The First Daily Newspapers.

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CHAPTER XII.

THE FIRST DAILY NEWSPAPERS.

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THE AMERICAN DAILY ADVERTISER OF PHILADELPHIA.-NATIONAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT. THE DAILY ADVERTISER OF NEW YORK.-JUNIUS AND THE FEDERALIST. INTERESTING INCIDENTS. -OLD LANG'S GAZETTE. — AULD LANG SYNE.-SHIPPING NEWS AND NEWS-BOATS. THE UNITED STATES GAZETTE AND NORTH AMERICAN OF PHILADELPHIA.-NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE. THE IMPARTIAL INTELLIGENCER.

THE first daily newspaper published in the United States was the American Daily Advertiser. It was issued in Philadelphia in 1784, by Benjamin Franklin Bache, afterwards of the Aurora. When the seat of national government was in Philadelphia, it shared the confidence and support of Jefferson with the National Gazette. It was strong in its opposition to the Federal section of the administration of Washington, and to all the measures originating with Hamilton. Zachariah Poulson became its proprietor and publisher in 1802, and it was known as Poulson's Advertiser, and we believe he continued its publisher till October 28, 1839, when the establishment was sold to Brace and Newbold, the publishers of a new paper called the North American. The name after that was the North American and Daily Advertiser. The Advertiser came from the Pennsylvania Packet, published by Dunlap and Claypole. Its character was like that of Poulson, its proprietor, very slow and very respectable. Poulson died in Philadelphia July 30, 1844.

The New York Daily Advertiser, the second real journal in the United States, was published in 1785. It was commenced on the 1st of March by Francis Childs & Co. It had a little unpleasantness with the Journal. Colonel Oswald, of the latter, charged the Advertiser with a design to injure the Widow Holt, of the Journal, and quite a newspaper quarrel grew out of the affair.

On the 24th of April, 1789, when Washington arrived at New York from Mount Vernon to enter upon the duties of President, after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, he was received at Elizabethtown, and escorted thence to the city by a procession of boats. In the account of the affair, it is stated that the schooner Columbia, Captain Philip Freneau, eight days from Charleston, came up the bay with the aquatic procession. Shortly after this event Freneau became the editor of the Advertiser, and continued in that

capacity till the removal of the seat of government to Philadelphia. It was supposed that the articles against the Journal were written by him.

John Pintard, so well known in New York, where he was born in 1759, and where he died in 1844, was another writer for the Advertiser. Pintard was a strong Federalist, but he and Freneau were close and intimate friends. On all public occasions, and in all public improvements, Pintard was favorably conspicuous. Many of the valuable and useful institutions of the metropolis were suggested by him.

The first paper printed in Maine was the Falmouth Gazette and Weekly Advertiser, on the 1st of January, 1785. It was published by Thomas B. Wait and Benjamin Titcomb. In 1786, when Portland was incorporated and made out of Falmouth, this paper was printed by Wait, and called the Cumberland Gazette. Titcomb shortly after commenced the publication of the Gazette of Maine. It was discontinued in 1796. The Eastern Star was established in Hallowell in that year. Elijah Russell, in 1798, issued a paper in Fryeburg, where Daniel Webster taught school a few years later. This paper was known as Russell's Echo, or the North Star—a queer combination of names. Its proprietor had previously printed a paper

in Concord, N. H.

There was a daily paper issued in Portland in 1829, called the Daily Courier. It was edited by Seba Smith, Jr., the original Jack Downing, of Downingsville. The Courier was commenced on the 13th of October. On the 5th of January, 1831, the Daily Evening Advertiser, the second daily paper in Portland, was published by John and William E. Edwards. It was in this office that James and Erastus Brooks, of the New York Express, started as journalists. The Advertiser afterwards published a morning edition, which was discontinued in 1869. In an obituary notice of William Bartlett Sewall, who died in Kennebunk in 1869, it was stated that he became editor of the Advertiser in 1833, and held that position for several years.

One of those veteran newspapers, that seem to live through all time without growing beyond an influence acquired in their youth, is published in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the Hampshire Gazette. William Butler issued the first number on the 6th of September, 1786. It is an historical paper. In the midst of the excitement growing out of Shay's Rebellion, when meetings were held at which the supposed grievances of the people were strongly depicted, it became necessary to establish a paper to convey information to the people in the interest of the government, and to stem the current of popular insubordination. The Hampshire Gazette was

Value of Newspapers after the Revolution. 177

the paper thus established. Among the writers for its columns were Caleb Strong, afterwards governor of the state, the Rev. Joseph Lyman, and Major Hawley. It became the duty of patriotism in the infancy of the republic to crush at once the schemes of the demagogues then floating with the debris of the Revolution throughout the country, taking advantage of the scarcity of money and the heavy taxes to excite the people to revolt, and it was only by means of newspapers that this could be effectually accomplished. Open insurrections and rebellions, it is true, are physically suppressed by military power, but the only way to reach the minds of the people, and unite sections and communities in the bitterness of their supposed troubles, is through the newspaper, which penetrates to the hearths, and heads, and hearts of every family, and silently and effectively accomplishes its object.

After the suppression of Shay, and Day, and Parson, and their associates, the Gazette continued in existence, and became a permanent institution. It was owned by William A. Hawley in 1852, and was the third oldest paper in Massachusetts, the Salem Gazette and Worcester Spy being its seniors.

With the settlement of the country newspapers began to spread with the population. It is one of the characteristics of America that the newspaper keeps up with the migration of the people. In the progress of the Pacific Railroad, the Frontier Index, as we have stated, moved on toward the setting sun, keeping a little ahead of the rails and the locomotive. On the 29th of July, 1786, the Pittsburg (Penn.) Gazette, the first newspaper printed west of the Alleghany Mountains, appeared, and in 1796 the Post was issued, and now there are ten or eleven daily papers printed, three or four of which are in German. The Oracle of Dauphin was issued in Harrisburg in 1791. It was the first newspaper in that place. John Wyeth was its editor. The late chief justice of Pennsylvania, Ellis Lewis, and Senator Simon Cameron, were apprentices of Mr. Wyeth. The first paper printed in Kentucky was commenced by John Bradford, in Lexington, also in 1786. Another was soon after issued in Frankfort.

If, in the estimation of many, the letters of Junius, published in the Public Advertiser of London in 1765, gave an impulse to the power and influence of the Press in England such as it never before enjoyed, what has been the effect of the Federalist, published in the Independent Journal in New York in 1787, on the power and influence of the Press of America? We have seen in these sketches the necessity of the Press in preparing the people for a revolution, and in sustaining the authorities through that eventful struggle. It is true that our independence could not have been achieved by the

M.

Press alone, but mental force was as necessary to success as physical force. It has been so in all great revolutions, and in all important movements affecting the people. On one occasion a Hungarian officer was asked if Kossuth had any military capacity or experience. "Not exactly," replied the officer, "but he was our lip warrior." "Lip warrior?" we asked. "Yes," continued the Hungarian; "when our men were discouraged and needed a little urging, Kossuth would appeal to them with his eloquence, or make a prayer as no other man could, and our soldiers would go to work again with renewed ardor and enthusiasm." So with Junius. So, too, with the power of the newspapers in the Revolution of 1776 and the Rebellion of 1861, and so with the influence of the communications of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, known as the Federalist, in accomplishing the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, under which we have become a great and powerful nation.

The first number of the Federalist was published in the Independent Journal on the 27th of October, 1787. This paper was printed by J. & A. M'Lean, in Hanover Square, New York, near where the Journal of Commerce is now printed. The remaining numbers were published in that and the other papers of that day. They were afterwards collected, and printed in two volumes under this title: THE FEDERALIST: A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, WRITTEN IN FAVOR OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION, as agreed upON BY THE FEDERAL CONVENTION, SEPT. 17, 1787, IN TWO VOLUMES, VOLUME I. NEW YORK. PRINTED & SOLD

BY J & A MCLEAN. NO 41 HANOVER SQUARE, 1788.

The preface, written by Hamilton, thus introduces the letters, giv ing the reasons for their republication:

It is supposed that a collection of the papers which have made their appearance in the Gazettes of this City, under the Title of the Federalist, may not be without effect in assisting the public judgement on the momentous question of the Constitution for the United States, now under the consideration of the people of America. A desire to throw full light upon so interesting a subject has led, in a great measure unavoidably, to a more copious discussion than was at first intended. And the undertaking not being yet completed, it is judged advisable to divide the collection into two Volumes, of which the ensuing Numbers constitute the first. The second Volume will follow as speedily as the Editor can get it ready for publication.

In this more compact form the Federalist was sent to several State Conventions before which the Constitution was then pending. These communications were anonymous when originally published, and the authorship of several of the essays has been a matter of controversy as late as 1864, but it can be so no longer. Madison, in December, 1787, in writing to Edmund Randolph in regard to the Federalist, was reticent as to the names of those concerned with him in their production. He said:

You will probably discover marks of different pens. I am not at liberty to give you any other key, than, that I am in myself for a few numbers; and that one, besides myself, was a member of the Convention.

Junius and the Federalist.

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About the year 1850, Colonel Alexander Hamilton purchased at an old book-stand in Nassau Street, then opposite the office of the New York Herald, kept by John M'Cabe, and much frequented by such men as Washington Irving, an old copy of the Federalist, for which he paid seventy-five cents. After looking over it with great interest and curiosity, Colonel Hamilton crossed the street and walked into the editorial rooms of the Herald. "Well, this is very singular," said Colonel Hamilton. "Here is a copy of the Federalist that I have just bought that has the initial letter of each writer of each essay over each one, and the initials seem to be in the handwriting of my father."

It had probably been marked by the elder Hamilton for some friend into whose library it passed, and out of which, in the whirligig of time, it had slipped in some auction, and thence on to the dusty old book-shelves of John M'Cabe; and after a lapse of fifty or sixty years, a son of one of the distinguished writers finds the old copy, with its additional evidence of authorship, in one of the narrow byways of the metropolis.

According to Rives's Life and Times of James Madison, the Federalist appeared in the New York Daily Advertiser. It is probable that Madison had saved the essays as they appeared in that paper. But the first essay was published in the Independent Journal, and after that they appeared in all the papers. Mr. Hamilton left a memorandum in the law-office of a friend on the eve of his fatal duel with Burr by which it appeared that he wrote sixty-five out of the eighty-five essays. Mr. Madison wrote, in the original edition of 1788, the names of the authors, and by this it seems he wrote twenty-nine. It is claimed that Jay wrote six. There is a mistake somewhere, but it is of very little consequence. This distinguished trio accomplished the great object they had at heart, and that is their reward as well as our gain.

The M'Leans, in consequence, probably, of the name of Independent Journal conflicting with Holt's Journal Revived, which opposed Washington's administration, changed the title of their paper to that of the New York Gazette in 1788. It was afterwards published by John Lang, Lang and Turner, Lang, Turner, and Co., Lang's Sons, and Alexander M'Call. The Gazette evidently never aspired to be a commanding journal. Its most important and interesting matter was its shipping intelligence, to which its managers paid great attention. There was no other marked feature in the paper. There is an anecdote illustrative of the character of its chief editor which we must record. It is told by Dr. Francis:

The scholastic discussions which occurred on the question of the commencement of the present century, awaked some attention among the mathematicians