " The Mirror" and its north-end successor "The Star." Neither in the Mirror, the Star, nor the Courier was such a production ever found as what has been known as "a leader:" an article occu- pying a conspicuous position, and treat- ing some topic of timely popular con- cern with vigor and ability, and at sufficient length to set it forth in a proper manner. If articles of that character, since so common in the journals of New Hampshire, had appeared in those published in the closing years of the last century, or early ones of this, the people would have believed that indeed "a Daniel had come to judgment." The town would certainly have been stirred, and the author, if discov- ered, been regarded as a mira- cle of literary power. The "lead- ers" of journals here spoken of were apt to be the record of a mar- riage, the weight of an overgrown beet or calf, or such a paragraph as this, in Hough's Herald, December 7, 1790 : "No Boston post arrived; all news, we believe, is frozen up by the cold weather. We have not even a report with which we can serve up a paragraph for our hungry customers."
I am not in possession of the means by which to trace the rise, progress and fall of the several papers which bore the Concord imprint from 1790 to 1809, but it is certain that the life of each was a constant but unavailing struggle against circumstances, the dis-
couraging nature of which can, even at this distant day, be readily appreciated. The people had not become accustomed to the expenditure of money for the gratification of literary taste ; indeed, many mechanics, traders and farmers were often at their wit's end to obtain money with which to pay their taxes and provide for more imperatively ne- cessary articles than books and papers. Inter-communication, also, was slow and uncertain. Partisan politics had not become permeated by enduring heat, and only few men, not the mass as now, had formed the habit of dili- gently following up current political events. Within my recollection all the, papers received in a week in Concord from abroad could be placed in the crown of a stove-pipe hat of the pres- ent day, and the garment worn without much discomfort, while town subscri- bers of the local press did not proba- bly number an hundred and fifty.
But the papers of that period were equal to the encouragement they re- ceived. Greater expenditure in their behalf would not have materially aug- mented their income, and I have no hesitation in saying that Hough's "Courier of New Hampshire" was as fully up to those times, and as com- pletely answered the requirements of the people, as journals of the present day.
In 1806, William Hoit and Jesse C. Tuttle commenced a paper bearing the title "Concord Gazette," of which more will be found in a succeeding portion of this essay. How long the firm of Hoit & Tuttle existed, I cannot say, but in October, 1808, the senior member was encouraged to embark in a second enterprise, and commenced the publication of "The American Pat- riot." Its projectors were influential men, then bearing the partisan name of Republicans, afterward assuming that of Democratic Republicans, and, later still, Democrats. I knew Mr. Hoit well, for he here labored in his pro- fession, I think, nearly fifty years, and I obtained some particulars regarding the establishment of the "American Patriot," which, but for him, would
