History of American Journalism/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
BEGINNINGS IN STATES
1783—1832
Before taking up the origin of the penny press, some notice must be paid to the pioneer printers who had established newspapers in the States and Territories not included in the thirteen original colonies. Sons and apprentices of Massachusetts printers, especially from Boston, had left their cases and, taking old hand-presses and fonts of type, had founded papers in Vermont and Maine, settlements hardly yet populated enough to support such enterprises. Others, traveling along the old Mohawk Trail, had gone westward. Adventurous printers from New York and Pennsylvania had taken the Overland Trail through Pittsburgh into the Ohio Valley. Here, putting their outfits on flatboats and into dug-outs, they had floated to Mississippi frontiers. The political plum of Printer to the Territory was shaken into the leather apron of several and the rude log cabin at various outposts served, as in the Colonial Period, equally as well for a post-office as for a print-shop. Occasionally the frontier journalists were politicians who sought to repeat old tricks in new fields. Not infrequently lawyers who found their professional services not yet needed in a country, where every man was practically a law unto himself, were drafted from the bar—take either meaning of the word—into editorial chairs. In a volume of this size mention can be made only of those printers who founded the first papers. Unembarrassed by stamp taxes and unhindered by censorship of the press, they faced other problems in transporting their plants and in getting their supply of white paper equal in every respect to the difficulties of the pioneers on the Atlantic Coast. Individual hardships are given in the accounts of some papers, not because they were unusual, but because they were typical. Without these pioneer sheets to link the Territories and later the States together, BEGINNINGS IN STATES 165 it is extremely doubtful if a central form of government would have survived. In Florida and in Louisiana newspapers had been started when these Territories were not yet part of the United States. The beginnings of journalism in these two, therefore, may first be considered before taking the others.
EARLY JOURNALISM IN FLORIDA
Before the Revolutionary Period closed the first newspaper had already appeared in Florida. It was called The East Florida Gazette and was published at St. Augustine by William Charles Wells. No issues of The East Florida Gazette, so far as can be learned, have been preserved, but such a paper was mentioned several times by a few Southern papers of the Early Republic Period. Its severe criticism of "the good people of the States" was especially annoying to its contemporaries in those former colonies which had become integral parts of the United States. Associated later with William Wells in publishing The Gazette was, in all probability, his brother John, who had printed The Royal Gazette at Charleston, South Carolina. For this offense, he was ordered by State authorities to leave and went to St. Augustine, where he helped his brother to print books and possibly The Gazette. Florida being sparsely settled did not have another paper till late in the Party Press Period when The Weekly Floridian was established in 1828 at Tallahassee.
FRENCH AND ENGLISH PAPERS IN LOUISIANA
Among the refugees at San Domingo who settled at New Orleans was L. Puclot. After much difficulty he succeeded in getting the consent of Governor Carondelet to print in French the Moniteur de la Louisiane, which first appeared on March 3, 1794. A year later J. B. L. Fontaine became its editor and he continued to hold that position until 1814, during much of which time he was also the publisher. In 1797 the Moniteur became the official State paper and in its pages are to be found most of the facts we know about the early history of Louisiana, containing as it does "All the official documents, Spanish, French and American which relate to the changes of government and all officially issued territorial laws, decisions of the city council, municipal notices, consumption of flour by bakers, bills of mortality and the list of baptisms and marriages, etc." The last issue of the paper, Number 1641, was on July 2, 1814. Two days later Fontaine died. The Louisiana Gazette on July 7 of that year said of him: "He was an enemy to the revolutionary principles that so long deluged his native country in blood, and often (to his intimate friends) expressed the hope that he should live to hear of a Bourbon being on the throne of France. His hope was realized and he departed in peace, we trust to play his part in another and a better world."
Le Courrier du Vendredi was started at New Orleans on May 26, 1785, without the name of its editor in the imprint. It was the precursor of The Louisiana Courier, a tri-weekly published in French and English. Le Telegraphe, established December 10, 1803, was another weekly newspaper originally published all in French, but later a tri-weekly printed part in French and part in English. In its second issue it printed the terms of treaty by which Louisiana became a part of the United States. Formal possession of the Territory was taken December 20, 1803.
The Louisiana Gazette, the first paper in New Orleans to be printed in English, was established on July 27, 1804. Published twice a week, its editor was John Mowry. He started with only nineteen subscribers who paid an annual subscription of ten dollars. Several attempts were made to turn The Gazette into a daily newspaper: the first was on April 3, 1810. Possibly the reason that these attempts were not very successful was due partly to the fact that editors did not pay enough attention to local news and also to the large number of residents who could not read English.
THE CALL FROM VERMONT
In the rooms of the Vermont Historical Society at Montpelier is still preserved the press on which was printed the first newspaper in that State. The claim has been made that this press was the first to be used in the English-speaking colonies of North America and that it did the best work in a mechanical way, when set up in the house of Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard College. But at any rate, it printed at Westminster, Vermont, on February 12, 1781, Volume I, Number 1, of The Vermont Gazette, or Green Mountain Post-Boy. From that day dates the beginning of journalism in what is now the State of Vermont. The paper, 17 × 12½, had for its motto:—
Pliant as Reeds where Streams of Freedom glide;
Firm as the Hills to stem Oppression's Tide.
Printed by Judah Paddock Spooner and Timothy Green, it lasted until the beginning of the year 1783.
The second paper was at Bennington: it bore the name of The Vermont Gazette, or Freeman's Depository, and first appeared June 5, 1783, from the shop of Anthony Haswell and David Russell. On January 5, 1797, it was continued as The Tablet of the Times. In spite of numerous changes both in name and ownership it survived until 1880. Possibly its period of greatest influence was during the days when it advocated Andrew Jackson for President of the United States.
George Hough bought the press and type used to print the first paper at Westminster, took in as partner Alden Spooner, who was a brother of Judah, and brought out at Windsor on August 7, 1783, the third paper, The Vermont Journal and the Universal Advertiser. It bore the motto—
From Realms far distant and from Climes unknown,
We make the Knowledge of Mankind your own;
and survived until about 1834.
Anthony Haswell printed on June 25, 1792, at Rutland the first issue of the fourth newspaper, The Rutland Herald, or Rutland Courier. Its immediate successor was The Rutland Herald, or Vermont Mercury, first published December 8, 1794, by Samuel Williams and a clergyman of the same name. It had the longest life of any paper in the State and is still published.
ORIGIN OF JOURNALISM IN MAINE
January 1, 1785, saw the first newspaper established in Maine: called The Falmouth Gazette, it was published by Benjamin Titcomb, who had learned his trade in a shop at Newburyport, Massachusetts, and Thomas B. Wait, who had been connected with The Boston Chronicle. Titcomb retired from the paper with the issue of February 16, 1786, and Wait changed the title to The Cumberland Gazette on April 7, 1786. When part of Falmouth was incorporated as Portland on July 4, 1786, the latter town soon appeared in the imprint, but on January 2, 1792, the title was changed, to avoid confusion with another Portland paper of a similar name, to The Eastern Herald. In 1796 John K. Baker bought the paper and consolidated it with The Gazette of Maine, on September 3, 1796. An attempt was made to make the paper a semi-weekly, but failed: subscribers would not pay the increased cost. On March 5, 1798, Baker admitted Daniel George as a partner, but left the paper himself with the issue of November 3, 1800. From December 29, 1800, till February 2, 1801 George had Elijah Russell as a partner in the enterprise, but after the latter date he ran the paper until discontinued on December 31, 1804. Such, in brief, was the history of Maine's first newspaper.
The Gazette of Maine was brought out on October 8, 1790, at Portland by Benjamin Titcomb, Jr., but was consolidated with The Eastern Herald which has already been mentioned. Howard S. Robinson started The Eastern Star at Hallowell on August 4, 1794. It had a short life, being followed the next year by The Tocsin, but not until The Kennebeck Intelligencer had been established November 21, 1795, by Peter Edes in what is now called Augusta, but what was then Hallo well. Though discontinued with the issue of June 6, 1800, it was revived as The Kennebec Gazette on November 14, 1800. A fire in the printing-office caused a suspension of the paper from February 11, to March 28, 1804. A second suspension from November 21, 1804, to January 16, 1805, was due to a lack of financial support. On August 8, 1805, Edes took in his son Benjamin as a partner, but as the paper could not support both, the son was forced to leave. Changing the character of his paper and making it more a party organ, Edes, on February 13, 1810, adopted the title of The Herald of Liberty for his paper. In 1815, probably with an issue in September, Edes suspended The Herald of Liberty and left Augusta, where he had "sunk property by tarrying so long with so little agement," and went to Bangor, where he brought out The Bangor Weekly Register November 25, 1815, and "could make out to live if nothing more." Like his father, B. Edes, of The Boston Gazette, P. Edes failed to secure popular support, possibly because he was too ardent a Federalist. With the issue of August 23, 1817, Edes ceased to bring out a paper and sold his plant to James Burton, who on March 7, 1817, had started The Augusta Patriot, but who had evidently failed to make the paper a successful venture. Burton, however, did not resume the publication of The Bangor Weekly Register until December 25, 1817. The space that Edes had used to advocate a separation of Maine from Massachusetts, Burton employed to advertise lottery tickets. The Bangor Register lasted until August 2, 1881.
Possibly The Tocsin, established at Hallo well in 1795 by Thomas B. Wait, Howard S. Robinson, and John K. Baker, may have antedated The Kennebeck Intelligencer, but little is known of this newspaper save that it had a short life. Incidentally, it may be remarked that it was too much to expect a Maine newspaper at this period to support three men.
The first daily newspaper in that State, however, was The Courier established in Portland in 1829 by Selba Smith, the original Jack Downing of "Jack Downing Letters" fame. The second was The Portland Daily Advertiser, first issued regularly as a daily in 1831, having as its first editor, James Brooks, who later founded The Express in New York City. Its most distinguished editor was James G. Blaine, who used journalism as a stepping-stone to politics. The first morning daily in Portland was The Times brought out in 1836 by Charles P. Ilsley.
LOCAL AID GIVEN BY KENTUCKY
Although Kentucky was first organized as a part of Virginia, it had its eyes upon admission as a State by the time the Federal Constitution was being adopted. To promote its admission, Lexington, at that time the most important town, voted in July, 1786, a free lot to John Bradford, a Virginia planter who had come to Kentucky after the War of the Revolution. On the site given him by the town of Lexington, Bradford put up a log print-shop and on April 11,,1787, brought out the first number of The Kentucke Gazette. The delay in bringing out this paper was due to the difficulty in getting the press, type, and paper from Philadelphia. This equipment had to come by wagon over the post-road to Pittsburgh, and then by flatboat down the Ohio to Maysville, and then "by nag" over the trail recently blazed to Lexington.
In the first number, Bradford issued this apology for the appearance of his paper:—
My customers will excuse this, my first publication, as I am much hurried to get an impression by the time appointed. A great part of the types fell into pi in the carriage of them from Limestone to this office, and my partner, which is the only assistant I have, through an indisposition of the body, has been incapable of rendering the smallest assistance for ten days past.
The partner mentioned in the quotation just given was Bradford's brother, Fielding.
The initial number of The Kentucke Gazette was a single sheet, two pages (10 × 19½), three columns to the page. Fielding Bradford retired with the issue of June 7, 1788, and from that time its publisher until 1802 was John Bradford. The peculiar spelling of "Kentucke" was changed to the modern form, "Kentucky," on March 14, 1789. An attempt was made on January 4, 1797, to make the paper a semi-weekly, but a year later, or on January 3, 1798, it changed back to a weekly again. Daniel Bradford succeeded his father as editor and publisher of the paper on April 2, 1802. General Advertiser was added to the title at the beginning of 1803. Another attempt to make the paper a semi-weekly was made on February 19, 1806, but was not successful and a change to a weekly publication was resumed on January 3, 1807. The Kentucky Gazette and General Advertiser passed out of the control of the Bradford family on October 3, 1809, when Thomas Smith became the publisher. Smith, enlisting for service in Canada in August, 1812, turned the paper over to his brother-in-law, William W. Worseley, but still kept his own name in the imprint as publisher. A month later, however, he took in John Bickley as partner, but a little over a year later sold the paper to Fielding Bradford, Jr. It was published for about three years by him and then sold to John Norvel & Co. The "Co." was dropped with the issue of February 7, 1818, but on March 5, 1819, the paper was transferred to Joshua Norvel & Co., which later became, on October 6 of that year, Norvel & Cavins. The latter partner, however, became the sole proprietor on July 27, 1820. The Kentucky Gazette ceased publication some time in 1848.
The second paper in Kentucky was also started in Lexington by Thomas H. Stewart, who, on or near February 17, 1795, brought out Stewart's Kentucky Herald. After ten years The Herald became a part of The Kentucky Gazette.
The family of Bradford was connected with the first three papers in Kentucky. In 1802 John Bradford was the publisher of The Kentucky Herald, just mentioned; on November 7, 1795, Benjamin J. Bradford brought out the third paper, The Kentucky Journal, at Frankfort.
OTHER PAPERS IN KENTUCKY
Other early Kentucky papers were The Rights of Man, or The Kentucky Mercury, first published in May, 1797, at Paris, by Darius Moffett; The Mirror, August, 1797, at Washington, by Hunter & Beaumont; The Guardian of Freedom, by John Bradford & Son (this paper was really a branch of The Kentucky Gazette published at Frankfort in order to advocate Bradford as State Printer); The Palladium, August, 1798, at Frankfort, by Hunter (after The Mirror at Washington was discontinued, the earlier part of that year); The Western American, in 1803, at Bardstown, by Francis Peniston; The Western World, in 1806, at Frankfort, by Joseph M. Street; The Candid Review, in 1807, at Bardstown, by Peter Isler & Co.; The Louisville Gazette, in 1807, by Joseph Charles; The Impartial Observer, in 1807, at Lexington, by Guerin & Prentiss; The Argus of Western America, in 1808, at Frankfort, by William Gerard.
EARLY JOURNALISM IN WEST VIRGINIA
Dr. Robert Henry, physician, who had come to Berkeley County in 1792, started the first newspaper in West Virginia at Martinsburg in 1789. It was called The Potomac Guardian and the Berkeley Advertiser and had for its motto, "Where Liberty Dwells, There's My Stand." The earliest known issue is that of April 3, 1792, Volume 2, Number 73. It was a 9 x 15 sheet and the copy is preserved at the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia. Nathaniel Willis, father of Nathaniel Willis, who published The Boston Recorder, and grandfather of Nathaniel Parker Willis, who was the most distinguished literary man of his day, founded the second newspaper of West Virginia, also in Martinsburg in 1799. Willis called his paper The Martinsburg Gazette. The third newspaper in the State, again printed at Martinsburg, was started in 1800 and called The Berkeley and Jefferson County Intelligencer and Northern Neck Advertiser. Its publisher was John Alburtis. Wheeling had its first newspaper, The Repository, in 1807. Other early papers in Wheeling were The Times, The Gazette, The Telegraph, and The Virginian. In 1819 Herbert P. Gaines brought out the first newspaper at the Capital of the State, Charlestown, The Kanawha Patriot, and in 1820, Mason Campbell brought out the second, The Western Courier. Other papers followed until by 1850 there were three dailies and twenty-one weeklies in West Virginia.
INAUGURAL JOURNALISM IN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
The most important early paper was the tri- weekly, The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser, started on October 31, 1800, by Samuel Harrison Smith, who moved with the Government from Philadelphia to Washington and who has already been mentioned several times in these pages. He took into partnership in 1810 Joseph Gales, Jr., who dropped The Washington Advertiser from the title. After Smith became president of the Washington branch of the United States Bank, he retired from journalism and William W. Seaton became associated with Gales in the publishing of the paper now issued daily. Under the editorship of these two men the paper became the recognized Government organ called by John Randolph "The Court Paper." It was trie official reporter of Congress, and had it not been for the excellent work of Gales, who had been taught stenography by his father, it is extremely doubtful whether the great speeches of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun would have been preserved. These statesmen, incidentally, often wrote for the paper. The Intelligencer was the spokesman for the Presidents until the inauguration of Jackson, when The United States Telegraph, edited by General Duff Green, became the Administration organ. Because of Green's endorsement of the policies of John C. Calhoun, Jackson established The Globe. When William Henry Harrison was inaugurated in March, 1841, The Intelligencer came back into its own official position until the Whig Party was split by the death of the President, but it again became "The Court Paper" when Fillmore took the presidential chair on the death of Taylor. It continued to be published in Washington until January 10, 1870, when it was moved to New York, where it lasted only a short time. The reason for the removal was the fact that with the secession of the South the paper lost over two thirds of its entire circulation. The printers of news papers in the United States are desirous to take notice that this is the only paper printed in the city of Washington, and issues from the office late the property of Mr. Thomas Wilson deceased, and since then a few weeks in the possession of Mr. John Crocker. They are requested to forward their papers to Benjamin More, or the printer of The Washington Gazette and may depend on having The Washington Gazette regularly forwarded to them.
INITIAL PAPERS OF TENNESSEE
Very often the publisher of the first newspaper in any State was also the authorized printer to the Territorial or State Legislature. Such was the case in Tennessee, where George Roulstone first brought out, at Rogersville on November 5, 1791, The Knoxville Gazette. After issuing a few numbers he moved his plant to Knoxville, where he continued to bring out the paper until his death in 1804. He remained public printer all this time and his wife was later elected for two successive terms to fill the place.
The second paper in Knoxville was The Register founded in 1798 by John R. Parrington. Another early Knoxville paper was Wilson's Gazette begun in 1804 by George Wilson, and pub- lished until 1818, when Wilson went to Nashville to begin The Nashville Gazette in the interest of "Old Hickory." Work- ing with Wilson as a journeyman printer was F. S. Heiskell, who, shortly before the former left for Nashville, started a second Register in August, 1816, which survived, though under many editors, until the outbreak of the War of the States.
The first paper in Memphis was The Memphis Advocate and Eastern District Intelligencer, which first appeared on January 18, 1827. The Times was established soon after and later the two papers were united with the title of The Times and Advocate.
Journalism began in Nashville in 1797, when The Tennessee Gazette appeared under the editorship of a Kentucky printer named Henkle. A year later the paper was sold and the name changed to The Clarion. The Hamilton County Gazette, which later became The Chattanooga Gazette, was brought from Knox- ville to Chattanooga by flatboat in 1838. It suspended in 1859, but in 1864 was revived by James R. Hood and E. A. James.
OHIO AND ITS EARLY PAPERS
The distinction of being the first paper in Ohio belongs to The Centinel of the Northwestern Territory, brought out in the village of Cincinnati on November 9, 1793, by William Maxwell. Born about 1755 in New Jersey, he had come to Ohio by way of Pittsburgh. He brought with him a Ramage press and a few
fonts of type which he set up in a log cabin print-shop at the corner of Front and Sycamore Streets. By way of a motto for his paper he borrowed that of The New York Chronicle, "Open to All Parties But Influenced by None."
Speaking as the printer of The Centinel of the Northwestern Territory, he said in his opening issue :
Having arrived at Cincinnati, he has applied himself to that which has been the principal object of his removal to this country, the Pub- lication of a News Paper. This country is in its infancy, and the in- habitants are daily exposed to an enemy who, not content with taking away the lives of men in the field, have swept away whole families, and burnt their habitations. We are well aware that the want of regular and certain trade down the Mississippi, deprives this country in great measure, of money at the present time. These are discouragements, nevertheless I am led to believe that the people of this country are dis- posed to promote science, and have the fullest assurance that the Press, from its known utility, will receive proper encouragement. And on my part am content with small gains, at the present, flattering my- self that from attention to business, I shall preserve the good wishes of those who have already countenanced me in this undertaking, and secure the friendship of subsequent population.
The paper, published on Saturday, was a four-page sheet and had three columns to the page. Having mislaid the subscription list Maxwell published a notice in the first issue that subscribers should call at the office for their paper and that subscriptions would be received "in Columbia by John Armstrong, Esquire; North-Bend by Aaron Cadwell, Esquire; Coleram by Capt. John Dunlap, and in New-Port by Capt. John Vartelle." At the very start Maxwell advocated the opening of the Mississippi to nav- igation and never ceased to be the pleader of this cause so long as he remained the editor. Having been appointed post- master to Cincinnati, he sold The Centinel of the Northwestern Territory in 1796 to Edmund Freeman, who changed its name to Freeman's Journal. The latter continued its publication under that title until 1800 when he followed the seat of the Territorial Government to Chillicothe and brought out Freeman's Journal in that place. Upon his death, in 1801, Nathaniel Willis pur- chased the paper and combined it with The Sciota Gazette, a paper still published at Sciota.
The next paper, in order of establishment, in Ohio was The
Western Spy and Hamilton Gazette, first published May 28,
1799, at Cincinnati by James Carpenter. Its name was changed
to The Western Spy in 1806; three years later, April 13, 1809, to
The Whig, and still later, June 13, 1810, to The Advertiser. Evi-
dently, the changes in names did not add to the circulation of the
sheet, for it was eventually forced to suspend publication. In-
cidentally it may be remarked that in September, 1810, Car-
penter started The Western Spy, but early in 1819 he changed
it to The Western Spy and Cincinnati General Advertiser. It
united with The Literary Cadet on April 29, 1820, only to become
The National Republican and Ohio Political Register on January
1, 1823. A change in name was made January 3, 1830, to The
National Republican and Cincinnati Daily Mercantile Advertiser,
and on July 11, 1833, to The Cincinnati Republican and Commer-
cial Register.
The third paper in Ohio has already been mentioned, The Sciota Gazette. This influential sheet, so often quoted in New York, Philadelphia, and other papers, was established in Chilli- cothe April 25, 1800, by Nathaniel Willis, a family name often met with in the history of American journalism. The Gazette absorbed The Fredonian in August, 1815, and The Supporter in March, 1821.
Of the other early papers in Ohio mention may be made of The Ohio Gazette and The Territorial and Virginia Herald, the fourth paper in the Northwestern Territory established De- cember 7, 1801, by Wyllys Silliman and Elijah Backus at Marietta; The Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Mercury, by John W. Browne, December 4, 1804, at Cincinnati; The Ohio Herald, by Thomas G. Bradford & Company, July 27, 1805, at Chilli- cothe; The Fredonian, by R. D. Richardson, February 19, 1807, at Chillicothe; The Star, by John McLean, February 13, 1807, at Lebanon; The Commentator, by Dunham and Gardiner, Sep- tember 16, 1807, at Marietta; The Supporter, by George Nashee, September 29, 1808, at Chillicothe; The Independent Republican, by Peter Parcels, September 8, 1809, at Chillicothe; The Im- partial Observer, by John C. Gilkinson & Company March 25, 1809, at St. Clairsville; The Ohio Sentinel, by Isaac G. Burnett May 3, 1810, at Dayton.
Ohio had in 1810 fourteen newspapers and by 1819, thirty- three.
INTEODUCTORY PAPERS OF MISSISSIPPI
As in other States, the first paper in Mississippi was The Gazette. It appeared on, or near August 1, 1800, at Natchez and was called The Mississippi Gazette. Its editor and printer was Benjamin Stokes. For a year, during 1801, the paper was pub- lished by Sackett & Wallace, but later, Mr. Stokes again as- sumed control and continued publication until about January 1, 1802.
On or near August 11, 1801, the second newspaper in Missis- sippi appeared at Natchez and was called The Intelligencer. Its printers were D. Moffett and James Farrell. Its life was short, and was followed by The Mississippi Herald on July 26, 1802. This by all means was the most important paper in this State during its early period. It was printed by Andrew Marschelk. Later, it became The Mississippi Herald and Natchez Gazette. The old files, which once belonged to Colonel Marschelk, show that he conducted the paper under the following titles : Natchez Gazette, Washington Republican, Washington Republican and Natchez Intelligencer, State Gazette, Mississippi Republican, State Gazette, Natchez Newspaper and Public Advertiser, Missis- sippi Statesman, Mississippi Statesman and Natchez Gazette, and finally The Natchez Gazette.
The next paper in Mississippi was The Constitution Conserva- tor, which was founded on or near October 16, 1802, by John Wade at Natchez. On September 1, 1804, John Shaw and Timothy Terrill brought out The Mississippi Messenger at Natchez. The chief distinction of this paper was that many of its editorials were written in doggerel.
BEGINNINGS IN INDIANA
Journalism in Indiana began in Vincennes when Elihu Stout, a printer from Lexington, Kentucky, brought out the first number of The Indiana Gazette on July 31, 1804. The newspaper was produced under great difficulties. The paper was brought to Vincennes on pack-horses which traveled over the old Buf-
falo Trail. The plant itself had been brought from Frankfort, Kentucky, down the Ohio River and up to Wabash in what was then called "piroques." The printing-office burned out in about two years, and the paper was revived on July 11, 1807, by Stout under the title, The Western Sun. Stout was the Territorial Printer and conducted the paper until 1845 when he sold out after he received the office of postmaster.
Other early Indiana papers included The Gazette, established at Corydon in 1814; The Plaindealer, established at Brookville in 1816; The Indiana Republic, established at Madison in 1815; The Indiana Register, established at Vevay in 1816; The Centinel, established at Vincennes in 1817; The Indiana Oracle, established at Lawrenceburg in 1817; The Intelligencer, established at Charleston in 1818. The first directory of Indiana papers was a gazetteer, published in 1831 by the proprietors of The Indiana Journal, and listed for 1832 twenty-nine different newspapers.
Notices similar to the following taken from The Blooming- ton Post appeared frequently in Indiana papers :
Persons expecting to pay for their papers in produce must do so soon, or the cash will be expected. Pork, flour, corn and meal will be taken at the market prices. Also, those who expect to pay us in fire- wood must do so immediately we must have our wood laid for the winter before the roads get bad.
MAIDEN ATTEMPTS IN MISSOURI
Joseph Charless, a printer who had worked on The Kentucky Gazette at Lexington, was the founder of journalism in Missouri. Securing an old Ramage press and a few fonts of type he put his plant aboard a keel-boat on the Ohio and floated down that river to find a permanent location at what is now St. Louis, but was then only a little settlement of about one thousand inhab- itants. Here, on July 12, 1808, he, with the help of Joseph Hinkle, a former printer on a Kentucky Gazette, pulled the first number of The Missouri Gazette. In this period in American his- tory Congress had divided its recently acquired province into the Territories of Orleans and Louisiana. St. Louis was in Lou- isiana Territory, so on December 7, 1809, Charless changed the title from a local to a more general one and called his paper The Louisiana Gazette. When Congress, however, again set off Missouri and Louisiana each as a separate territory, Charless on July 11, 1812, returned to the original name of The Missouri Gazette. Charless retired from the paper on September 13, 1820, when he sold it to James C. Cummins. On March 13, 1822, he, in turn, sold it to Edward Charless, the oldest son of the founder, who changed the name to The Missouri Republican, as a personal tribute to his Jeffersonian doctrines. It is now published as The St. Louis Republic.
In order to counteract the influence of The Gazette the politi- cal opponents of Charless raised a fund of one thousand dollars to start a Republican newspaper in St. Louis. An advertisement in The Lexington Kentucky Reporter brought them Joshua Norbell, of Nashville, Tennessee. Early in May, 1815, he started a rival sheet called The Western Journal. Two years later he was suc- ceeded by Sergeant Hall, of Cincinnati, who issued the first number of his paper under the new name of The Western Emi- grant. Two years later the paper became The St. Louis Enquirer, which once had for its editor Thomas H. Benton, who later for- sook journalism for politics and became the United States Senator.
SPOKEN PAPER IN MICHIGAN
Journalism in Michigan began with that most interesting pre- cursor, the spoken newspaper, conducted under the auspices of the Reverend Father Gabriel Richard, a priest of the Order of Sulpice, who came to Detroit in 1798 as resident pastor of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Anne. Mention has been made in an earlier chapter of how he appointed a town-crier whose duty it was on Sunday to stand on the church steps and to tell the public in general and the congregation in particular such news as was fit to speak. Advertising had its place in this spoken newspaper which told of the things for sale, etc. For the benefit of those absent at the spoken edition a written one was publicly posted near the church. For some time Father Richard was assisted in this way of publishing the news by Theopolis Meetz, who was at the time sacristan of St. Anne's Church, but who later
became a printer and newspaper publisher. FIRST PRINTED PAPER
Out of this spoken, and later written, newspaper, grew the first printed sheet in Michigan entitled The Michigan Essay, or Impartial Observer. It first appeared in Detroit on August 31, 1809. As editor and publisher Father Richard selected one of his parishioners, James M. Miller. The French section not a half, as has so often been asserted, but about a column and a half was undoubtedly written by the Father himself. An editorial announcement informed the public that the paper would be published every Thursday and handed to city subscrib- ers at five dollars per annum, payable half-yearly in advance. It stated its policy in the following words: "The public are respectfully informed that the Essay will be conducted with the utmost impartiality; that it will not espouse any political party, but fairly and candidly communicate whatever may be deemed worthy of information, whether foreign, domestic, or local."
The second paper in Michigan was The Detroit Gazette, started on July 25, 1817, by Sheldon & Reed. This was the first perma- nent newspaper in Michigan, and like its predecessor, The Michi- gan Essay, it had to serve not only the English but also the French population of the city. One page was in French and the other three in English. It had an unusually hard time to make both ends meet, for in its issue of July 14, 1820, it asserted that only ninety of its one hundred and fifty-two subscribers had paid their subscriptions and not a single advertiser had yet met his bill. In spite of this fact, however, the paper survived until April 22, 1830.
The next paper was The Michigan Herald, also of Detroit, brought out on May 10, 1825, by H. Chipman and Joseph Seymour.
RUSH FOR ALABAMA
The first paper in what is now Alabama was unquestionably The Mobile Sentinel, published by Samuel Miller and John B. Hood at Fort Stoddert, May 23, 1811. These men were so de- termined to be the first in Mobile journalism that they started south before the city was annexed, but were compelled to stop for the printing outside in the neighborhood of St. Stephens, where they began to print The Mobile Sentinel while under the protection of Fort Stoddert. Sixteen issues of this paper at least were brought out, but whether a single one of them was actually printed in Mobile is not known.
Mobile under Spanish rule surrendered to General James Wilkinson, April 13, 1813. On April 28, 1813, a Mobile Gazette with an account of the affair was published. Its editor and pub- lisher was George B. Cotton. Cotton, in selling out his interest, said in his farewell in the issue of June 23, 1819, that The Mo- bile Gazette was started under his management in the infancy of the town, and some have taken this assertion to mean that the paper was in existence while Mobile was under Spanish rule. This seems extremely doubtful.
The Commercial Register, the predecessor of the present Mo- bile Register, appeared on December 10, 1821. In 1823 The Register printed a brief note that it had purchased the title, interest, and property of The Mobile Gazette.
ORIGIN IN ILLINOIS
The year of 1814 saw the first newspaper in Illinois. It was called The Illinois Herald and was published at Kaskaskia by Matthew Duncan, Printer to the Territory and publisher of the Laws of the Union, 1815. Duncan was a native of Virginia and came to Illinois by way of Kentucky. The paper appeared on or near June 24, 1814, as Number 30 .of Volume I is dated De- cember 13, 1814. On April 24, 1816, the paper became The Western Intelligencer and was published by Robert Blackwell and Daniel P. Cook. On May 27, 1818, the paper became The Illinois Intelligencer and continued publication under that title until October 14, 1820, when it suspended, only to be revived on December 14 of that year at Vandalia which had become the Capital of the State.
The second paper, The Illinois Immigrant, appeared in Shaw- neetown on June 13, 1818, with Henry Eddy and Singleton H. Kimmel as editors. On September 25, 1819, it became The Il- linois Gazette.
Difficulties of printing the early papers in Illinois was illustrated in the following editorial by James Hall, the editor of The Illinois Gazette, in 1821 :
After a lapse of several weeks (three months to be exact) we are now enabled to resume the publication of our sheet. Paper (the want of which has been the cause of the late interruption) was shipped for us early last fall, on board a boat bound for St. Louis to which place, owing probably to the forgetfulness of the Master, it was carried and has but just now come to hand. . . . High and low water it seems are equally our enemies the one is sure to delay the arrival of some article necessary to the prosecution of our labors, while the other hurries some- thing of which we stand in the most pressing need, down the current beyond our reach.
PARTY ORGANS IN ARKANSAS
Journalism began in Arkansas when William E. Woodruff printed at the Post of Arkansas the first number of The Arkan- sas Gazette on November 20, 1819. A native of Long Island, he had arrived at the Post on October 30, 1819, from Franklin, Tennessee, bringing with him by canoes and dug-outs a press and some type. Being the Printer to the Territory he ceased to bring out The Gazette at the Post on November 24, 1821, and went to Little Rock, which had been made the Capital. Here he revived his paper on December 29, 1821, and continued it as the official organ of the State until 1833. That year he refused to let The Arkansas Gazette be simply a mouthpiece for Governor Pope. Woodruff, like most of the early editors in the West, had political aspirations and used his newspaper to help in their achievement, but when elected State Treasurer in October, 1836, he sold his paper to Cole & Spooner. The latter soon retired, and going to Hartford, joined the staff of The Courant; the former continued The Gazette until about 1840, when, for political and other reasons, he had to withdraw from the paper, which came again to Woodruff, its former owner. Three years later he sold it to Benjamin J. Bordon, who changed it from a Demo- cratic to a Whig paper. Chagrined at this change in policy of The Arkansas Gazette, Woodruff started, with the help of John E. Knight, in 1846, The Arkansas Democrat. Four years later the two papers were combined under the title, The Gazette and Democrat. The paper was eventually sold to Captain Columbus Danley, who dropped the Democrat from the title when The True Democrat appeared. Save for its suspension in 1863-65, The Arkansas Gazette has continued publication until to-day.
The second paper in the State was The Advocate brought out at Little Rock in March, 1830, by Charles P. Bertrand, a native of New York City and a frontier lawyer of unusual ability. It was owned and edited by him until 1835 when it passed into the control of Albert Pike and Charles E. Rice. The same year that The Advocate was established, The Democrat was founded at Helena by Henry L. Biscoe: its editor, however, was William T. Yeomans. After the rupture between Governor Pope and The Arkansas Gazette Andrew J. Hunt, in December, 1833, started at Little Rock The Political Intelligencer; edited by Colonel John W. Steele, it became the official spokesman for Governor Pope until the end of his term. Later, becoming a Whig organ, it changed its name to The Times. On Hunt's death The Times and The Advocate joined forces under the leadership of Albert Pike. Charles T. Towne in 1839 called for a short time The Witness to the stand in behalf of the Demo- cratic Party. C. F. M. Noland let loose The Eagle at Batesville in 1840 to cry for the Whigs. David Lambert let The Star first shine in Little Rock the same year.
TEXAS SIFTINGS
When Commodore Aury, Colonel Mina, and Captain Perry were stationed at Galveston Island in 1816 the military orders and others news were printed on a small sheet by Samuel Bangs, a peripatetic printer coming from Baltimore. While this sheet could hardly be called the first newspaper, it was a sort of pre- cursor to journalism in Texas. Another precursor appeared in 1819 when the Long Expedition reached Nacogdoches and made that point its headquarters. During its stay Horatio Bigelow published a small sheet more or less regularly; it gave the history of the Expedition, however, rather than general news.
The first real paper of the Lone Star State was The Texas Gazette, which made its appearance September 29, 1829, and was published by Godwin Brown Gotten in San Felipe, Austin County. The Texas Gazette survived until 1832 when it was purchased by D. W. Anthony and united with The Texas Gazette and Brazoria Commercial Advertiser, a paper started in 1830 by Mr. Anthony at Brazoria. The union was called The Constitutional Advocate and The Texas Public Advertiser and its first issue appeared on August 30, 1832. One year later Anthony died of the cholera in Brazoria. In July, 1834, F. C. Gray and A. J. Harris began in Brazoria the publication of The Texas Republican, a paper which continued until the invasion of Santa Anna in 1836. Of The Advocate of the Peoples' Rights, another paper started in Brazoria in 1834 by Oliver H. Allen, little is known, and not much more about The Texian Advocate and Immigrants' Guide, which appeared spasmodically during 1835–36 in Nacogdoches.