USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > Centennial history of the city of Washington, D. C. With full outline of the natural advantages, accounts of the Indian tribes, selection of the site, founding of the city to the present time > Part 48
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The Daily Patriot was the result of an effort made by several wealthy gentlemen in the Atlantic cities to collect a fund of $100,000 with which to found a conservative Democratie paper at Washington. The office began operations November 14, 1870. It was at that time the only Democratie paper in the city. Its chief editor was James E. Harvey, with Oscar K. Harris as chief of the news department, the business manager being James G. Berrett, formerly Mayor of Wash- ington. By 1872, all of these gentlemen had retired from their positions, and the general direction of the paper was then in the hands of Colonel W. H. Philip, J. C. McGuire, and R. T. Merrick. A. G. Allen was the editor-in-chief, and Louis Bagger local editor. This paper is not now published.
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The Evening Star was first issued as a specimen paper, December 12, 1852, the regular daily issue beginning December 16. Its original size was but little larger than a good-sized letter sheet, and its edition was but little more than eight hundred. The printing was done on a hand press. It was first issued by Captain J. B. Tate at the corner of Eighth and D streets, but the next year it was removed to the corner of Sixth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. In May, 1854, it was removed to the second story of a blacksmith shop on D Street, near Twelfth Street, Northwest, on the site of the present Franklin Engine House. Soon after this removal, Mr. Tate sold the paper to W. D. Wallach and W. II. Hope, Mr. Wallach becoming sole proprietor a short time afterward. Toward the latter part of 1854, the office was removed to the corner of Eleventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, the corner recently occupied by Dowling, the anctioneer, but now included in the city post-office site. In 1855, C. S. Noyes, the present editor-in-chief, became connected with the paper. Mr. Wallach retained his ownership until 1867, at which time he sold it to C. S. Noyes, S. II. Kauffmann, Alexander R. Shep- herd, Clarence Baker, and George W. Adams, for $110,000. In 1868, these gentlemen were incorporated into the Evening Star Newspaper Company, by a special act of Congress. Some time afterward, Messrs. Baker and Shepherd sold their interests. In about 1863, a Hoe rotary press was introduced into the establishment.
In 1881, the rapid growth of the paper demanding for it more commodious quarters, the Evening Star moved to its present loca- tion, at the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Eleventh Street, and at the same time added to its facilities by the introduction of a modern perfecting press and folding machine. But even this press, with its wonderful speed, was unable to keep pace with the growth of the paper's circulation, and the following year another press of similar character was added, and since then still another press has been put in, so that now three of the fastest presses which invention has produced, having a combined capacity of twelve hundred papers a minute, are required to print the Star every evening in time for early distribution to its subscribers. The Star, when it moved to its present location, purchased the property fronting on the avenue, and also the adjoining building fronting on Eleventh Street. These two buildings, however, were not sufficient to meet the growing demands of the paper; so, in 1890, the company erected an additional four-story build- ing on Eleventh Street, having a front of fifty-five feet and a depth of one hundred feet, making the entire frontage of the Star buildings
Crosby S. noyes
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on Eleventh Street one hundred and eighty feet. Recently, the company purchased the building on Pennsylvania Avenue, adjoining the corner, and now occupies a portion of that also. One great 'characteristic of the paper is its devotion to local interests, and the care and fullness with which it covers Washington news; but its enterprise does not stop here, for it gives every evening, with a completeness and fullness never exceeded by any evening paper, the news of the day from all the world. Special wires bring into the office the latest intelligence from all over the globe up to the moment of going to press; private telephone wires, with improved long-distance telephones, connect the office with the Capitol and the District Government buildings, and other long-distance telephones give ready communication not only with every point in the District, but with distant cities as well. The Evening Star, though so preeminently a local paper, has a reputation as the representative paper of the Capital, and its writers furnish much of the reading in the way of Washington news that the people of the country get, for the Wash- ington correspondence of newspapers in different parts of the country is largely borrowed from the columns of the Star, that which appears in the Star in the evening being telegraphed away, and appearing the next morning in the dailies throughout the country. The circula- tion of the Evening Star averaged, for 1891, thirty-three thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five copies daily.
Shortly before nine o'clock, April 13, 1892, a fire broke out in the Star building, which caused a loss of $22,000, in the aggregate, $14,000 of which was covered by insurance. This was on the building and printing materials. The paper was, however, issued as usual on the same day, and on Saturday, April 16, it was printed on the same presses as before the fire, and with the usual-sized page.
The editorial staff of the Evening Star is composed of Crosby S. Noyes,1 editor-in-chief; Theodore W. Noyes, associate editor; Ru-
1 Crosby S. Noyes was born in Maine in 1825. He is a journalist, thoroughly trained in every branch of his profession. In his youth, while employed in a cotton mill, in Maine, he wrote a dialect sketch, relating with rich humor the unhappy experiences of "A Yankee in a Cotton Factory," which was printed in the Yankee Blade, of Boston, and widely copied. Other sketches in a similar vein were equally successful, and his youthful productions made their way into such books as "The Harp of a Thousand Strings," which collected the best work of the recognized humorists of the day. Ill health drove him from Maine to a milder climate. He entered Wash- ington on foot in 1847, and became a Washington correspondent of some Lewistown, Boston, and Philadelphia papers. ITis letters were keen, witty, and picturesque. Some of them gave admirable descriptions of exciting scenes in Congress, and of the peen-
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dolph Kauffmann, managing editor; II. P. Godwin, city editor; Franklin T. Howe and Alexander T. Cowell, news editors; Philander C. Johnson and Cicero W. Harris, editorial writers. Besides, there is a large staff of reporters, special writers, and suburban correspondents. The repor- torial staff includes John P. Miller, George II. Harries, W. B. Bryan, Victor Kauffmann, Thomas C. Noyes, T. II. Brooks, James Croggon, J. E. Jones, Helena MeCarthy, Rene Bache, N. O. Messenger, and R. W. Dutton.
The business management of the paper is in charge of Mr. S. H. Kauffmann, , president of the Evening Star Company; Mr. Frank B. Noyes, treasurer and assistant business manager, and Mr. J. Whit Herron, cashier. Mr. Richard A. McLean is foreman of the composing room.
The Washington Post was established December 6, 1877, by Mr. Stilson Hutchins. It was a well-printed four-page paper, and at once attracted attention by the force and originality of its editorial man- agement and its comprehensive news service. Politically, the Post was Democratic. It was not then so well understood as it is now that the interests of neither of the great political parties required repre- sentative organs at the seat of government, where politics has no organized foothold.
The Post at once became the leading morning newspaper at the National Capital. and its establishment became an assured success. January 1, 1889, Messrs. Frank Hatton and Hon. Beriah Wilkins became the sole proprietors of the Post. Mr. Hatton had had many years' experience in the newspaper business as editor and manager,
liarities of the great men that figured in them. In 1855, he enlarged his information and broadened his views by a foot-tramp in Europe, after the Bayard Taylor fash- ion, and described his experiences in an interesting series of letters to the Portland Transcript. At the close of the same year, he became a reporter on the Erening Star, his connection with which paper still continues. After a successful career as an enterprising news-gatherer, he was made assistant editor, and in 1867 he became editor-in-chief and part proprietor of the Star, from which time his public history and that of the Star have been the same. As assistant editor and editor, he gave to it the precise character which fitted the situation and tended to make it the paper of the people. At the start, when it had a place to win for itself, it was made audacious and aggressive, but since his paper gained its present circulation and influence, he has been more conservative, as befitted the paper's larger responsibilities. Through his paper, Mr. Noyes has been a potent factor in the development of the modern Washington. With Alexander R. Shepherd, he chafed at the spectacle of the Capital held up to the world's contempt because of local okl-fogyism and national negleet, and in the columns of his paper fought steadily and effectively to assist Shepherd to put into practical operation in the National Capital those noble projects about which
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and later was Postmaster-General in President Arthur's Cabinet. Mr. Wilkins had been a Democratie member of Congress for several terms from Ohio, before which he had been a successful banker. Under this ownership, the Post became an independent newspaper, and entered upon a broader and more successful career than it had ever before enjoyed.
The Post is an eight-page, eight-column paper, with from sixteen to twenty-four pages on Sunday, and is at this time the only morning newspaper in Washington. It has the exclusive news service of the Associated Press and of the United Press for a morning paper, and together with its special service, its news facilities are unsurpassed. Its circulation throughout the South and West is larger than that ever before attained by any paper at the National Capital.
Der Volks-Tribun was established in 1875, by E. Waldecker and Carl Roeser, as a German Republican weekly. It has been continued by them in the same relations to the present time. Mr. Roeser had previously been connected with some of the largest German papers in the United States.
The Washington Critic was established in 1868, as an independent daily, and in the early part of its career it enjoyed considerable prosperity. It was an evening paper, published every evening in the week except Sunday. In 1881, it was published by Ringwalt, Hack, & Miller. Subsequently, it passed into the hands of Hallett Kilbourn, and still later into those of Richard Weightman and his associates. On May 14, 1891, it passed into the hands of a receiver, and in a few days thereafter its outfit, United Press franchise, type, etc., were purchased by the Evening Star Newspaper Company.
they had dreamed and planned 'while fellow-members in the local Common Councils in 1863. Afterward, he was among the foremost in the movement which led to the assumption by the National Government of one-half of the debt and expenses of the District of Columbia, and the reclamation of the Potomac Flats. And in every great work for Washington, from that time down to and including the establishment of Rock Creek Park, he has played an influential and important, though unostentatious, part. Commencing in 1863, he served one term as a member of the city Council, and then two successive terms as alderman, from the old Seventh Ward, now South Wash- ington, since which time he has steadily declined public service. In his later years, he has traveled much, and has contributed to his paper many articles containing vivid pictures of scenes and events in foreign lands. Under a mild, quiet, unassuming exterior he conceals a strong will, a steady, unflinching purpose, and the capacity for a vast amount of brain work of the highest order. There could be no higher tribute to his journalistic abilities than the fact that in Washington, noted, as it is, as the graveyard of newspaper enterprises, he has made a conspicuously successful news- paper, one which everybody reads, from the President of the United States down to the casual visitor to the city of Washington.
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The Capital was started in 1870, and was published by the Capital Publishing Company. The paper was edited for a number of years by Don Piatt, who made for it a national reputation. In 1880, A. C. Buell became the editor, and its publication was continued until 1889, when it was discontinued.
The Government Official was established by John E. Peterson, who, after a time, took into partnership a Mr. Smith, of Hobert, Indiana, and a Mr. White, of Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1891, they retired, and Mr. Peterson sold one-half interest to Gilbert E. Overton, and later in the same year he sold the other half to Mr. Overton, so that Mr. Overton became sole proprietor. About the same time, the name of the paper was changed to the Public Service, and it is now published by the Public Service Company, which is incorporated with a capital of $50,000. James R. Young, formerly executive clerk of the United States Senate, is the president of the company. There are three vice-presidents, and Mr. Overton is secretary and treasurer. This paper, while admitting that the civil service of the Government has its faults, yet advocates the elimination of these faults in prefer- ence to the abolition of the system.
The Home Magazine is a monthly periodical of twenty-four pages, published by the Brodix Publishing Company, at 614 Eleventh Street Northwest. It is now in its fourth year, the April number of 1892 being No. 6 of the fourth volume. It is a magazine for the home, and is filled with fresh material important to the home and social circle. It is edited by Mrs. John A. Logan.
The Sunday Herald was established in 1866, by Captain I. N. Burritt, and when the National Intelligencer was discontinued in Jan- uary, 1870, Captain Burritt, having acquired title to the property, added to the title of his paper "and National Intelligencer," which title it has retained to the present time. In a more limited field, the Sunday Herald has been a worthy successor of the National Intelligencer. Its aim has always been to be a high-class social and literary paper, de- voted to the interests of Washington and her people. In 1889, upon the death of Captain Burritt, the paper passed into the hands of its present proprietors, Messrs. Soule & Hensey, who have extended its field of usefulness, enlarged its size, and improved it in many ways, and it has a large local circulation.
The Republic, a straight-out Republican paper, issued early every Sunday morning, was established in 1875, by John Brisben Walker, now editor and proprietor of the Cosmopolitan, with offices at the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenne and Eleventh Street, North-
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west. Mr. Walker sold it to the late H. J. Ramsdell in 1876, who, in 1883, sold it to M. V. S. Wilson, of whom its present proprietor, Rufus H. Darby, purchased it in 1884. Up to about six years ago, it was in pamphlet form with a green cover. It was changed to its newspaper form by its present proprietor. Its weekly edition averages about five thousand in circulation. Its present location is at No. 1308 Pennsyl- vania Avenue Northwest:
The Washington Sentinel was established July 1, 1873, by its present proprietor, Mr. Louis Schade. The Sentinel is devoted to general liberty, personal and religious, and it assigns that reason for leaning toward the Democratic Party. It is not, however, strictly a party paper, as it reserves the right to oppose the Democratic Party. When that party is not pursuing the right, the Sentinel opposes it, as was the case in 1878, when Hon. Thomas Ewing was candidate for Governor of Ohio, and again in 1891, when Hon. James E. Campbell was the Democratic candidate.
The National Tribune was established in 1877, by Captain George Lemon, the present owner, in an office at 1405 G Street Northwest. Here it remained until more room was needed for its growing busi- ness, when it removed to its present location in the Lemon building, at 1729 New York Avenne Northwest, an elegant five-story brick structure. The Tribune has developed into a great national paper, its average circulation during 1891 being one hundred and fifty-six thousand. Its subscribers live in every State and Territory of the Union. Its specialty is the interests of the old soldiers of the Union Army, and the history of the War of the Rebellion. John McElroy is editor, and Charles Flint business manager, of the Tribune.
The National Tribune Company purchased, in February, 1892, the American Farmer, which was established in April, 1819, and which claims to be the oldest agricultural paper in the United States.
The National View was established in May, 1878, as an independent Greenback-Labor journal of education, by Mr. Lee Crandall, editor and proprietor, both of which relations he still sustains to the paper. It continned in the same line of thought until the Silver Convention assembled in St. Louis in 1889, at which time it began the advocacy of the free and unlimited coinage of silver. While it is not an organ, it represents to the best of its ability the interests of the People's Party, which was called into existence at Cincinnati in 1891, of the national committee of which Mr. Crandall is a member. He is secretary of the National Silver Committee and of the National
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Executive Silver Committee. The offices of the View are at No. 1202 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The American Anthropologist is the principal journal in the United States devoted to the science of anthropology. The initial number was issued by the Anthropological Society in January, 1888. It is an octavo quarterly, of ninety-six pages, and is published on the first of Jannary, April, July, and October, the subscription price to non-men- bers being $3 per annum. Its pages contain many contributions from various parts of the country by writers not connected with the society.
Owing to the rapid growth of the society, and the accumulation of numerous valuable papers presented at its meetings, the publica- tion of the Anthropologist became a necessity, that there might be some means of disseminating their contents. The first editor of the periodical was Mr. Thomas Hampton, whose death was announced April 25, 1888. His successor, Mr. Henry W. Henshaw, the curator of the society, has performed the duties of editor-in-chief from that date to the present time.
The Vedette is a monthly journal devoted especially to the interests of the surviving veterans of the Mexican War. Alexander M. Ken- aday is the editor and proprietor. It was established in 1878, for the purpose of advocating the claims of those veterans to be placed upon the pension rolls upon the same footing as those of the War of 1812, and through its advocacy of their cause, in part at least, the movement was at length a success, Congress on the 29th of January, 1887, passing an act placing about twenty-eight thousand survivors and widows on the rolls at '$8 per month. In 1889, the publication of the paper was temporarily discontinued. But in 1890, Congress having passed a Pen- sion bill allowing dependent soldiers of the Union Army in the War of the Rebellion from $6 to $12 per month, Mr. Kenaday decided to reissue the Vedette for the purpose of advocating an equalization of pensions, so that his comrades of the Mexican War should have pensions of at least $12 per month during their natural lives. The headquarters of the National Association of Veterans of the Mexican War is at No. 507 F Street, from which office the Vedette is pub- lished. The local association of survivors numbers about three hundred members, survivors and widows.
Kate Field's Washington was established January 1, 1890, by Miss Kate Field as editor and proprietor. Caroline Graysingle is managing editor, and Ella S. Leonard publisher. This paper is a national inde- pendent review, devoted principally to literature, society news, poetry, and stories.
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The Congressional Record is a Government publication, devoted to the measures introduced into Congress, together with the speeches thereon, and to the proceedings of Congress generally. It was estab- lished to take the place of the Globe, after the Globe ceased to be published.
Public Opinion was established in 1887, by F. S. Presbrey, at No. 306 Ninth Street. This periodical is unique in its field of work, being devoted to the collection and publication of the opinions of the press and of leading thinkers on all leading and current questions. It is similar in its plan to Littell's Living Age, but it is much wider in its scope. It has recently moved into elegant quarters in the Washington Loan and Trust Company's building.
There are numerous other newspapers published in Washington, devoted severally to a great variety of purposes, among them the following: The Sun, established in 1877, and still published by W. D. Hughes; the Washington Law Reporter, established in 1874, by Hugh T. Taggart, since then published by different parties, and at the present time by the Law Reporter Company; the Western Land Owner, established in 1874, now named Copp's Land Owner, published by Henry M. Copp; American Annals of the Deaf, by Edward A. Fay, Ph. D., and published at the National Deaf Mute College, Kendall Green; and several others.
In this chapter on the "Press," it may not be out of place to present a brief history of the first successful electric telegraph estab- lished in this country, though, perhaps, not the first electric telegraph in the history of the world. On this point, too, it may be well to state that, according to the decision of Levi Woodbury when a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, messages were sent by means of electricity so long ago as in 1827 or 1828, the inventor of this telegraph being Harrison Gray Dyar. He was proved by a Mr. Cornwell to have constructed a telegraph on Long Island, at the race course, with wires on poles, using glass insulation. Dr. Bell fortified this statement, having seen some of the wires, and understood its operation to be by a spark sent from one end of the wire to the other, which made a mark on paper prepared by some chemical salts.
In 1831, Professor Joseph Henry, of Princeton College, described a method of forming magnets of intensity and quantity produced from correspondent batteries, by the use of which, with relay magnets prepared by him, magnetic effects could be produced at a distance of from one thousand to two thousand miles.
Professor S. F. Morse, in 1835, produced a rude working model
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of a telegraphie instrument, thus anticipating Steinheil in the matter of a recording telegraph. In October, 1837, Professor Morse entered his first careat for an American electro-magnetic telegraph, claiming that his first thought upon the subject of a magnetic telegraph was on his passage across the Atlantic in 1832.
On September 7, 1837, " A New American Invention " was referred to in the public prints, and at the same time a certain writer claimed that this invention by Professor Morse was only a repetition of a French invention. To this Professor Morse replied, that if it were true that his method of communicating intelligence by means of the electro-magnetism had been previously invented, and if he could be assured of that fact, he would be the last to attempt to detract from the honor of the real inventor, or of his country.
Professor Morse's claims to the invention of the electro-magnetic recording telegraph were, of course, recognized and sustained, and after several years' delay, Congress on February 23, 1843, passed an act making an appropriation for the construction of a telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore. This line was completed on May 24, 1844, and on the next day, Saturday, the batteries were charged and the telegraph put in operation, conveying intelligence between the Capitol and the Pratt Street Depot in Baltimore. The first message, according to many writers, was sent from the Capitol to Baltimore by a young lady named Miss Annie Ellsworth, to whom Professor Morse was at the time ardently devoted, a granddaughter of the famous Governor Ellsworth, of Massachusetts, and whose father at the time was Commissioner of Patents. This first message was in these words: " What hath God wrought?" At 11:30 A. M., the question was asked from Baltimore: "What is the news in Washington?" and almost instantaneously the answer was flashed back: "Van Buren stock is rising." Sixteen persons witnessed the experiment in the Capitol. This was May 25. On the 27th, the working of this won- derful instrument won universal admiration from all who were fortunate enough to be spectators. Messages passed between Balti- more and Washington at intervals during each hour throughout the day. At 1:40 P. M., information was received in the Capitol building of the nomination of James Carroll for Governor of Maryland; a few moments later came the news of the nomination by acclamation, by the Tyler Convention, of John Tyler for President of the United States, and also of a speech of more than two hours in length by Benjamin F. Butler, in favor of the majority rule in the convention. On Wednesday, the 29th, the telegraphic news from Baltimore caused
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