USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 76
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The establishment is thus spoken of by one who knew it at the time of the sale. He says: "The office was in a small two-story frame building, the second story of which was large enough to contain a very old Ramage press with a stone bed, on which the paper was worked by using the old-fashioned balls, and all the stands and cases containing job and newspaper type. The type was old and worn. The outside form of the newspaper consumed so nearly all the type, that the inside could not be set up without first distributing the former. The lower story of the office was supplied with huge bins, into which the subscribers would empty their sub- scriptions in the shape of corn, flour, oats, or whatever articles were most convenient for them to bring. It was the same as cash in the family of the printer." Mr. Miner removed from Doylestown to West Chester and formed a partnership with his brother Charles in the publication of the Village Record. In 1834 they sold out to the late Henry S. Evans, when the brothers returned to Wilkesbarre, where Asher died March 13th, 1841.
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The new firm existed until February, 1827, when it was dissolved by mutual consent, and Mr Morris carried on the office alone to October 1st, same year, when the establishment was sold to Elisha B. Jackson, a native of Columbia county, Pennsylvania, and James Kelley, an Englishman, graduates of the Village Record office. They changed the name of the paper to that of Bucks County Intelligencer and General Advertiser, and it was issued in a new suit of type. It was now made more of a political newspaper than it had yet been, and about this time was inaugurated the stirring appeals to voters just before election, now so common with newspapers. Mr. Jack- son died May 23d, 1828, of consumption, when Mr. Kelley assumed entire control of the paper. He was a pushing man, and the paper prospered under his management. He was a bitter partisan, and at no time in the last sixty years were harder blows given and taken. The fact of his having been born in Great Britain was used against him, and his paper was called the "British organ" by his opponents. The Intelligencer, while he conducted it, was in advance of what it had been under previous management. In March, 1835, Mr. Kelley took William M. Large, a graduate of the office, into co-partnership, and the following October the paper was enlarged to a double-medium sheet. The co-partnership was dissolved January 3d, 1837, by its own limitation, when Mr. Kelley again assumed control. He con- tinued to conduct it until March 14th, 1838, when he sold out to William M. Large, his late partner in business. Mr. Large owned the paper for three years, having Hugh H. Henry, esquire, a member of the bar, for its editor, to the 17th of March, 1841, when he sold out to Samuel Fretz, of Bedminster, who learned his trade in the office, Mr. Henry being retained as editor. At this time the paper was printed in the brick building now owned by Henry Harvey on Main street, nearly opposite the National bank. March 3d, 1843, the office again changed hands, being purchased by John S. Brown, a native of Plumstead township, who had learned his trade in it, but after his time was out had purchased and published the Hunterdon Gazette meanwhile. While Mr. Brown owned the paper it was much im- proved, and there was an active rivalry between it and the Demo- crat. It was about this time that "locals" began to make their , appearance in country newspapers, and the Intelligencer was one of the first to take this new departure. Mr. Brown did much for the permanent prosperity of the paper, and he left it much better than he found it.
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In the spring of 1855 Mr. Brown sold his newspaper to Enos Prizer and Henry T. Darlington, of Chester county, both graduates of the Village Record office. Their first issue bore date March 6th. Mr. Prizer was the son of Frederick Prizer, a farmer, living near the Schuylkill in the northern part of Chester county, where he was born in 1825. Both his parents were of German descent. He entered the Village Record office at the age of fifteen, having among his office-mates Bayard Taylor, Judge William Butler, Judge Edward M. Paxson, of the supreme court, and others who have since become prominent. At the expiration of his appren- ticeship he remained in the office for a time, and in turn was editor, reporter, clerk, and collector. He was of a restless and nervous temperament, possessing activity, energy, and industry. These qualities, with more than ordinary abilities, made him a suc- cessful journalist. He was an active and earnest politician, and at times severe on his adversaries. Personally he was social and genial, and had many warm friends. Mr. Darlington belongs to an old Chester county family, and is a nephew of the late Doctor Wil- liam Darlington. The firm continued nearly ten years, and was only dissolved by the death of Mr. Prizer, November 26th, 1864. The establishment then passed wholly into the possession of Mr. Darlington, who still conducts the paper with ability and success. Mr. Darlington entered upon his apprenticeship in 1849, and gra- duated a few months before he joined in the purchase of the Intelligencer. Under his management the paper has been enlarged and improved, and now ranks among the best country newspapers in the state. In January, 1876, it was changed to a semi-weekly, and the size reduced to double-medium, and Alfred Paschall taken into the business as junior partner. The following summer a hand- some new office was erected on the site of the old building.
Following closely upon the heels of Miner's Correspondent, came the Farmer's Gazette and Bucks County Register, which William B. Coale brought out at Newtown in the fall of 1805, the first num- ber bearing date October 10th. Its publication was continued about ten years. We have seen the fourth number, a well-printed sheet, eighteen by twenty-two inches. The first page was well-filled with advertisements, among which was an offer of two hundred dollars reward " for the apprehension of the villain who shot Henry Weaver to death on the night of the 8th of March, between Montgomery meeting-house and North Wales." Richard Mitchel advertises his " old brown cow," which "strayed from the subscriber living
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near Attleborough ;" Enos Smith was " blue-dyeing ;" Francis Flanagan bottled "Hare's best porter," and Andrew McKee was " saddler," all in Newtown. The paper was printed in the house now occupied by Doctor Elias E. Smith, opposite the Brick hotel. While publishing the Gazette Coale issued a prospectus for printing, by subscription, The American Farmer's Guide, a treatise on agri- culture, but whether it was ever issued we do not know.
William B. Coale, who was one of the newspaper pioneers of the county, was born in Harford county, Maryland, in 1782, and learned the printing trade with Benjamin Johnson, an extensive publisher of Philadelphia. It is not known at what time he came to Newtown, but he probably assisted Charles Holt to print the Bucks County Bee in 1802, and in 1803 he married Sarah, the daughter of Asa Carey, of that place. He was a Friend and brought a certificate of membership from the " Northern District monthly meeting of Friends" to Wrightstown, eleventh-month 2d, 1802. In 1810 or 1811 he published a newspaper at Frankford, Pennsylvania, and in 1817 he established a paper at Havre-de-Grace, Maryland, which was discontinued in 1822. Soon afterward he established the Bard of Union at Belair, in the same state, which he relinquished in a few years. He died at Washington city in 1856, his wife having previously died in 1831, in her forty-seventh year. One who knew Mr. Coale well describes him as "a man of wonderful energy, which never amounted to much, as he was erratic and fond of adventure. He was a superior workman, and as a journeyman printer com- manded the highest wages. He was a wit, was full of humor, could tell a story admirably well, and was above mediocrity as a poet." His son publishes The Virginian at Abingdon, Virginia.
A few months before his marriage, which took place June 25th, 1803, Mr. Coale indulged his romantic penchance for poetry by ad- dressing the following lines to the object of his affection, headed "Verses addressed to Sarah Carey." They were printed on pink satin, and bore date January 23d, 1803:
" Thou can'st not steal the rose's bloom To decorate thy face, But the sweet blush of modesty Will lend an equal grace.
The violet scents the distant gales, (It grows in lowly bed ;) So real worth new merit gains By diffidence o'er spread.
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Would'st thou, sweet maid, the lily's white In thy complexion find- Sweet innocence may shine as fair Within thy spotless mind.
When'in th' op'ning spring of life, And ev'ry flower in bloom, The budding virtues in thy breast Shall yield the best perfume.
A nosegay in thy bosom plac'd A moral may convey- For soon its brightest tints shall fade And all its sweets decay.
So short-liv'd are the lovely tribes Of Flora's transient reign, They bud, blow, wither, fall and die, Then turn to earth again.
And, thus, sweet girl, must ev'ry charm Which youth is proud to share, Alike their. quick succession prove And the same truths declare.
Sickness will change the roseate hue Which glowing health bespeaks, And age will wrinkle with its cares The smile on beauty's cheeks.
But, as that fragrant myrtle wreath Will all the rest survive, So shall the mutual graces still Through endless ages live."
It is said the Gazette and Register was established to give one of the parties in the controversy about the new alms-house a chance to be heard. The size of the sheet was eighteen by eleven inches. The first number was styled, upon its face, "a weakly paper," and its ap- pearance did not belie its name.
In March, 1817, there was advertised, to be sold at sheriff's sale, Newtown, as the property of David A. Robinson, "a printing-press and types, an excellent standing-press with iron screw and bar, etc., and all nearly new." We have made diligent inquiry to discover whether this material was the remains of a defunct newspaper. It is just possible they were the types and presses of Coale's dead Gazette and Register. Isaac W. Hicks and sister, of Newtown, remember Rob- inson's printing-office, in the third story of the building, now the Odd Fellows' hall. He was sent to jail for debt, and his property
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sold by the sheriff. She has a recollection of being in Robinson's printing-office about the close of the war of 1812-15, and saw several persons setting type. He looked up from his work and remarked, " I hear there is a rumor of peace. I will pay one dollar to any person who will go to Trenton this evening to learn the particulars." The next morning the word "peace," printed in large letters, was hanging up outside the office.
Down to 1816, the Democratic party had no organ in the county, and it may be said that there had not been a political paper published in it. The Correspondent, which claimed to be independent, printed the political proceedings of both sides. But now the Democrats thought they ought to have an exponent, and consequently a news- paper was established in the fall of 1816. The first number of the Doylestown Democrat was issued by Lewis Deffebach and company, September 18th. The original size of the paper is not known, as the earlier issues are not preserved, but at the forty-sixth number, July 29th, 1817, the sheet was enlarged to nineteen by twenty- three and one-half inches. The Democrat has had a varied experi- ence, and encountered many ups and downs in its early life. The proposals for publishing it, announced in the first number, stated that it would be a Democratic paper, and support the party, terms two dollars per annum, and twenty-five cents extra when delivered by private conveyance. The first number contained but few adver- tisements ; Dyott's medicines, Doctor Grigg's " Interesting Discov- ery," cure for cancer, sheriff's proclamation for presidential election, three real estate sales, notice of United States revenue-collector, for collection of district-taxes, the "Latin school" in the academy, meeting of officers of the Thirty-third militia regiment to drill, and Cory Meeker, "from Philadelphia," announces his extensive boot and shoe-store in Doylestown. It was issued from a building that stood on the east side of Main street, opposite Corson's hotel. How long the " company" continued we do not know, but it was taken off before the end of the first year, and Mr. Deffebach became the sole publisher. In the forty-second number he announces that he " will receive wheat, rye, oats, hay, and all kinds of country produce," in payment of debts.
The Democrat had a weakly existence the first few years of its life. From want of patronage, or some other cause, its founder was unsuccessful in business, and in the fall of 1820 he made an assign- ment for the benefit of his creditors, to William Watts and Benjamin
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Morris. In December the assignees sold the establishment to Ben- jamin Mifflin, of Philadelphia, at a later day joint editor and pro- prietor of the Pennsylvanian. His first issue is dated January 2d, 1821, the whole number at that time being 212, which shows that the publication was suspended for a few weeks. Mr. Deffebach went from Doylestown to Philadelphia, where he issued a prospectus for The People's Guardian, in October, 1821, to be published in the Northern Liberties, the first number of which appeared November 8th. He was afterward appointed by the governor "armourer and keeper of the arsenal" at Philadelphia. He was deputy-United States-marshal in 1817, and in 1819 he sued Simeon Siegfried, editor of the Messenger, for libel, the latter charging him with mis- conduct in his office. The suit was arbitrated, and " no cause of action " awarded.
In the meanwhile a division in the Democratic party, as well as an opposition to the men of the county who controlled it, led to the establishment of the Bucks County Messenger. It claimed to be Democratic, was edited and published by Simeon Siegfried, the first number appearing June 28th, 1819. It was about the size of the Democrat, and was known as the "yellow fever" paper, on account of the dingy color of the paper it was printed on-made at Ingham's mill, near New Hope. It promised to support the general and state governments. The Democrat branded it as the " intended advocate of corruption," and on the Messenger's appearance the Democrat wanted the persons appointed to distribute it "to have their velocipedes in order." In connection with the Messenger, Mr. Siegfried established a German paper at Doylestown, the first in the county, which was issued sometime in 1820. We have never seen a copy of this German pioneer paper, and do not even know its name, but it was short-lived. It probably gave up the ghost when Siegfried left the Messenger, for we find that on September 4th, 1821, T. A. Meredith announces that the accounts had been assigned to him, and that he was anxious for those indebted to " walk up to the captain's office and settle."
As two newspapers at the county-seat, both claiming to be Demo- cratic, and warring upon each other, tended to distract the party, the politicians thought it best to unite the houses of York and Lan- caster. For this purpose Simon Cameron,1 a young jour printer, just out of his time, was invited to come to Doylestown and take
1 Now Senator Cameron of Pennsylvania.
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charge of one of the rival newspapers with the view of consolidating them. John Fox, then a prominent member of the bar, and some of his friends, had secured the Messenger, and in the latter part of December young Cameron arrived to take charge of the paper. He came up in the stage, a fellow-passenger with Mifflin, the proprietor of the Democrat, between whom and the other passengers the rival newspapers, Cameron's coming, and the political situation generally, were freely discussed. Cameron had the prudence to keep silent, and when, on the arrival of the stage at Marple's, now Corson's, hotel, he was known and announced as the "new printer," there was some dismay among the other side. Cameron issued the first num- ber of his paper January 2d, 1821. In his address he states that his paper shall be "purely Democratic, and will keep aloof from all local divisions that exist in the Republican ranks." Shortly afterward the Democrat and Messenger were consolidated, and published by Cameron . and Mifflin under the name of Bucks County Democrat. The name that should lead in the new firm was chosen by a game of chance, known among printers as "jeffing."
The Democrat was then published in the old frame building of Mrs. Shearer, on the east side of Main street, below the monument, where the Intelligencer was printed twenty years later, and the cir- culation was abont eight hundred. At that time Doylestown was an insignificant village. On the east side of Court street, from Main to Broad, there was but one small stone house and Barton Stewart's old Jog wheelwright shop. The Ross mansion was owned by Wil- liam Watts, one of the associate-judges of the courts, and kept as a hotel.
The administration of Cameron and Mifflin was of short duration, but long enough to harmonize the party, for before December, 1821, the Democrat had passed into the hands of William T. Rogers, who died at Doylestown June 30th, 1866. In his last illness he re- quested that he might be carried to the grave by four printers, and two were chosen each from the Democrat and Intelligencer offices. Rogers changed the name to Democrat and Farmers' Gazette, under which he continued the publication until the summer of 1829, when he sold the establishment to Manasseh H. Snyder, a native Ger- man of Lehigh county. During this period the files of the paper show a gradual increase in advertising, and the subscription list was likewise increased. At the time of his purchase Mr. Snyder was the proprietor and editor of the Bucks County Express, a German Dem-
52
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
ocratic newspaper he had established in Doylestown two years be- fore. He changed the name of the paper to the one it now bears, Doylestown Democrat, but still retained that of "Farmers' Gazette," which had been added by General Rogers. Among the apprentices in the Democrat office while Rogers owned it was Asher Miner Wright who founded the Jeffersonian at West Chester, and died in Philadelphia in 1875, while a proof-reader in the Sunday Mer- cury office. Mr. Snyder's first issue of the Democrat was dated July 7th, 1829. He published it until January or February, 1832, when he sold it to William H. Powell, of Norristown. The administra- tion of Mr. Powell was a brief one, for in November, 1834, he sold the Democrat establishment to John S. Bryan, who was its editor and proprietor for upward of ten years.
General Bryan was a descendant of an old Springfield German family which settled in that township at an early day. He was a prominent citizen of the county, in and out of politics, for several years and to the day of his death, and held several places of public trust. He was brigadier-general of militia, the first prothonotary of the court of common pleas under the constitution of 1838, associate- judge of the county, and clerk to the United States senate committee on printing. He was Democratic candidate for the state senate in 1846, but was defeated. While he published the Democrat, we be- lieve in 1835, the office, then in a frame building on Main street opposite to Corson's hotel, was burned down, and the contents en- tirely destroyed. During the terms of Snyder, Powell, and Bryan, there were no marked changes in the management of the paper, but its respectable standing among the best class of country newspapers was fully maintained. The loss of the files of the paper by fire pre- vents us comparing period with period. It was issued several years from the stone building on Main street at the foot of York, and now owned by J. Henry Harvey. General Bryan died in June, 1863.
In May, 1845, General Bryan sold the establishment to Samuel Johnson Paxson, of Buckingham, son of Thomas Paxson, of an old Quaker family of the county. The first issue of the new proprietor was the 14th of May. Mr. Paxson threw new energy and enterprise into the management of the Democrat, and he not only enlarged it, but improved its appearance and added interest to its columns. He was an innovator on old customs, and introduced some practices new to country journalism. The most material of these was setting apart
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a space for local news, and he is justly the father of this feature now common to all well-conducted newspapers. He was aggressive in his conduct of the paper, and often made things lively. He now and then said things both pungent and full of humor, and he often had the community in a broad grin. No one could excel him in getting up a funny handbill or a head-line announcement. The extra which he issued after Mr. Buchanan's election, wherein he put "An old bachelor in the White House, and all the old maids tickled to death," was copied into the London Times. Under his management advertising was stimulated and the circulation increased. He never held political office, but devoted all his time and energy to his paper, even at the sacrifice of his health. We must not forget to state that Mr. Paxson introduced the first Hoe power-press into the county, and printed the first newspaper by steam. He died at his home in Buckingham in 1864.
In May, 1858, Mr. Paxson sold the Democrat to W. W. H. Davis, the present editor and proprietor, on his return from New Mexico, where he had spent four years in the civil service of the govern- ment. In October, 1866, it was considerably enlarged to accom- modate increased advertising. The Democrat and the Intelligencer were the same size, forty-seven by thirty inches, before the latter changed to a semi-weekly, and the columns are still of the same width. John Harton, the book-keeper of the establishment, but formerly compositor and foreman, has been in the employ of the office for thirty-five consecutive years. He has probably been con- nected with the same office longer than any other printer in the state except Hiram Lukens, the foreman in the Intelligencer office, who antedates him nine years. While Mr. Davis was in the army during the late civil war, the Democrat was conducted by Mr. Harton for three months, and afterward by Doctor John D. Mendenhall for three years. The Democrat and Intelligencer are issued from buildings separated by a dwelling, on Monument-place, where they have been printed nearly thirty years.
The first German newspaper printed in this county that survived its infancy, was the Bucks County Express, established by Manas- seh H. Snyder in 1827, the first number being issued in June. In the winter of 1826, while Mr. Snyder was working in the office of the Reading Adler, the senator and representatives from Bucks, Messrs. Doctor Eli Kitchen, George Harrison, Robert Ramsey, John Matts, and John Fackenthall, on their way to Harrisburg,
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stopped over night at the hotel where he boarded. Messrs. Matts and Fackenthall, with whom he was acquainted, urged him to come to Bucks county and commence the publication of a German news- paper. Mr. Snyder agreed to do it, and immediately. issued. a prospectus for a newspaper to be called the Doylestown Express, to appear about the 1st of May. They were sent over to General Rogers, who then owned the Democrat, to circulate. In May, Snyder bought a complete outfit of material, with press, cases, etc., of Mr. Ritter, which he brought to Doylestown in a large four-horse wagon. He began with about one hundred subscribers, the first issue appearing the 4th of July, 1827, but he printed a thousand copies which he circulated through the upper parts of Bucks and Mont- gomery counties. In the course of a few weeks he had eight hundred subscribers. He continued its publication with but little change except the alteration of the name from Doylestown Express to Bucks County Express, until 1835 or 1836, when the paper was sold by the sheriff and bought by John S. Bryan, then proprietor of the Demo- crat. When General Bryan sold the Democrat to Mr. Paxson, in 1845, the Express went with it. In 1850, Paxson sold it to Oliver P. Zink, who conducted the paper until 1856, when it again fell into the sheriff's hands, and was bought by Edwin Fretz. Fretz sold the paper to Charles Price, a graduate of the Democrat office, and J. Adam Daubert, in 1859. In 1866, Doctor Morwitz, editor and proprietor of the German Democrat, started a German opposi- tion paper in Doylestown called the Reform, but buying the Express soon afterward the two were consolidated under the name of The Express and Reform, which it now bears.
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