USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume II > Part 20
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The National Aegis was a truly important weekly in its time and con- tinued so for almost thirty-two years. Alexander H. Bullock, Edward Wins- low Lincoln, Governor Levi Lincoln, and Pliny Merrick, were among its owners and editors. It was, like most of the papers of its day, political in origin and purpose. It is fair to say of most of the early newspapers that they were usually born of new ideas, sudden needs, the desire to promote a cause, politics. Continuity of publication was seldom in the minds of their founders. People did not subscribe by the year for the probabilities were against any sheet lasting that long. More remarkable then that the National Aegis survived until 1833. Students of newspaper history must not con- fuse this paper with another of similar title, the difference between the two names being The National Aegis, and National Aegis. Both were issued as early as 1806, and the story of their differences in origin and qualities is as follows :
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"The National Aegis was sold to one Samuel Cotting on October 23, 1805. After the issue of December 11, 1805, the former editor, Francis Blake, attached the printing apparatus, and the paper was not able to make another appearance until February 19, 1806. With that issue it was published by the 'Proprietors.' With the issue of March 12, 1806, it appeared in new type and with the title THE NATIONAL AEGIS. With the issue of July 6, 1806, the name of Samuel Cotting appears in the imprint as the publisher. On July 6, 1806, Cotting broke up the forms of the next issue, took away some of the printing apparatus, and began printing on July 9, on a new press in another office a paper which he called NATIONAL AEGIS, continuing the number of the regular paper. The proprietors of the regular Aegis were unable to publish a full sized issue July 9, and brought out a single page or 'broadside' with the heading THE NATIONAL AEGIS, published under the direction of a committee of the proprietors. The next issue, July 16, was 'Printed for the proprietors.' There were, therefore, two papers published with the same volume numbering, one called THE NATIONAL AEGIS, printed for the Proprietors, the other NATIONAL AEGIS having succeeded Samuel Brazer in that capacity. The Republicans of Worcester County met on Sep- tember 4, 1806, and resolved that the 'Trustees' AEGIS' was the genuine paper and that Cotting's paper was spurious. Therefore Cotting survived as publisher, with intermittent publication, only to April 15, 1807."
As a parting blast to the unlamented departed, the "regular Aegis" printed this obituary :
"Departed this life on Wednesday the 3rd inst. that corrupt fountain of Billingsgate, detraction and falsehood, deceitfully called National Aegis pub- lished by Cotting. It was affected with consumption for some time, and his life was long despaired of. No tears were shed at its decease, but by Feder- alists, by whom it was carressed and nursed with as much care and tender- ness as an infant child by its legitimate parents."
The National Aegis, second, or probably, third of the name was before the public from January 24, 1838, to 1857, when it was merged with the Transcript. The latter named was not the Daily Transcript already men- tioned as the first daily in Worcester, but the Daily Morning Transcript whose first issue was dated April 1, 1851. The successive editors of this Transcript were John L. Clarke, Charles E. Stevens, Edwin Bynner, J. B. Cogswell, Z. K. Panghorn, William R. Hooper and Caleb A. Wall. The Transcript later became an evening paper and, on January 1, 1866, was sold to S. D. Bartholomew and Company, the company consisting mainly of Charles A. Chase. The name of the publication was changed to the Worcester Evening Gazette and in 1869 sold to a new concern, of whom Charles H. Doe was the
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principal owner, the editor and presiding genius. A colleague has written of Mr. Doe and his journal: "He made the paper a high-class journal which appealed to the conservative type of person. It was a good newspaper, but it was not aggressive. He was a good writer but not positive. The Gazette prospered under his direction, as prosperity was known in journalism in those days. Everything was on a more modest scale than now." Mr. Doe's health failed, and the paper was sold to Worcester citizens, with David B. Howland, formerly of the Springfield Republican as the editor and one of its owners.
In October, 1899, George F. Booth and John D. Jackson, of New Haven, Connecticut, became the proprietors of what is now the oldest and the leading Worcester newspapers, the Gazette or Evening Gazette of which Mr. Booth has been the editor for more than a third of a century. The further history of this newspaper and of Mr. Booth's connection with it was summarized by himself in an article printed in the Worcester Sunday Telegram in 1922, as follows :
"I immediately (October, 1899) took over the sole direction as editor and publisher of the paper and so remained until January, 1921, when we sold the Gazette to Mr. Ellis. The paper had at that time a very small circulation. It had at one time, I believe, printed as many as 7,000 copies, but that had fallen down to about 5,000 when we bought it ; but really when I looked into the matter I found it was much less than that. It had practically no prop- erty. It consisted largely of a name and a certain element of good will.
I cannot, naturally go into any extended story of the Gazette which would mean writing a story about myself, which I have no desire to do. Suffice it to say that, instead of the bankrupt newspaper with a circulation of only a few thousands when we bought it, when it was sold some twenty-one years later we had one of the best newspapers published in the East, having a cir- culation of nearly 35,000 copies. It had a plant complete in every way, modern and generous in size. How this was accomplished without other capital than the original investment-the fights in the public interest which it made, and all the other things that were done to change the paper which had had a more or less moribund existence into the most virile journalistic force in the community, is as Kipling says: 'another story.'"
Before writing of the Telegram the sole great survivor in the morning newspaper field, and of the Post which was born in 1891, and now divides the evening field with the Gazette, some attention must be paid to the middle age of journalism and its numerous births and deaths. The 1840's and the 1850's witnessed the tryouts of many publications, the most of which soon fell by the wayside. The large percentage of these were based on the earlier idea of an organ for every cause no matter how unimportant. The why and
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wherefore of the strange increase in newspaper investment, or speculation, in this ante-bellum period has yet to be explained satisfactorily, except to the person making the explanation. Improvement of transportation as evidenced in numerous stagecoach lines, canals, the beginning of railroads, and steam- ship companies such as the Cunard which entered Boston in 1846 may be the reason. They all made news and for the quicker interchange of news, particularly from Europe. Another would say that the increase of popula- tion, particularly from immigrants, enlarged industrial life and prosperity lured the printer and his press to destruction. It may be that persons or towns did some of the luring, as witness the veracious account of journalism in the very good town of Blackstone. It is a matter of record that the local authorities "loaned Oliver Johnson, of New York, the sum of $700 of the town's 'surplus revenue' money for a term of one year 'to enable him to pro- cure a printing press and appurtenances for publishing a newspaper in the town.'" The first issue was of February, 1848, and the last, October, 1848, when the town took over the press and "appurtenances" but did not attempt to revive the paper. Whatever the reason for the multiplication of news- papers, it is evident that the competition between publishers led to the intro- duction of a number of innovations in journalism. The three ante-bellum decades witnessed the rise of dailies, of the "pennies" or low-priced papers, the newsboy type of distribution, the scare-head and illustrations. There can be small doubt that this middle period of journalism was prolific in papers and new methods of issue.
Mr. Nutt in his History of Worcester County, lists many which were called into being prior to the Civil War, but of which few were chosen by the people for any length of service. The Worcester County Republican was published by Jubal Harrison from 1829 to 1839 before being absorbed by the Palladium. The Worcester Palladium was established by J. S. C. Knowlton on January I, 1834 as a Democratic weekly, but after 1856 was Republican in its politics. The Worcester Daily Journal was published from December, 1847, to October, 1849, and the State Sentinel was started Jan- uary 1, 1844. The Worcester County Gazette, a weekly, lived from January I, 1845, to February 27, 1847, and the Worcester Daily Telegraph was another of the papers founded in 1847 and had a career of two years or so. All were straight newspapers with political policies well defined. Politics dominated the Worcester Evening Journal, which was frankly an organ of the Know-Nothing party ; it was published from August 30, 1854, to May 26, 1855. The Worcester Waterfall and the Cataract were temperance sheets published during the height of the Washingtonian movement, and were con- tinued from 1844 to 1853. The famous "learned blacksmith," Elihu Burritt,
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founded his Christian Citizen in Worcester in January, 1844, and had a fol- lowing that enabled the paper to keep going for a Biblical seven years. Its circulation was about four thousand at one time.
It is probable that research into the lost or forgotten annals of the county press outside Worcester would disclose an even larger percentage of news- papers started in 1840-50 era. Although the Fitchburg Weekly Sentinel came out in the last week of 1838, it amounted to little until a change of ownership three years later, and was rather feeble until John Garfield took hold of it in 1850. County towns, not already mentioned, with newspapers founded in these years included : Lancaster, The Courant, 1846; Leominster, predeces- sors of the present Enterprise, 1842; Westboro, The Messenger, 1849; Transcript, and the Westboro Sheaf, 1856; Barre, Gazette, 1838; Milford, had at least two weeklies born in this period ; Blackstone, Chronicle, as in the preceding paragraph, 1848; Southbridge, Press, 1853; and the Saturday Morning News, 1859; Webster, News 1859; Athol, White Flag, and Clinton, Courant, 1846.
The greatest single source of news in a century, the Civil War, checked rather than helped the numerical increase of newspapers and brought an end to many in their early years. One odd explanation of this phenomenon has been made-that the "medical advertising, a mainstay of the press," dimin- ished tremendously with the outbreak of war. It is true that the advertising of nostrums was epidemic both before and long after the Rebellion. Charles Dudley Warner, as late as 1881 pointed out how the newspapers "outshine the shelves of the druggist in the display of proprietary medicines." From the journalistic standpoint the "war" gave birth, or impetus, to certain improvements in news reporting. Although Morse had strung his wires between Washington and Baltimore, in 1844, and there was a line from New York to Boston, two years later, it was not until soldiers were on the way to battlefields, that inventors ceased from their quarrels and the telegraph was used widely. Horace Greeley was right when he predicted to Morse after a private demonstration of the telegraph, "You are going to turn the newspaper offices upside down." Speed has always been the thing in journalism. The radio now must serve where the telegraph and the telephone cannot reach. Stenography shortly "before the war," and increasingly so after, became the handmaid of the press.
The events of the 1860's required pictorial treatment, or were given it, and the era of the full page spread began. This period has also been accused of begetting "yellow journalism," although it simply brightened the color that was present in newspapers from the beginning. The war, with its special news on seven days a week, gave rise to Sunday extras, the precursor of the voluminous Sunday editions of today. The Worcester Spy and the Gazette
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or Transcript as it was known until 1869, patterned their publications after their large city brothers, and many of their war issues are worthy of a place in a hall of fame. They were seldom "scooped" in news that was important. The aftermath of the Civil War with its rapid fluctuations of prosperity and panic held the birth and growth of newspapers in check for some years, and the founding of journals in the county as a whole did not make up for the failures. These very fluctations, however, eventually started a boom in adver- tising which was the salvation of many a feeble newspaper. The boom, of course, was coincident with the rise of big business, the department store, and the railroad and public utilities, all of which bought a large amount of news- paper space. As after the World War everything exploitable or saleable found its way into the newspapers, great and small, although again the city dailies skimmed the cream.
Two more newspapers survived for a time in the 70's and 80's. Worcester Daily Press was founded April 1, 1873, and continued until 1878. It was published by E. R. Fiske.
In 1879 the Worcester Times was established by James H. Mellen as a Democratic organ. Mr. Mellen was intimately associated politically with Eugene M. Moriarty and the two wielded a good deal of influence in the Massachusetts Legislature of which both were members. The Times was founded to further the political aspirations of Mr. Mellen. It survived until 1889. Mr. Mellen thereafter throughout most of his life succeeded politically and remained in the Legislature. Mr. Moriarty on the other hand withdrew from political life and became the first successful editor of the Post, as related elsewhere.
Two of the three large dailies of Worcester were established in 1884 and 1891, and a surprisingly large number of the present day newspapers in the county were founded during the last fifteen years of the past century.
The Worcester Telegram, a Sunday paper of 1884 and a daily from May, 1886, became the newspaper with the largest circulation in Central Massa- chusetts. Its present editor, and the editor of the Evening Gazette since 1890, George Francis Booth, wrote briefly of this paper in 1923 :
"The story of the Telegram, from its birth up to now is known to many of the present generation, for it started and reached its great growth and magnificent prosperity all within the lifetime of its founder, who laid down his journalistic cares only a couple of years ago to enjoy, without the hurly- burly which newspaper life entails, a handsome fortune.
"The Sunday Telegram started November 30, 1884, and the morning Telegram May 19, 1886. The story of the Telegram is not only one of the resources of journalism, but is one of the romances of business success here
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in Worcester which was told and retold many times while Mr. Cristy still held the reins of destiny over the property he had created.
"Austin P. Cristy started the Telegram literally on a shoestring, as the saying goes. He had practically no money, little backing, and nothing but his indomitable will and determination to succeed. The Sunday Telegram met with such success that in less than two years he established the daily edition. In a rich and prosperous city he launched his journalistic bark with- out previous knowledge of the business.
"He recognized what others did not and what the other newspapers then published certainly did not, the changing conditions in journalism, the new order of things. Both the Spy and the Gazette and the little known Times were asleep. Mr. Cristy was not then so much the genius in journalism as he later became. He simply had more vigor and energy, more persistence, did things which surprised the complacent souls who owned and were directing the other papers.
"They did not fight him; they ignored him. They ignored him so long that when they did take notice it was too late. Mr. Cristy was entrenched. The Telegram had a firm footing. One after the other of Worcester news- papers felt the force of his vigorous competition and passed into other hands. From the time Mr. Cristy got going until some time after the Gazette passed into the control of my partner and myself, no other newspaper in Worcester made a dollar.
"Mr. Cristy was always the surprise of Worcester. He was an enigma, and perhaps Worcester never received a greater shock or surprise than when the announcement came from a clear sky that he had sold the paper to Mr. Ellis, who came into a magnificent property.
"The Telegram-Gazette combination makes one of the most valuable newspaper properties in the whole United States. Mr. Ellis showed great courage and foresight in putting together his two-million-dollar combination, and, as these papers have made history in the past, they will under his direc- tion make history again. They wield a tremendous influence and made Mr. Ellis a factor that must be considered not only in Worcester, but in Massa- chusetts."
In December, 1925, George F. Booth and Harry G. Stoddard purchased the Worcester Telegram and The Evening Gazette from Mr. Ellis. Mr. Booth is editor and publisher of the two dailies which he has successfully directed and developed until their combined circulation is well over 100,000 copies daily. Mr. Stoddard is president of the corporation.
The third of the English-printed dailies of Worcester, the Post, of which George F. Richardson is the editor, was founded on September 23, 1891. Of the early history of this paper one might unfold a tale of high times and low,
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poverty and riches, heroics and the ridiculous. John H. Johnson, a lawyer who had come into some money purchased a "country press" which he installed in a store and basement on Church Street. He induced some prac- tical journalists and journeymen printers to take a chance with him. A four- page newspaper was turned out by a press that was an antique and broke down when most needed. John Johnson's funds lasted less than a year, and the plant was taken over by Oscar W. Wiggin and W. K. Knight, experienced printers. A Stonemetz press and stereotype outfit was installed and the offices, still in the old building, began to hum with industry even though the honey failed to accumulate. It is said that often the owners had to keep the staff waiting for enough of their wages to keep life and clothes intact while they marketed the last gross of patent medicines taken in as payment for an advertisement.
Fred Merrigold, in the third year of the Post invested some money in it and was its directing genius for a time. Fire all but destroyed the printing plant on Church Street, and debts piled up until it was taken over by the principal debtor, the Connecticut Associated Press. Frank Hinman, John H. Fahey, and others of the New Haven office of the Connecticut Associated Press, all had a hand in operating the Post until Peter Conlin purchased the mortgage and the control of the destinies of the paper. This marked the beginning of better days and the building of a sound and successful journal. In 1897 Eugene M. Moriarty was sold a half-interest by Mr. Conlin. The first named was a power in city and State politics. He was a fine public speaker, an authority on many phases of finance, industry and politics ; he appreciated news values, was a raconteur of the first water, and a trenchant writer. At the time of the death of Mr. Moriarty, on August 26, 1907, the Post was a paying property-a monument to a decade of devoted difficult work. His wife took over the editorial duties of the newspaper, and with Peter Conlin, kept the journal moving along on the high road of success. In February, 1914, the Post was sold to John H. Fahey, he who had been man- ager of the New Haven office of the Connecticut Associated Press in the 1890's when the newspaper had been taken over by that organization. Dur- ing the intervening years Mr. Fahey had been the manager of the Boston office of the Associated Press, and editor and publisher of the Boston Trav- eler. "The news first, and first of all the news" was his slogan, and during his régime the Post built, and moved into, splendid new quarters on Federal Street. Reviews of the lives of Mr. Moriarty and John H. Fahey can be found in the biographical volumes of this history. The Post is published evenings, except Sundays.
Worcester and Fitchburg are the headquarters of noteworthy groups of publications, all but three of which are printed weekly, and several carry their
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news in languages other than English. Both cities have a population of foreign birth or origin of about thirty-two per cent. In Worcester is the Catholic Messenger, the Labor News, Svea, Amerikos Lieturis, and the Eteenpain. There were, for many years, French-language publications, the widest known of which was L'Opinion Publique, a daily. The Catholic Messenger issued on Thursdays, is a semi-religious paper, founded in 1887. S. Joseph Crahan has been its editor for a long period. The Labor News which comes out on each Friday, is what its name implies and does its work well. It was started in 1906 by its present editor and owner, Freeman M. Saltus, and has a circulation above five thousand copies weekly. Svea (Swedish) is the successor of several Scandinavian weeklies, notably the Scandanavia. It is almost forty years old. Amerikos Lieturis, founded in 1907, is printed in Greek and issued on Saturday. It is edited by J. Loenaite, and has a circulation approaching five thousand. Eteenpain (Finnish) has been a morning paper, except Monday, since 1921. Its editor is David Heino; its circulation about ten thousand. Liberte, the French weekly, pub- lished in Fitchburg, is probably the widest read paper of its kind in Worces- ter County. It was started in 1918, and is edited by L. A. Remy. Raivaaja (Pioneer) is the fine Finnish evening daily of Fitchburg, founded in 1905.
The Fitchburg Sentinel, the oldest brother of them all, under the able leadership of George H. Godbeer, president of the company and editor of the paper, has come to rank among the outstanding dailies of the Commonwealth. John Garfield was the great man in Fitchburg newspaper annals of a hundred years ago. A trained and experienced printer rather than writer, in the sum- mer of 1836 he entered the printing business in Fitchburg. He purchased the press and equipment of the Worcester County Courier, which had made its first appearance in May, 1834, and had suspended on May 16, two years later. The Courier had been preceded by the Fitchburg Gazette, which was issued from October 19, 1830, for three years and a half. The pioneers of the newspaper industry differed from the later-day publishers in that they buried the mistakes and the weaklings, instead of trying to revive them. Hence it is that one paper would follow another, printed by the same press and run by the same man, but with a different title page. Thus we have the Gazette, the Worcester County Courier the Fitchburg Worcester County Courier, The Fitchburg Times and the Fitchburg Weekly Sentinel, all published one after the other, and, with the possible exception of the first, printed in the same plant. The last three were owned by the same John Garfield. Ezra W. Reed was the editor of this Weekly Sentinel, whose first copy, dated December 20, 1838, consisted of four pages, each 13x19; three of its twenty narrow columns were devoted to advertising, or the same space given to an
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accompanying article on education clipped from a New York paper. The career of the Sentinel is less checkered than most, but there were the usual ups and downs and changes of ownership and editors. John Garfield, with various partners, was connected with the weekly from 1838 to 1871. In March, 1873, the Sentinel Printing Company was formed, and on the sixth day of that month the first daily edition went on sale. The principal owner of the Sentinel, from 1871 to 1900, was William Stratton. On April 1, 1903, the company was reorganized with John E. Kellogg, as the largest holder of stock, and president, with Mrs. Maria S. Stratton, retaining her husband's interest. Other members of the company were George H. Godbeer, Sidney Sibley, Frank C. Hoyt, and William R. Rankin, all lifelong employees on the paper. In October, 1920, Godbeer, Hoyt and Rankin acquired all the stock in the company, of which George H. Godbeer has since been president and editor of the Sentinel. The Weekly Sentinel discontinued publication in March, 1922. It is typical of New England journalism that the weekly edi- tions of a daily newspaper gradually leave the picture.
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