USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Our county and its people : A history of Hampden County, Massachusetts. Volume 1 > Part 36
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The Connecticut Valley Farmer was started in May, 1853, under the auspices of the Hampden Agricultural Society. The paper was printed and published by Samuel Bowles & Co., at the Republican office. The editor was Hon. William B. Calhoun. It was a monthly, at 50 cents a year. January 1st, 1855, it was removed to Amherst, where Prof. Nash became editor and pub- lisher.
Abraham Tannatt, Jr., a veteran printer, who with his brother, J. F. Tannatt, grew up in the business, following in the footsteps of their father, one of the pioneer printers of Spring- field, still retains a small printing office at the corner of Main and Elm streets, over the Chicopee bank, occupying the site of the former office of the Republican, on which paper he worked at the time. Looking out upon Court Square, and up busy Main street, with its rush of traffic, and hurrying pedestrians, Mr. Tannatt recalls the same street, when but a mere country road, bordered with farms, and many of the houses antedating the Revolution.
The brothers Tannatt and Mr. Ashley, already referred to, are among the very few men living in this section whose mem- ories go back to the practical use of the crude hand press and ink-ball outfits. They have seen the development of the press of the city and county, from its earliest days, both in the editorial and mechanical sense, with the wonderful improvements that competition and journalistic rivalry have brought about. Con- trast the newsgathering methods of the good old days of the Hampshire Federalist and its immediate predecessors and succes- sors with those in practice by the Republican, Union and Daily News. Then the "news" was acceptable when three months old ;
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now, events are themselves hard pressed by the active pencil of the reporter, and the electric spark flashes the news momentarily to the editor's desk. Then the editor's profession was of the easy-going sort, as were most of the industries of the time; but to-day the cry is "make haste!" "score a scoop!" "give us young blood !" "away with the old !" and, above all, "get the news on the street first!" In the Tannatt office, now devoted solely to job work, there are to be seen specimens of the early job work of the city, in themselves valuable, as showing the business life of the early days and in the form of programs, etc., showing the names of the social element of the time. This office is a con- necting link between the typographical past and present, and as every bred-in-the-bone printer loves the odor of printing ink and paper, Mr. Tannatt, though by no means obliged to "stick to the case," prefers his cosy little office to the most elaborate modern club house, and here, among the friendly leaden dies that have voiced many a message, he passes the days congenially, meeting friends and discussing the old and the new. The grand old elms of Court Square were young when the first press was erected close by their spreading branches, and for many years Elm street and the vicinity was the "Printing House Square," and has not yet fully outgrown the right to the title, though the spirit of the drama and the law and commerce have usurped the territory of the press very largely.
Mr. Tannatt, in his reminiscences of the early printers of the county, states that $8.00 per week was considered exceptionally good wages, and that young active printers were glad to get $4.00 per week. Their wages were usually well guarded, and out of their modest incomes many saved considerable sums.
The elder Tannatt, whose work in connection with Spring- field journalism occupies such a prominent place, and who was a contemporary of the first Samuel Bowles, was highly esteemed, not only by those of his own craft, but by the community gen- erally. When the time came for him to lay aside the pen and composing stick forever, it was felt that a good man had depart- ed. In the Springfield Republican of May 23, 1863, we read :
"The patriarch and father of Springfield journalism and printing is dead. Abraham G. Tannatt, our oldest editor and
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printer closed his life on Friday, at the age of 69. There are scarcely two or three men left among us who have had, for so long and so prominently, a place in the social business and intel- lectual history and development of Springfield as Mr. Tannatt. We count them upon the fingers, and it is like cutting off a finger, indeed, to part with any one of them."
Among the names more or less prominently connected with the press of Springfield in the earlier days may be mentioned : Babcock & Haswell, Brooks & Russell, Weld & Thomas, James R. Hutchins, John Worthington Hooker, Francis Stebbins, Timothy Ashley, Henry Brewer, Thomas Dickman, Frederick A. Packard, A. G. Tannatt, Ira Daniels, Justice Willard, Wood & Lyman, Samuel Bowles, John B. Eldridge, E. D. Beach, David F. Ashley, Alanson Hawley, Apollos Munn, Elijah Ashley, George W. Cal- lender, Henry Kirkham, Lewis Briggs, William Hyde, Josiah Hooker, Josiah Taylor, William Stowe, J. B. Clapp, J. G. Hol- land, George W. Myrick, Samuel Bowles, jr., Clark W. Bryan, William Trench, Henry W. Dwight, William B. Brockett, Hon. William B. Calhoun.
THE UNION
The Springfield Union was founded by Edmund Anthony of New Bedford, January 4, 1864, and as a newspaper and expo- nent of Republican principles it ranks as one of the leading jour- nals of New England. It is owned by a stock company, under the name of the Springfield Union Publishing company, and four editions are issued, morning, evening, weekly and Sunday. The Union circulates extensively in western New England, where it is regarded as an able, progressive and interesting journal. Mr. Anthony conducted the paper until December, 1865, when it passed into the hands of the Union Printing company. During the next few years it changed owners several times, but in 1872, under the proprietorship of Lewis H. Taylor, it became a paying property. It was destined, however, to remain in Mr. Taylor's hands but a short time, for in 1872, the Clark W. Bryan company purchased it and incorporated it with the firm's printing and binding business. William M. Pomeroy was appointed editor,
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and he retained that position until March, 1881, when he was succeeded by Joseph L. Shipley. Mr. Shipley held the position of editor under the ownership of the Springfield Printing com- pany, which had succeeded the Clark W. Bryan company until May, 1882, when he bought the property and transferred it to a stock company, maintaining a majority interest, and assuming the responsible management of the paper.
In April, 1890, the Union entered upon a new epoch. It was purchased by the Springfield Union Publishing company, and Albert P. Langtry, who had received a valuable training in the school of metropolitan journalism, was installed as business manager. Soon after he was made publisher, with John D. Plummer as business manager. Until 1892, the Union had pub- lished only an evening and weekly edition, but July 2 of that year a morning edition was started, and achieved an instant suc- cess. It supplied the popular demand for a clean, newsy morn- ing Republican newspaper, that had at heart the business and political interests of western New England. The Sunday Union was established in July, 1894, chiefly as a newspaper, and with but little attention paid to magazine features. Its growth, how- ever, has been in keeping with that of the other editions of the Union, and it furnishes besides the news of the world and its own particular field, an imposing array of special articles, profusely illustrated. The Union is a member of the Associated Press. It employs in its editorial department twenty-five men, and its mechanical facilities are surpassed, in point of equipment, by but few newspapers.
The Union's first office of publication was located in the rear of the Haynes Hotel block, and later was moved to the corner of Main and Taylor streets, in the building now known as the City Hotel. From there it was moved to the site of the present Hotel Worthy, and later occupied the building on the opposite corner, where, in 1888, occurred the disastrous and fatal fire, wherein several of the employes lost their lives. After being repaired, the building was occupied for a time, until the move was made to the present quarters, a short distance down the street.
Mr. Elijah Newell, the present city clerk of Springfield, was on the staff of the Union nearly twenty-one years, and was active
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in the development of the paper. Among the more important of the stirring events, during that time, in which Mr. Newell per- formed efficient reportorial work, may be mentioned the Mill River disaster, the famous Northampton bank robbery, the burn- ing of the French Catholic church in Holyoke, and, notably, the big fire in the heart of Springfield's business district, which oc- curred in 1875, destroying forty-two buildings. Two companies of the militia were called out, to assist the police in guarding property, and fire companies came from many surrounding places, including companies from as far away as Boston. The fire started at 2 p. m. and was not under control until 6 o'clock, and in the meantime the Union had prepared its report, illustrat- ed with a map of the burned district, and had their paper in the form of an extra, on the street, at 6 o'clock.
There is at present employed in the pressroom of the Union a pressman who came to the office when the paper was started by the founder, Mr. Edmund Anthony.
A feature of the Sunday Union is the liberal and well ar- ranged matter from the various towns hereabout, prepared by several home correspondents. The illustrated features are all that could be desired, and are on a par with those of the best metropolitan journals. The Union, unlike most papers, observes certain holidays in the year, when no issue is brought out.
THE DAILY NEWS
On February 24th, 1880, the public of Hampden county heard for the first time on their streets the cry, "Penny News!" A new paper had entered the field, with its ambitions, aspirations and promises, and Springfield was to be its home. For a few weeks the Penny News appeared as a tri-weekly; but as it is a very short step from the tri-weekly to the daily, the latter form was soon adopted, and on May 13th, 1880, the paper came out as a daily, and with the word "Daily" substituted for "Penny," though the price remained unchanged. It was probably the first penny paper ever published in the county, and the novelty of the price won it a wide circulation. Edward and Charles J. Bellamy were the publishers, both men of more than ordinary literary
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ability, and the former, for some eight years previous one of the editors of the Union. The first few years of the Daily News were strenuous and the publishers found that the life of a practical newspaper man is one by no means a bed of roses. Three years after the birth of their own paper, another small daily, the Democrat, came to tempt fate, and to solicit slices from the none too ample loaf of journalistic patronage offered by the field, but after two and a half years the Democrat joined the legions that have gone before, and the Daily News, still kept up the race. Edward Bellamy, who is known the world over by his books on socialistic and industrial topics, left the paper soon after, and his brother, Charles J., guided its destinies single-handed, but with marked ability, and gathering about him a staff of energetic and intelligent young newspaper workers, put the paper on a sound basis, realizing at length the reward of good management and tenacity of purpose. In 1894 the publisher realized the fond ambition of the newspaper proprietor, and saw his equipment, thoroughly modern and of the best, housed in a building bearing the paper's name, and the property of the concern itself. On June 26th, 1901, the Daily News issued a supplement, in book form, giving a history of its own conception, trials, growth and triumphs, and detailing the growth of the city and its interests, in the twenty-one years of the paper's life, and taking to itself, with due modesty, a share of credit for the reforms that have been worked in the city's public affairs, in the two decades men- tioned. For a newspaper is always a tireless worker in the causes that tend to the general good, and though often called upon to stand the rebuffs and ingratitude of opposers and doubters, has a reward in the final triumph and vindication of its policy.
THE HOMESTEAD
The Springfield Homestead, a weekly illustrated paper of local life, with suburban departments, fills the graphic needs of journalism in the county, as perhaps no other publication does. It is the outgrowth of the older-established New England Home- stead, an agricultural paper regularly published from the same office. Both the Springfield edition, and its agricultural progen-
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itor are ably edited, and enjoy large circulations and are influen- tial in their respective fields. The New England Homestead was founded in 1867 as a monthly, by Henry M. Burt, having been started in Northampton, but soon after removed to Springfield. Mr. Burt continued the publication for some ten years, in the meantime engaging in other local journalistic ventures, when the paper was bought by Messrs. Phelps and Sanderson, former employes of the Union, Mr. Sanderson's interest being later bought by Mr. Phelps, who established a corporation known as the Phelps Publishing company. Farm and Home, a sixteen- page monthly, was begun in 1880, by this company, and attained a wide circulation, national in extent. Other powerful agricul- tural journals have been acquired by the Phelps Publishing com- pany, including the Orange Judd Farmer and American Agri- culturalist, which combined have an immense circulation, con- stituting a large portion of the output of mail matter from the local post-office. A large force is employed in the mechanical and circulating departments, and the office on Worthington street is a veritable hive of industry. The company operates its own job printing department, for the production of the vast amount of forms and miscellaneous small printing, incident to their pub- lishing business.
Good Housekeeping, a magazine of domestic science, former- ly published by the Clark W. Bryan company, is also produced at the above office, and is widely known, and ranks with the country's best magazines. Equipped with linotypes and rotary presses, and other equipment in keeping, the Phelps Publishing company's plant may be pointed out as a typographical object lesson.
The Daily Democrat was founded in 1883, to fill the demand of local party men for a Democratic paper. Many prominent Democrats of western Massachusetts were included among its stockholders. It was a one cent paper, and very active in its field, but was discontinued after two and a half years.
The Herald of Life started in 1872, with Rev. W. N. Pile as editor. It was the organ of a branch of the Advent faith.
At the Evangelist building, on State street, Springfield, issue several publications of a religious nature. In 1879, S. G. Otis
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started the Domestic Journal, and made one of the most thorough canvasses ever made of central and western Massachusetts, start- ing out with the avowed intention of calling at every house and place of business, securing, as a result, in the neighborhood of 23,000 subscribers to the Domestic Journal. The name was later changed to Word and Work, and the publication made more re- ligious in tone. The "Christian Workers' Union" is interested in the conduct of the magazine.
The French-American Citizen, the organ of the French- American college, is also published from the Evangelist building, the composition being done by the students themselves. In addi- tion, many miscellaneous tracts are produced, and the establish- ment may justly be termed the religious press of Hampden county.
THE PRESS OF WESTFIELD
For two centuries, Westfield, whose venturesome pioneers had pushed the Bay Path westward to the Woronoco Valley, was without a local newspaper, and the earliest one recorded is the Hampden Register, which received its first impression on the 18th of February, 1824, published by Major Joseph Root. It con- tained five columns to the page, as appears to have been the usual limitations of the papers of that period. It was Republican in politics. Two years later Dr. Job Clark became editor, Major Root still retaining a place in the establishment. About a year later the paper passed into the hands of V. W. Smith and John B. Eldridge. A change of policy and editorial tone worked to the detriment of the sheet, which was followed by several changes in ownership and management, until November 29th, 1831, when it was discontinued.
The earlier printing offices of Westfield were located on the "Green," the center of the town's business activities. The editors looked from the windows of their sanctums out upon the public square, with its symbols of country village life-the town pump, the public hay scales, the flag-staff, and the passing to and fro of the modest local and suburban traffic. The initiation of the office "devil" included the task of carrying buckets of water,
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summer and winter, from the town pump and bearing the modest edition on publication day to the post-office. The files of the old papers, somewhat incomplete, are stored in the Atheneum, musty records of the youth of the 19th century. Their politics were expressed in no uncertain tones; their essays and articles on morals, agriculture, etc., elaborate and long drawn out; their foreign news given large space, while local affairs were almost totally ignored. . Later, when the building of the canal through the town was commenced, and the railroads penetrated into the town, the editors were awakened from their lethargy and "local" news actually forced itself upon them, and was not to be ignored. Human nature and its traits showed itself, in the way of more or less scathing arraignments of one editor and his policy, by the scribe of his "esteemed contemporary," and many are the ac- knowledgments of benefits in the way of floral, fruity, or more substantial favors, laid on the editorial table by friends of the office.
Glancing through a copy of volume 1, No. 1, of Westfield's first paper, the Hampden Register, issued Wednesday evening, February 18, 1824, we find the following "Prospectus," in which the editor expresses his intention to adhere to Republican prin- ciples, and that his paper "shall never become a vehicle for the propagation of slander, nor an instrument to gratify personal revenge-the period of foul recrimination and party animosity is past, and it is believed the time has already arrived when a paper may be conducted on principles purely national, devoted exclu- sively to the interests of the people and not to that of party." Then follows an article on the "North American Indians," with others under the heading "Moral and Religious," then a couple of columns of "Miscellany," which complete the first page. The two inside pages are taken up with news from more or less remote parts of the world, the doings of congress, the militia, etc. The modest array of advertising includes : "William King, jr., & Co. Fur Caps ; C. & C. Cobb, Shoe Store ; Robert Whitney, Flour, Salt, etc.," a few local real estate advertisements, and a small number of advertisements of Springfield concerns. The fourth page has a half column of poetry, a story of western adventures,
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and an essay on "Matrimony," besides short paragraphs on morals, thrift, and general good conduct. In the salutatory edi- torial, Mr. Root says, "To the Public: We, this day, present our patrons with the first number of the Register. The establishment of a new paper is an event of so much importance that it usually excites some degree of interest, and the public are desirous of knowing by what principles it is to be governed. Pub- lic opinion is the basis upon which our government is supported, and this opinion is very materially affected by periodical publications, which are numerous in every part of our country. In 1720, there was but one news- paper published in the United States; in 1777, there were 25, and now, there are between 500 and 600. . In our country, all power being derived from the whole people, it is of the utmost importance that the source from which it flows should be enlightened and pure. . . Our columns shall not be polluted with the foul breath of personal pique and private and personal slander, but while these are excluded, we shall cheerfully give place to all information and temperate discussion upon the official conduct and political opinions, and shall earnestly endeavor, as we may deem it to be our duty, to expose and if possible, check, every deviation from the path of political rectitude." The above description of the initial number of the Register is given as a syn- opsis of the journalistic style of the time. In 1826, the name of J. Clark appears as editor. An important theme of discussion was the slave trade, and frequent reference to the same is found in the files of the paper. The issue of the Register dated April 2, 1828, appeared with the name of John B. Eldridge as editor. The general character of the paper continued the same, the doings of town and county being heralded in the easy-going way, with the advertisements varied by notices of canal directors, stray cattle, runaway apprentices, Academy notices, etc. Over the heading of "Marriages" was printed a crude wood-cut of a heart, pierced by a shaft, presumably from Cupid's bow.
With the issue of December 10, 1828, the Hampden Register, having been re-christened the Westfield Register, with a newman, J. D. Huntington, as editor, this motto was added to its heading,
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"Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, thy God's, and truth," the paper keeping on in the even tenor of its way, with a slight variation of editorial style. A book store was conducted by the early publishers of Westfield, in connection with their printing business, and school books, novels and stationery were advertised.
Thursday evening, September 10, 1833, appeared number 1 of volume 1 of the Westfield Journal, edited by Joseph Bull, jr. The Journal's predecessors had been published on Wednesdays, while Mr. Bull saw fit to go to press one day earlier in the week. The office of publication was in the Ives block, corner of Main and Broad streets, on "the Green," and the building was then, undoubtedly, Westfield's most imposing business structure, and to-day makes no mean appearance on the square. In his saluta- tory, Editor Bull says : "To the Public: Why not a news-
paper in Westfield ? Why may we not mingle our thoughts and interchange our sentiments with the wordy throng who write, and print, and publish, the things which are, or which may be, as inspiration or fancy dictates ? We are not aware of any abridg- ment of freedom, or any power of restraint, which should seal our lips, or palsy our hands, while we have a cause to present to a sovereign people. In truth, we think it would be no great obtru- sion if we should presume to take our stand in the field, and we offer to bear some small part in the labors, the sacrifices, the honors (and if we may indulge in the humble hope), the emolu- ments of the press." The style of the typography of the Journal evidences the use of the same material employed on the preceding Westfield newspapers.
Following the March 24, 1835, issue of the Westfield Journal came the March 31, 1835, issue of the Democratic Herald, still printed by Mr. Bull, but bearing the name of N. T. Leonard as proprietor, and N. T. Leonard and E. Davis, editors. Temper- ance seems to have been a favorite theme with the Herald, and the subject is given liberal space in its succeeding issues. About a year later, the paper was discontinued.
On the 9th of April, 1836, The Talisman made its appear- ance. It was edited by H. B. Smith, who had served as an ap-
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prentice in the printer's art, and who was destined to become a leading figure in the industrial and social life of Westfield. The Talisman, owing to a change of plans, was discontinued at the end of three months.
In April, 1839, Calvin Torrey started the Democratic news- paper called the Westfield Spectator. In October, 1841, Dr. William O. Bell bought the paper, and shortly after changed its name to the Woronoco Palladium, continuing its publication for about two years, when the original owner, Mr. Torrey, again assumed control, reviving the original name of "Spectator." About a year later this paper died.
The late Emerson Davis, so long connected with the town's educational and religious work, published the Scholar's Journal for two years, in 1828 and 1829, during his principalship of the Academy.
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