Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/271

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BEGINNINGS IN STATES AND TERRITORIES
235

The second paper in Iowa was started at Mount Rose in 1836 by Dr. Isaac Glalland. He called his paper The Western Adventurer. After a struggle of two years he took it to Fort Madison, where it was purchased by James G. Edwards, who, on March 24, 1838, converted it to a Whig sheet called The Fort Madison Patriot. The paper was finally moved to Burlington where it is now known as The Hawk-Eye. On August 4, 1838, The Iowa Sun and Davenport and Rock Island News appeared simultaneously at Davenport, Iowa, and at Stephenson (now Rock Island, Illinois), and was published by Andrew Logan. The fourth paper was The Iowa Standard, first brought out at Bloomington October 23, 1840, and a year later removed to Iowa-City.

The Iowa Standard was only four days ahead of The Bloomington Herald, issued on October 27, 1840, with Thomas Hughes and John B. Russell as editors. This paper, after some changes, became The Muscatine Journal, under which name it is still published. The Courier was established at Fort Madison by R. Wilson Albright on July 24, 1841.


INDIAN PAPERS OF OKLAHOMA

To the Cherokees unquestionably belongs the honor of printing the first and many of the early papers in what was the Indian Territory but is now the State of Oklahoma. The first of these was The Cherokee Messenger, started in August, 1844, at Cherokee Baptist Mission. Edited by the Reverend Evan Jones, it was more of a religious and temperance pamphlet than a newspaper: printed at irregular intervals it might more justly be considered the precursor of journalism in the Indian Territory.

The first real newspaper was the national organ of the Cherokee Nation. Its National Council on October 25, 1843, had passed an act to establish a printing-press and to print a newspaper, and on September 26, 1844, there appeared at Tahlequah the first number of The Cherokee Advocate. Under the editorship of William P. Ross it was printed in both the English and Cherokee languages. The Cherokee Nation fixed the subscription price at three dollars per year "except to those persons who read only the Cherokee language and they shall pay two dollars."