senator in 1835–1839 and 1843–1849 and was postmaster-general of the United States in 1840–1841.
Next to the Courant, the oldest paper still published in Connecticut is the New Haven Journal, established as a weekly in 1766 (the weekly edition is now styled the Connecticut Herald), which first appeared as a daily in 1834 as the Morning Journal and Courier. The New London Gazette (1763), which in 1773 became the Connecticut Gazette, ceased publication in 1844. Another Gazette was established in New London for a time, but is no longer published and was in no way connected with the earlier paper. The Danbury News (weekly, 1870, when The Times and Jeffersonian were consolidated; daily, 1883) is known for the humorous sketches contributed by its proprietor James Montgomery Bailey (1841–1894). The Republican Farmer (weekly) was established in 1790 in Danbury and in 1810 removed to Bridgeport; the Evening Farmer was first published in 1855. The Norwich Courier (weekly, 1796) has a daily edition, the Bulletin (1858).
Rhode Island.—The oldest paper now published in Rhode Island is the Newport Mercury (weekly; 1758), which, like most of the other New England patriot sheets, was suppressed in 1765; it was established by James Franklin, a nephew of Benjamin Franklin.
Pennsylvania.—The Aurora (1790) was the most notable of the early Philadelphia papers, next to Franklin’s Gazette. It was founded by Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, who in 1784 had started the American Daily Advertiser, the first American daily. Bache and his successor William Duane (who edited the paper till 1822) bitterly attacked Washington, Adams and Hamilton; and the Aurora after 1793 was practically the organ of Jefferson, but ceased to be of importance after the national capital was removed from Philadelphia. From 1791 to 1793 the principal Anti-Federalist paper was the National Gazette, edited by Philip Freneau, whom Jefferson brought to Philadelphia. As opposed to these there was the United States Gazette, founded in New York in 1789, but removed to Philadelphia in 1790, which represented Alexander Hamilton. This journal afterwards (1826–1847) was an important Whig organ, under the editorship of Joseph Ripley Chandler (1792–1880). In 1847 it was consolidated with the North American (1830), which still survives in Philadelphia, having in its progress also absorbed the Pennsylvania Gazette (1729–1845), for a time owned by Benjamin Franklin, the Pennsylvania Packet (founded 1771) and other papers.
Other important Philadelphia papers still in existence are, the Public Ledger (1836), founded as a one-cent paper, purchased in 1864 by George W. Childs, who increased the price from 614 to 10 cents a week; the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, which consolidated the American Sentinel (1815) and the Evening Bulletin (1847); and the Press (1857), edited from 1880 to 1908 by Charles Emory Smith (1842–1908), United States Minister to Russia in 1890–1892, and postmaster-general of the United States in 1898–1902.
Benjamin Lundy edited in Philadelphia in 1836–1838 the National Enquirer (anti-slavery), which became the Pennsylvania Freeman and in 1838–1840 was edited by John G. Whittier.
Outside of Philadelphia the oldest papers of importance in Pennsylvania are the Pittsburgh Gazette, first published in 1786 and probably the first newspaper published west of the Alleghanies, which in 1906 was consolidated with the Times (1879) to form the Gazette Times; and the Pittsburgh Post (1792; daily, 1842), one of the few influential Democratic papers published in Pennsylvania; the Pittsburgh Dispatch (1846) is a morning paper. Other papers founded before 1801 (and still published) in Pennsylvania are: the Franklin Repository of Chambersburg (weekly, 1790; daily, 1883), of which A. K. McClure was proprietor and editor in 1850–1856; the Reading Adler (weekly, 1796), the oldest existing German newspaper in the country; the Intelligencer of Lancaster (1799), with which the Journal (1794) was combined in 1839; the Westmoreland Democrat of Greensburg (weekly, 1799); the Herald of Norristown (weekly, 1799; daily, 1848).
Maryland.—The earliest journal of Maryland was William Parks’s Maryland Gazette, of Annapolis, begun in 1727, when in all America it had but six existing predecessors. Discontinued in 1736, it was revived in 1739 by Jonas Green and lasted till 1839. The oldest paper now published in Baltimore is the American, the successor of the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser founded in August 1773; on the 21st September 1814 it published “The Star Spangled Banner.” The Baltimore Sun was started in 1837.
New Jersey.—New Jersey had no really established newspaper before the Revolution, although the first number of an intended journal was published in 1765, under the title of the Constitutional Gazette, containing matters interesting to Liberty, but no wise repugnant to Royalty. The earliest regular paper was the New Jersey Gazette, which began in December 1777 at Burlington (soon removing to Trenton), and ceased publication in 1786. A State Gazette (weekly), now published in Trenton, dates from 1792 (daily, 1846); Trenton’s largest paper is the Times (evening; 1882). The Sentinel of Freedom, a Newark weekly, was first published in 1796; its daily edition, the Star, dates from 1832. Newark’s largest paper is the Evening News (1883). The New Brunswick Times was first published as a weekly in 1792; a daily edition was added in 1849.
Virginia.—Virginia, notwithstanding its illustrious precedency—the province of Raleigh, the cradle of Washington—possessed neither newspaper nor printing office until 1736, so that (as respects one-half at least of the wish) there was once a prospect that the devout aspiration of Sir William Berkeley might be realized. “Thank God,” said this Virginian governor in 1671, “we have neither free school nor printing press, and I hope may not have for a hundred years to come.” The earliest journal established in the state was the Virginia Gazette, commenced in 1736. It was still published at Williamsburg in 1766, when a second paper of the same name was established there. This second paper, backed by Thomas Jefferson, was afterwards called the American Advertiser and then the Commercial Advertiser, and stopped in 1822. The Richmond Enquirer, which started in 1808, succeeding the Examiner, early attained a leading position as a Democratic organ; it was discontinued in 1880. The Alexandria Gazette (1816) is still published.
Washington, D.C.—The first “administration organ” (i.e. expressing the political views of the administration, but not officially a government paper), was the National Intelligencer (1800); this position it held until 1829, when it became an opposition paper. In Jackson’s administration the United States Telegraph, which had been purchased in 1826 by Duff Green, became the “administration organ”; but in 1830 it was supplanted by the Globe. The United States Telegraph, which had supported Calhoun, remained his organ until 1835, strongly favouring slavery and opposing the abolition press. The Globe after December 1830 was conducted by Francis Preston Blair the elder and John C. Rives (1795–1864); it opposed Nullification, Secession, and the Southern wing of the Democratic party. In 1841 the National Intelligencer became the administration organ; it was succeeded in the same year by a new paper, the Daily Madisonian, President Tyler’s organ, and in 1845 the Union became the organ of President Polk. To the Union in 1845 the Globe sold out, but only as a party organ. In 1846 to 1871 the Globe was the publisher of the Congressional debates. President Taylor’s organ during his administration was the newly established Republican. During President Fillmore’s presidency the National Intelligencer, which was a Webster-Whig organ, returned to power, and during Pierce’s administration the Union was again the administration organ, with the Evening Star (1852) a close second. In Buchanan’s administration the influence of the Union continued. During the Civil War most of these papers died off, except the Star and the National Intelligencer, which in 1870 removed to New York, where it stayed as a semi-weekly for some time. The Washington Post, now the leading paper, was founded in 1877. The National Era, the organ of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, first published in Washington in 1844 (the Cincinnati Philanthropist was merged with it in 1847) by Gamaliel Bailey, is known principally because Uncle Tom’s Cabin ran in its columns as a serial in 1851–1852. A New
