USA > New York > Orange County > The history of Orange County, New York > Part 61
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A monthly of forty-eight pages was started in Newburgh in 1855 by R. B. Denton. It was called the Literary Scrapbook. Its life was short.
If the temperance workers had abandoned the western end of the county as wholly reclaimed or as irreclaimable, they had an eye or two on the eastern end of the district, and in March, 1856, Royal B. Hancock, "as agent for an association of gentlemen," started in Newburgh a tem- perance paper which he called the Newburgh Times. It passed into the hands of R. Bloomer & Son, who sold it to Alexander Wilson, he to Charles Blanchard, and the latter, in 1867, turned it into the Newburgh Daily Democrat. The latter failed in a few months.
In 1856 in the Middletown Whig Press office Mr. and Mrs. Hasbrouck began the publication of The Sybil, a fortnightly quarto. It was edited by Mrs. Hasbrouck, and was a particularly bright, able, fearless publica- tion. It was continued eight years.
An association of students in Domanski's school in Newburgh, in 1857 started The Acorn, a small but pretentious monthly of a literary char- acter. It lived about one year.
In the early part of the winter of 1864 Eugene W. Gray began printing the Daily Union at Newburgh. It was really the Daily Telegraph, which had been suspended for a short time. In 1866 the title of both the weekly
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and daily was changed to the Press. In 1869 the title of Telegraph was restored, and in 1876 it became the Register, which continued until Febru- ary 24, 1908, when it suspended under financial difficulties, and, as one paper expressed it, "Too much anti-Bryanism."
January 27, 1866, Elder Leonard Cox, a practical printer, began print- ing Warwick's second paper, which he called the Warwick Advertiser. It was a five or six-column folio, neatly printed, well edited and newsy. To-day it is one of the best edited weekly newspapers in the county. It is republican in politics-in fact, has practically always been so. January, 1869, Elder Cox sold the paper to John L. Servin, and moved to Vir- ginia. April, 1874, it was purchased by Daniel F. Welling. He sold it to Stewart & Wilson (August 5, 1876), who sold it to Stewart & Demer- est. The office was burned out January 24, 1879, after which it was published by Stewart & Co. Samuel J. Stewart was its editor until Hiram Tate came into possession of the property. Mr. Tate was a prac- tical printer, and was fresh from the office of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Hasbrouck's Whig Press, and had good ideas of what a neat, live news- paper should be-as generally had the graduates of Mr. and Mrs. Has- brouck's school of practical journalism. It is still in Mr. Tate's pos- session.
Though short-lived, a bright little specimen of ambitious young jour- nalism appeared in Middletown in September, 1866. It was called The Rising Sun, and was the first venture in this field by Stephen II. Sayer. a recent apprentice in the I'hig Press office. The Rising Sun was a liter- ary effort-it might almost be claimed as one of the earliest of the amateur publications, except that its ambitious young editor had higher and more mature aims when, out of the environing nebula he called into existence his little star of hope. It was a four-column folio, printed from long primer and nonpareil type-the two tolerable extremes-and was listed at fifty cents a year. It was printed in Coe Finch's job printing office at Franklin square in the third floor of the building now occupied by the Middletown Savings Bank. Mr. Sayer announced that "The Rising Sun is not a local paper. but will circulate throughout Maine, Kansas, Iowa. etc., with as much profit to subscribers there as in the State of New York." The writer set type on the first issue of The Rising Sun, and had a sort of godfatherly interest in this promising luminary, and regrets that one of the too common cataclysms in the journalistic empyrean over-
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whelmed the bright little orb ere its rays had scintillated a single scintilla- tion on either rock-ribbed Maine or bleeding Kansas.
But Mr. Sayer was not extinguished, even if the light of his little Rising Sun was dimmed forever. He was ambitious, and, what is more, determined. When he emerged from this celestial crash, he cast his optics over the universe, and discovered Montgomery, and forthwith hied him hither, and in April, 1868, issued the first number of the Wallkill Valley Times, a seven or eight-column folio, of good appearance, newsy, and well edited. In 1869 he issued the Dollar Weekly. Both publications passed into the hands of Lester Winfield in 1871.
In 1869 Mr. Sayer also started the Walden Recorder, at Walden. Chauncey B. Reed took it in 1870, and issued it as the Walden Recorder- Herald. Later he dropped the Recorder, and the paper has since appeared as the W'alden Herald.
From these ventures Mr. Sayer went to Deckertown (now Sussex), N. J., and started the Susser Independent, which has always been one of the brightest newspapers in New Jersey. After retiring from the Inde- pendent, Mr. Sayer joined the Texas colony of the seventies, and spent some years in the Lone Star State, farming, writing, editing, and making himself generally useful to the inhabitants of the far-away empire of the southwest. He and his estimable family returned to the north in the eighties, and he is now living in well-earned retirement on the old farm, near New Vernon, surrounded by his amiable wife and remarkably bright children-the latter now grown to maturity as useful and honored men- bers of the community.
One of the marvels of success, for a few years, was Wood's Household Advocate, a monthly magazine, started in Newburgh by S. S. Wood in 1867. Later the name was changed to Household Magasine, and it at- tained a circulation of 60,000 copies. It died in 1874.
Lester Winfield started a paper at Galesville Mills, Ulster County, in May, 1864, which he removed to Pine Bush in September, 1868, under the name of the Pine Bush Weekly Casket. The same month (September, 1868), he continued the journey to Montgomery, and called the paper the Montgomery Republican. Mr. Winfield succeeded in uniting his Casket, his Republican and Mr. Smith's Standard into one publication, May I, 1869, which he called the Republican and Standard, which is continued to this day, as the Montgomery Standard and Reporter.
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Early in 1869 A. A. Bensel started at Newburgh the Home, Farm and Orchard, an eight-page weekly. It was a bright, useful journal, devoted to farm topics, and deserved the widest circulation. But it died in the spring of 1876.
April 22, 1869, James H. Norton, of Middletown, late of the Mercury, an 1 William H. Nearpass, of Port Jervis, began the publication in Port Jervis of the first tri-weekly paper in this county. It was called The Evening Gasette. It was a five-column folio, printed from new bourgeois type. It was newsy. bright, chatty, and entertaining from the start. Within a few weeks The Family Gasette appeared from the same office, and was issued weekly. Within a year the latter was enlarged and became the Port Jervis Weekly Gazette. The Evening and the Weekly Gasette soon attained big circulations, and have since continued to reach a large class of readers. Both were neutral in politics for years. Mr. Norton retired from the concern in 1871, Ed. H. Mott, of Honesdale, becoming associated with Mr. Nearpass in the publishing and editing of the paper. October 1, 1872, George A. Clement, a young New York lawyer, pur- chased the establishment, and turned it into a Republican organ, support . ing General Grant in his second presidential compaign. July 1, 1873. William T. Doty, of Port Jervis, and William R. Waller, of Monticello, leased the plant, Mr. Doty becoming editor and business manager. an 1 Mr. Waller taking charge of the mechanical department. In 1874, Mr. Clement sold the plant to Jesse M. Connor, a Port Jervis merchant, who, in turn, disposed of it to Hon. Charles St. John, ex-congressman from this district. Soon afterward Mr. St. John sold the plant to Ezra J. Horton, of Peekskill, and William T. Doty, and the paper became democratic. In 1875 the co-partnership between Mr. Horton and Mr. Doty ended. Mr. Horton retiring, and in October, 1876, Mr. St. John again became owner of the plant for two issues, when he disposed of it to William H. Near- pass. The paper has since been democratic. W. T. Doty continued as editor for several years, being succeeded by James J. Shier, of Middle- town, and since his death, by Mr. Nearpass as editor. Associated with Mr. Nearpass in the management and ownership of the paper was Abram Shimer. A. M. May. James J. Shier, and since the eighties the paper has been conducted by the Gazette Publishing Co., with W. H. Nearpass as president and editor, Evi Shimer as secretary and treasurer and business manager, with Mark V. Richards as associate e litor, and James Skel-
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lenger as city editor. The tri-weekly edition was changed to an afternoon daily issue (except Sunday), and to an eight-column folio, January 17, 1881.
In January, 1869, Isaac F. Guiwits started the first daily newspaper in Middletown. It was issued at four o'clock every afternoon, except Sun- day, and was printed at the office of the Middletown Mercury, then located over what is now Hanford & Horton's news store on North street. It was a five-column folio, printed from brevier type, and was a model of neatness, sprightliness, and paid much attention to local news. Mr. Guiwits was an elegant writer, brimful of wit-a thorough all-round printer and "newspaper man," an apt pupil of the master journalistic mind, James H. Norton, and he made the Daily Mail a bright paper. But it didn't pay, as a daily, and April 28, 1869, Mr. Guiwits issued the Mid- dletown Mail, a weekly publication of six columns ( folio), this succeeding the Daily Mail. Some months later Mr. Guiwits sold the Mail plant to Evander B. Willis, a printer, stenographer, and reporter. A year or two later Dr. Joseph D. Friend became the owner of the Mail. In 1873 he made an arrangement by which the Mail was consolidated with the Mer- cury, when Dr. Friend and George H. Thompson became the proprietors of the combined publication. The Mail was a local newspaper, with demo- cratic tendencies, but it never cut much of a figure in the newspaper life in the county, after it ceased to be a daily, though Mr. Guiwits and Dr. Friend were both fine writers, and Mr. Willis was popular. Dr. Friend. the genial, the easy-going, the friend, has long since passed away, but his memory is ever green with the few who yet linger-aye few-who asso- ciated with him in journalism in those early days. Mr. Guiwits went to Kansas City, and Mr. Willis to California.
The second experiment of publishing a tri-weekly paper in Orange County began in the office of the Orange County Press when Stivers & Kessinger ( Moses D. Stivers and Albert Kessinger), on May 24, 1870, issued the first number of the Middletown Evening Press. October 26, 1872, the tri-weekly became a daily under the name of the Middletown Daily Press, and continued until merged with the Middletown Times in February, 1906, under the name of the Middletown Times-Press.
The first journal to be issued at Cornwall, or Cornwall-on-the-Hudson was called The Cornwall Paper, a Local Record of Things New and Old. It was published by P. P. Hazen, of Cornwall, in conjunction with A. A.
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Bensel, of Newburg, issue No. I appearing April 15, 1871. So far as known no other issue of the paper ever appeared.
May 24, 1875, Miss S. J. A. Hussey started the Cornwall Times, which lived six years.
In 1875 Isaac V. Montanye started the Middletown .1rgus, a weekly paper. It was merged with the Mercury in 1876, and January 27, 1876. the Daily Argus came forth and still does valiant service. The Daily Argus was started by Cornelius Macardeil, Sr., who had money as well as brains, and he made the Argus and the Mercury live democratic papers George H. Thompson, who soon after leaving college became connected with the concern, and his ready pen and many other good newspaper qualities, soon won the attention of Mr. Macardell, who installed him as editor, which position he retained to his death. The present editor is .1. B. Macardell.
An association of printers in Newburgh in October. 1875. started the Daily Penny Post, as a representative of labor and union interests. While the Post was struggling for existence the Daily Mail was starte.l by a rival organization, in 1876. In June of the latter year the Post was dis- continued, and having evidently accomplished its purpose, the Mail merged, in 1877. with the Register.
It was in 1876 that the Newburgh Register came into existence, with many vicissitudes and owners, as previously explained, but finally emerg- ing from the Telegraph under the able management of the lamented E.1- ward M. Ruttenber. The Register later passed into the hands of Herbert P. Kimber & Co., who made of it a bright, newsy, democratic paper. Suc- ceeding Mr. Kimber as editor were John A. Mason, Francis Willard and A. L. Moffatt, the latter of whom fought the Bryan element of the demo- cratic party so vigorously that his retirement from the paper in 1907 was a matter of much rejoicing in the ranks of the reigning element of the party in Orange County. The recent editor of the Register was John F. Tucker, whose utterances were evidently more in harmony with the views of the democratic county committee. But the Register suspende 1 publi- cation February 24. 1908.
In 1877 the Cornwall Reflector was started by John Lee. Later HI. H. Snelling became editor. The paper lived until the latter part of 188 -.
In 1879 James C. Merritt started the Cornwall Mirror at Highlan 1 Falls. In 1895 it was merged with the Cornwall Local.
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On April 4, 1880, appeared in Port Jervis the first number of the Sun- day Morning Call. It was a five-column quarto, neatly printed, ably edited, and destined, as its first number indicated, to make a stir in local social, political and religious circles. It was published by Erwin G. Fowler and A. L. Moffatt, with Mr. Fowler as editor. The latter was bright, witty, ready and fearless, and he girded on his editorial armor and leaped into the arena of local polemics with an ardor and a fearlessness that, for a time, set the town in a furor. He attacked the validity of the bond issue for the Monticello railroad, and came near having the bonds repudiated by the people in accordance with court decisions in similar cases. His iconoclasm aroused the frenzy of those most exposed to his vitriolic as- saults, and they sought to muzzle his Call, with the result that the last issue of his fearless paper appeared in December of the same year.
April 23, 1881, appeared in Middletown the Liberal Sentinel, an inde- pendent weekly quarto, with John W. and Mrs. Lydia Hasbrouck as editors. The paper was never profitable to them, but it enabled these two benevolent people to again take up, for a time, the battle for human rights-a struggle in which they had practically sacrificed the bloom of their youth and the fruition of years. Mr. Hasbrouck has gone to his reward, after a life of struggle, in his own quiet, unassuming way, with the adverse forces of environment for the betterment of humanity. His noble, self-sacrificing companion through years, yet lives, a martyr to conventionality, a lover of the good, the pure, the true. May her declin- ing days be as peaceful and as beautiful as the summer flowers that shed their fragrance and their luster around her own beautiful habitation on Linden avenue's fair lawn.
On the eighth of September, 1881, was issued at Port Jervis in the office of the Tri-States Publishing Co., the first number of the Orange County Farmer. It was a six-column quarto, and, as its name indicates. was devoted to the interests of the farmer, dairyman, and pomologist. The idea was one of the many conceptions of the fertile brain of Charles St. John, Jr., then the head of the Tri-States Publishing Co., a former supervisor of the town of Deer Park, a son of former Congressman Hon. Charles St. John, a young man who, ere he was out of his teens, was a leader in all the athletic sports of his native village, Port Jervis, active, energetic in business, and brimful of plans and ideas. He was one of the leaders in the county in the liberal republican movement that, in 1872,
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led to the nomination of Horace Greeley for President, and made the Tri-States Union and the campaign publication, The Woodchopper, red- hot champions of the Sage of Chappaqua. In starting the Orange County Farmer Mr. St. John builded far better than he knew, as subsequent events proved. The first number was, editorially, the joint production of himself and his brother-in-law, Fred R. Salmon, then a bookkeeper in the office of the Tri-States Union. Mr. Salmon had been active in the busi- ness department, but developed talent in connection with reportorial and editorial lines, and did some clever agricultural work for the first and for many succeeding issues of the Farmer. He was for some time known as managing editor of The Farmer, though after the first issue Erwin G. Fowler, late of the Sunday Call, and a former editor of the Daily Union and of the Middletown Press, and a lover of horticultural matters, be- came the active editor of The Farmer, with Mr. Salmon as the business manager. Under this joint control, with more or less supervision of Mr. St. John, The Farmer rapidly grew in popularity, in circulation, and in influence. In 1890 Mr. Fowler and John J. Dillon, then connected with the office and now manager of the Rural New Yorker, purchased The Husbandman, an agricultural paper at Elmira, and both retired from The Farmer. Mr. Fowler's successor was William T. Doty, and Mr. Dil- lon's successor in the business department was William F. Wade, now of the Rural New Yorker. In 1894 Mr. Fowler was again on The Farmer's editorial staff and remained until 1897, when declining health forced his retirement-and his death in 1904 deprived the literary and agricultural world of one of its brightest workers, the social world of one of the most amiable, lovable, benevolent members, and Orange County's musical set an able leader.
Mr. Fowler's successor on The Farmer was Henry A. Van Fredenberg. for years editor of the Milling World and the Lumber World, both of Buffalo. Mr. Van Fredenberg was born in Montague, N. J .. was edu- cated in the schools of Port Jervis, early became a school teacher, and had charge of the schools at Sussex (then Deckertown), N. J .. when he en- tered the editorial harness on the Sussex Independent, and developed rare talent, which quickly secured his recognition as a writer, a paragrapher, reporter, and editor. When he was called to the editorial chair of the Orange County Farmer he had years of editorial experience, was a ho- tanical scholar. a marvelous linguist, a proficient mathematician, had a rare
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knowledge of chemistry, geology and pomology, and was a careful student in dairy and agricultural matters generally. That The Farmer has pros- pered beyond all expectations under his wise and able editorial manage- ment is not saying too much. Started as a county agricultural paper, it steadily grew out of its local bounds into State reputation, and then into national and now into international importance, with a circulation now (March, 1908), quoted at 25,000, with subscribers in almost every civilized country in the world, besides going into every State in the Union. It is quoted everywhere, its editorial utterances and contributions are trans- ferred to other tongues, and it is recognized as one of the leading dairy journals of the world. This marvelous growth and influence outside its own county led its managers to change its title in 1897, when it became The New York Farmer, as more expressive of its character and the scope of its work and operations. At this time (March, 1908), Mr. Van Fre- denberg is still the editor, and The Farmer is now a seven-column quarto, issued on Wednesday of each week.
In 1882 James J. McNally, the veteran newspaper man of Orange County, started at Monroe a weekly seven-column folio, the Monroc Herald. In 1888 he started at Goshen the Goshen News, and printed both papers at Goshen until the spring of 1892, when he died, and both publications ceased.
In 1883 The News was started in Middletown as a Sunday paper by that veteran journalist, James II. Norton. Associated with him was Charles H. Conkling, a practical printer, and later W. T. Doty, whom Mr. Norton induced to take a hand in the editorial work. The News took an active interest in exploiting the farmer's interests during the famous "milk war" which waged in that year, when milk was spilled copiously in the Middletown streets and elsewhere, when encountered in surreptitious transfer to some unpopular dealer. The News was an eight-column folio, nicely printed, and attained a considerable circulation. Mr. Norton, and later Mr. Doty, retired from the concern, and the material was sold to Mrs. Hasbrouck, later to Lawyer Reid, who issued a few copies of The Jeffersonian, then to Isaac V. Montanye, who issued a few numbers of a labor paper, and finally the material was purchased by James J. McNally, to be merged with the Monroe Herald and the Goshen News.
In 1885 St. John & Salmon issued at Port Jervis The Farm Guide, a monthly of eight, twelve and sixteen pages. It did not live long.
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In June, 1885, George F. Ketchum started at Warwick the Warwick l'alley Dispatch. It was an eight-column folio at first, and was afterward enlarged to a nine-column folio which it is at present. In 1889 a half interest in the paper was sold to I. W. Litchfield, Mr. Ketchum retaining control of the editorial policy. In 1894 Mr. Litchfield engaged in other business, Mr. Ketchum taking over his interest, which he still retains as sole controller of the paper and its policy. The Dispatch has always been democratic in its politics, and for some years has been the leading-in fact, the main or only-exponent of the aggressive democracy represented by the Bryan forces in that party. Mr. Ketchum has been for several years chairman of the democratic county committee, and that he has proven himself an able editor and sagacious, fearless leader is evidenced by the growth in popularity of his paper, and the endorsement in growing aggressiveness of his course as leader of the democracy of the county and chairman of the county committee.
The Daily News was started in Newburgh as a penny daily, in 1885, by William H. Keefe, who had been for many years the city editor of the Newburgh Daily Journal. The paper had its inception amid modest sur- roundings, but what its founder lacked in material resources, however, he made up for in aggressiveness, enterprise and versatility. The vigorous style of the newcomer in the journalistic field caught the public fancy at the very start, and the paper soon attained a large circulation and became a financial success.
William H. Keefe died in February, 1901, and the business was car- ried on by the Newburgh News Printng and Publishing Co., which had been organized several years prior to his death. Mr. F. W. Wilson is its present able editor.
The News soon outgrew the meager mechanical facilities and restricted surroundings amid which it first saw the light, and in 1902 the plant was moved to its present home in the handsome building at 40 and 42 Grand street, which it purchased and remodeled for its own purpose. The in- stallation of a still more modern and up-to-date equipment marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the paper, and successful as it had been up to that time, it has been still more so since.
The Newburgh Daily News of to-day is concededly one of the leading newspapers of the Hudson River valley, not only in circulation, but also in influence. It is splendidly equipped, and is not surpassed by any news-
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paper in a city of equal size anywhere. Its plant represents a large in- vestment of capital and it carries on its pay-roll upwards of fifty em- ployees.
The handsome building, the modernly equipped plant, the large circula- tion and volume of advertising all indicate that the Newes enjoys the sup- port and large patronage of the community in which it is published and to which it is a distinct credit.
The Daily Evening Press was established in Newburgh in 1888, as a democratic organ, by James G. Dunphy. Mr. Dunphy was born in New- burgh, August 21. 1842, and learned his trade under the late E. M. Rut- tenber. For many years he conducted the Press with an ability which brought success and secured it a great influence throughout the county. After a considerable period of prosperity, however, a blight seemed to fall upon the printing plant, and although for some time Mr. Dunphy struggled bravely against ever-increasing obstacles, he was finally obliged to give up the losing fight, and the Press joined the large company of other Orange County organs which had flourished for a season and then passed silently from the scene.
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