164
��EARLY HISTORY OF THE CONCORD PRESS.
��EARLY HISTORY OF THE CONCORD PRESS.
��BY ASA McFARLAND.
��The first weekly newspaper published in Concord, made its appearance January 6, 1 790. It was issued by Mr. George Hough, a native of Boz- rah, Conn, who came to Concord from Windsor, Vt., where he had published the Vermont Journal. The four pages of the Herald were each nine by four- teen inches, and bore the marks of care and correct taste. Within a year or two the paper was enlarged and appeared as the "Courier of New Hampshire."
I have derived great satisfaction in examining such files of " Hough's Con- cord Herald " and his " Courier of New Hampshire" as came in my way ; and am of opinion that if those files were now submitted to a discriminating committee of printers, they who com- posed it would be surprised, that with his scanty materials and the rude hand press of those days, Mr. Hough con- trived to bring out a sheet, which, for typographical correctness, methodical arrangement, and general good taste, would come off victor in a competi- tive examination with many journals of the present day.
I knew George Hough in my boy- hood days — he being a frequent and ever-welcome guest in my father's house, and a favorite whithersoever he went. He permitted his "moderation to be known of all men," and I can never forget the care with which he always prepared and the deliberation with which he ate an apple, when that was the fruit passed around, or how systematically he punctuated his path, as he walked from his dwelling, now the abode of Dr. Russell, to his office. I was several months in his office, sup- plying the place of Moses G. Atwood, Esq., who died some years ago in Alton, 111., and, in common with all who were ever in his service, bear testimony to his uniform kindness. As was apt to
��be the case with printers of papers at that time, he had not much aptitude with his pen, except to write a very round, legible and faultless hand. He had passed through no training that prepared him to perform literary labor, even for the columns of a village jour- nal. He wrote, however, with gram- matical accuracy, but had very little mental vigor, and it may be doubted if he could have written a pungent para- graph, however favorable the opportu- nity, or whatever his provocation. But his correct mechanical taste and nat- ural good- sense were auxiliaries which enabled him to produce a weekly pa- per that was by no means so far behind those of Boston as Concord was less than the commercial metropolis of New England. He had such appreciation of the necessities of readers that he was careful to select, from the meagre supplies at his command, an amount of foreign and domestic occurrences fully equal to the capacity of his columns, and to issue his supplies with as much prompitude and completeness as was practicable at a period in our history when the transportation of mails was irregular, the arrival of ships still more so, and village journals were diminu- tive sheets. I have many times taken notice, in files of Hough's " Courier of New Hampshire," of its foreign news feature, and been enter- tained by perusal of its columns long after the events there recorded ceased to disturb and interest mankind. The celebrated speech of Maximilian Ro- bespierre, delivered in the national con- vention of France, July 26, 1794, three days only before its author as- cended the scaffold, is to be found in the Courier, — a proof that Mr. Hough was desirous of doing all in his power to supply readers with the momentous transactions of that period.
�� �
