Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/747

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY 651 published in Minnesota. No files are in existence thai ••an be found. The origin of this paper was as follows: The press and material of the Ked Wing •'Sentinel" having been sold to Alexis Kailly on .May 15, 1856, and moved from Ked Wing to Hastings to start the Dakota Weekly "Journal," Red Wing was left with- out a newspaper. Nehemiah V. and Cornelius Bennett then stepped in with a new plant and started the Minnesota "Gazette." As the "Pioneer and Democrat, " of St. Paul, on July 3, 1856, and the Northwestern "Democrat" of Minneapolis, on July 5th, an- nounced the receipt of the first number of the "Gazette," it is safe to assume that it was started about July 1. N. V. Bennett was the editor and Cornelius Bennett the publisher. June ti. 1857, the Red Wing "Gazette" changed owners, Mr. Bennett having sold to Dan S. Merritt. Mr. Merritt published the paper under the name of the "Gazette," according to statistics as late as July 25, 1857. and then changed the name back to the Red Wing "Sentinel." picking up the old volume and number of the '•Sentinel" and going on as though the "Gazette" had never existed. Red Wing "Sentinel," No. 2, was the fifty-seventh newspaper begun in Minnesota. After Merritt and Hutchins sold. the press and materials of the "Sentinel," No. 1, to Alexis Bailly, it went to Hastings, as has been stated. The "Gazette" was then started by N. V. and C. Bennett, and Merritt went into the hotel business. Tiring of that business, he bought the "Gazette," according to the "Advertiser," of St. Paul, about June 1, 1857. and ran it un- der that name until about August 1 of that year, as the "Adver- tiser" quotes the "Gazette" as late as July 25. The issue of August 1 of the "Advertiser" then makes its first mention of the "Sentinel," so that must have been about the time the change was made. Bennett, in the meantime, formed another alliance with William Colvill, afterward well known as the colonel of the First Minnesota regiment, so that the latter became editor of the "Sentinel" No. 2, as he had been of No. 1. Bennett also be- came its publisher, and, without further ceremony, the volume and numbers of Red Wing "Sentinel," No. 1. were picked up and carried on, the same as though there had been no sale of tin 1 press and material of the old "Sentinel" to Bailly. no valedictory of the "Sentinel," as noted by the "Pioneer and Democrat" of May 15, 1855, and no intervening publication of the Minnesota Gazette to supply its place. On March 26, 1859. Merritt sold again, and on April !>, 1859, K. A. Littlefield and Martin Maginnis, the latter afterward delegate to Congress from Montana, became the publishers. Colvill remaining as editor. On February 4. 1860, Colvill sold his interest to W. W. Phelps, who had been the mem- ber of Congress from the Red Wing district, because, as lie said