Part 2 — CHAPTER XXXVII.

JOURNALISM IN ORANGE COUNTY

By W. T. Doty.

FIRST APPEARANCE.

From the accessible records it seems that the "art preservative" entered Orange County by way of Goshen in 1788. It appeared next in Newburgh in 1895, {sic} at New Windsor in 1799, at Montgomery in 1806, New Vernon in 1833, Slate Hill in 1834, Middletown, in 1840, Port Jervis in 1850, Warwick in 1845, Pine Bush in 1868, Walden in 1869, Cornwall 1871, Monroe 1882, Cornwall-on-Hudson in 1888, Chester 1888, Highland Falls 1891, Washingtonville 1899.

At first thought it appears more probable that Newburgh was the first port of entry, from the fact that the latter early felt the contact of the civilization advancing up the Hudson—practically the only highway into the great unknown interior prior to, during and immediately following the American Revolution; and also as, during the Revolution, Samuel Louden followed the retreating footsteps of the American forces from New York City to Fishkill, printing or issuing, at convenient times, the New York Packet. This was issued, it appears, at Fishkill. Why not in Newburgh, where so many great events in connection with the Revolutionary period occurred?

However, Goshen seems to have been a hamlet or village as early as 1714, while Newburgh's first settlement was about 1719, and the records accord to the old county seat the honor of housing the first printing office in Orange County.

In 1788 David Mandeville and David M. Wescott issued the Goshen Repository. That they were men of some literary ability is surmised from the fact that they were connected with the Goshen Academy—that ancient and honorable seat of learning—an institution of which, also, Goshen should feel a thrill of pride.

The office of the Repository was, in 1793, near the court house. The Repository was sold to John G. and William Heurtin, in 1800, at which time its name was changed to the Orange County Patriot. In 1801 Gabriel Denton secured the interest of William Heurtin, and in 1803 Denton sold his interest to William A. Carpenter, and the name of the paper was changed to that of The Friend of Truth. The year following it again changed owners and names, when Ward M. Gazlay became its publisher and it became the Orange Eagle. The next year (1805) the office was burned and Mr. Gazlay removed the remains to Newburgh, where the paper, in union with The Recorder of the Times, which Mr. Gazlay purchased, became the Political Index, and this lived until 1829.

According to the record the second journalistic venture in the county was in 1795, when the Newburgh Packet appeared, printed at Newburgh by Lucius Carey, and in 1797 it became The Mirror under David Denniston. Denniston had purchased the paper of Carey (1797), in which year it was announced that the paper was printed by Philip Van Home. In 1798 Joseph W. Barber was the printer, and he advertised, "also, Printing and Book Binding carried on by David Denniston." The Mirror was absorbed (1804) by the Rights of Man, and the latter by The Recorder of the Times in 1805.

In 1799 we hear of the New Windsor Gazette, through the removal of a paper of that name from New Windsor to Newburgh, by Jacob Schultz. How long it had existed at New Windsor is now purely conjectural, but as most of the newspapers of that early period were sort of birds of passage, it is assumed that the year 1799 witnessed the Gazette's hatching at New Windsor and its fledgling flight to Newburgh, where it became the Orange County Gazette. It became The Citizen when later purchased by David Denniston.

The year 1799 also brought forth at Newburgh another publication, The Rights of Man, with Dr. Elias Winfield as its sponsor, for whom it was "printed by Benoni H. Howell." David Denniston purchased this paper and merged in it the Orange County Gazette. We learn that the Mirror of 1797 was absorbed by The Rights of Man in 1804, and then the Packet, the Mirror, and the Gazette disappear. The Mirror and the Citizen espoused the patriotic political works and probably the religious doctrines of Thomas Paine, who wrote "The Crisis," "Common Sense," and "The Rights of Man," while the Gazette advocated opposite theories. The paper, The Rights of Man, which absorbed the Mirror and the Citizen, represented the Jeffersonian branch of the Republican party, while the Recorder of the Times, claiming to be Republican in politics, represented the Federalists and Burr, then a Federalist.

In 1803 appeared at Newburgh the Recorder of the Times, by Dennis Coles. Then at Goshen the same year, The Friend of Truth, under the management of Ward M. Gazlay, and in 1804 at Goshen the Orange County Gazette, conducted by Gabriel Denton. It will be seen there were, within five years, two Orange County Gazettes in the county—one at Newburgh, one at Goshen. As the former metamorphosed itself into the Public Index, the Orange Telegraph, the Newhurgh Telegraph and the Newburgh Register, with short pauses between, it may be that it had thrown off the first epidermis and was emerging in new form when its Goshen namesake burst into the sunlight.

Montgomery was looming up from its settlement in 1721, or soon thereafter, and in 1810 it was large enough, or felt important enough, to become incorporated as a village. But as early as 1806 the printer or publisher saw an "aching void" in the growing hamlet, to pervade which the Orange County Republican was called into existence that year. It was "published for the Proprietors by Cyrus Beach and Luther Pratt." Who the "Proprietors" were is not in evidence.

It is worthy of record right here that this Montgomery journalistic venture is the only one, up to that date, that lives to-day. Through migration and other changes this Orange County Republican ultimately became the Independent Republican, with a permanent abiding place in Goshen.

That venerable editor and historian, Edward M. Ruttenber, says the Orange County Republican was first published "at Ward's Bridge," the title of the first post-office in Montgomery, so called from the fact that it was located and kept at James Ward's gristmill, where he had thrown a bridge across the Wallkill, constituting it one of the most convenient locations for the delivery of mail matter.

The money to start the paper was advanced in equal shares by twenty-four "Patriotic citizens of this county, consisting chiefly of respectable farmers and mostly inhabitants of the town of Montgomery." This excerpt is from a statement in the paper itself of the issue of June 9, 1806. The paper "admitted there was some honesty among Federalists," but was bitterly opposed to Dewitt Clinton. January 18, 1812, Luther Pratt, the publisher then, changed its name to the Independent Republican as more clearly indicating its political policy and views. It was not until 1822 that it was removed to Goshen, four years after James A. Cheevey became its proprietor. He was a Frenchman and a practical printer.

In 1806 appeared another publication, the Political Index, at Newburgh, by Ward M. Gazlay. The latter's Orange Eagle plant at Goshen was burned in 1805, and he had removed the remnants to Newburgh, the Phoenix emerging from these ashes being the Political Index. The Index is credited with having, some years later, "apparently consolidated the interests of the Republican party." It gave a "hearty support to the administration of Jefferson and Madison, and to the war of 1812." It is further stated that "its political articles were mainly from the pen of Jonathan Fisk, one of the most able men of the period."

In 1829 the Index passed into the ownership of Charles M. Cushman, who changed its name to the Orange Telegraph, and later to the Newburgh Telegraph. In 1839 Mr. Cushman sold it to Henry H. Van Dyck, who, in 1840, sold it to Elias Pitts, who, in 1850, disposed of it to Edward M. Ruttenber. The latter sold it in 1857 to Joseph Lawson, repurchased it in 1859, resold it in 1861 to E. W. Gray, who sold it, in 1864, to George M. Warren, he to Isaac V. Montanye in the same year; he to E. M. Ruttenber in 1865; he to A. A. Bensel in 1867; he to J. J. McNally in 1869, who, in 1874, sold it to Dr. Cooper, of Warwick. In 1876 E. M. Ruttenber again became its owner, and changed its name to the Newburgh Register. February 24, 1908, the publication of the Register was suspended.

Here, then, appears the second paper to come down to us from that early period, though only after many ups and down and with kaleidoscopic changes of titles and owners. Mr. Ruttenber assures us that "The Telegraph, although Democratic at all times, opposed the Albany Regency—a fact which led to its purchase by H. H. Van Dyck, or rather the purchase for him. Mr. Pitts, who had been sent to take Mr. Van Dyck's place, very soon fell into the line of thought of his local supporters, and not only approved the Regency, but upheld the 'Free Soil' banner of 1848 with marked ability. In the subsequent changes and revolutions," adds Mr. Ruttenber, "in politics it has maintained the Democratic faith."

An ambitious effort appeared at Goshen in 1808 when Gabriel Denton launched the Orange County Patriot and Spirit of Seventy-six. In this publication we recognize the third journalistic venture with sufficient tenacity of life to come down to our own day, though it, too, had to change its title and character somewhat ere it became the present well-known Goshen Democrat.

From 1808 to 1820 there seems to be a hiatus. There does not appear a single new journalistic venture in that time, although it was in this period, in 1812-13, that the Orange County Republican became the Independent Republican, and in 1822 was removed from Montgomery to Goshen. The war of 1812, impending, progressing and ending, with war's all-demoralizing effects, may account for this cooling of the journalistic ardor for twelve long years.

At any rate, the next new publication to appear in the field—figuratively if not literally—was the Orange Farmer, in 1820, at Goshen. Its founders, Williams and Farrand, were graduates, Mr. Ruttenber says, of the Albany Plow-Boy publication. How long the Orange Farmer ploughed through the journalistic heather of Orange County is not now known, but we never hear of it again. Mr. Ruttenber records that "Samuel Williams, the associate of Mr. Farrand, died at Rondout, June 16, 1878, in his ninetieth year—the oldest printer in the State, and for forty years a member of the Baptist denomination."

In June, 1822, John D. Spaulding began, at Newburgh, the publication of the Newburgh Gazette. This passed through many owners' hands, appearing in 1856, under the management of Eugene W. Gray as the Daily News. Later it passed a somewhat checkered career in alliances with the Gazette, the Telegraph, the Daily Telegraph (1864), Daily Union, same year, the Press (1866), and the Register in 1876.

The Rev. J. R. Wilson began at Newburgh, in 1824, the publication of a religious monthly of forty-eight pages, under the title of the Evangelical Witness. It was devoted to the exposition of the doctrines of the Reformed Presbyterian church, and was continued four years, to be succeeded (1828) by the Christian Statesman, which gave up the ghost after one year's struggle in this cruel, cold world.

An anti-Jackson paper appeared in Newburgh during the campaign of 1828. It was called The Beacon. Its editor was Judge William B. Wright.

In 1829 the Orange Telegraph appeared at Newburgh. It was merely our old friend, the Political Index, in a new guise, under the tutelage of Charles M. Cushman, who subsequently named it the Newburgh Telegraph.

A monthly quarterly appeared next in Newburgh in May, 1832, as Tablets of Rural Economy. John W. Knevels was the editor. The people then, as too often now, had no use for rural or other economy, and the quarterly died after a few issues.

In 1832 appeared another publication—one that time has dealt with so kindly that we find it to-day brandishing, as of old, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." The Signs of the Times was started at Goshen in this year by Lebbeus L. Vail as an exponent or expounder of the Old School Baptist theology. The first numbers were printed at the office of the Independent Republican. Mr. Vail, though born a Congregationalist—his father, Isaiah Vail, being one of the founders of the present First Congregationalist church of Middletown—became an enthusiastic Old School Baptist through the influence of his wife, Sally, daughter of Wilmot Moore, and her father's family. Like most neophytes, Mr. Vail became very earnest, and gave freely of his purse, his time, and his energies, and the Signs of the Times soon became a recognized factor in Old School Baptist work. This publication was only one of the forms of his contributions to the cause, with no hope of material reward. Two years later Mr. Vail became county clerk. Recognizing in a young enthusiast in the Old School Baptist faith an Elijah in the cause and fit to wear the mantle, he was forced by civic duties to lay aside, he turned over to Elder Gilbert Beebe the entire plant and good will of the Signs of the Times. Mr. Beebe removed the office to New Vernon, then a somewhat thriving hamlet with a well-appointed Old School Baptist church, with store, post-office, hotel, blacksmith shop, and the accessories of a live community. The place is on the Shawangunk Kill, on the Orange and Sullivan County line, about four miles northwest of Middletown. Mr. Beebe removed the plant again, this time to Alexandria, Va., whence he returned with it to New Vernon, and in 1847 or 1848 removed it to Middletown, where it still oscillates, as of old, the sword of Gideon. Elder Beebe preached to congregations in Middletown, Brookfield (Slate Hill), Bloomingburg, Van Burenville or Wallkill, and New Vernon. He was an energetic, tireless worker, and built up an immense circulation for the Signs of the Times. It became a power in Old School Baptist faith throughout the United States, and was for years—and is yet—the leading publication in this faith. In the sixties Elder Beebe reprinted sermons and Old School Baptist verses in book form, taken from files of the Signs. Two volumes were printed and they had great sale. The Signs of the Times, first published as a monthly, became a semi-monthly, which it is now, with thirty pages and covers. It is one of the remarkable and quaint publications in this country to-day. Its contents are a study for the historian, whether of religious or secular subjects. Whatever its other merits, its very quaintness should preserve it from the vandalism of time, the sacrilege of events, and the blasphemy of environment. It stands as a monument to the enterprise, the religious feelings, enthusiasm, aims and forces of a period and a propagandism that seem slowly but surely fading into the twilight of the ages. It is now "Published the first and fifteenth of each month by J. E. Beebe & Co., Middletown, N. Y.," with Elder F. A. Chick, Hopewell, N. J., and Elder H. C. Ker, Middletown, as editors.

The Newburgh Daily Journal was started in 1833 or 1834 by John D. Spalding, which he continued until 1843, when he changed the name to the Highland Courier. After his death, August 22, 1853, Mrs. Spalding, his widow, published it until 1855, when she sold it to William E. Smiley. Edward Nixon became its proprietor in 1858, and Rufus A. Reed in 1859, who changed its name to the Highland Chieftain.

The name was afterwards changed to the Newburgh Daily Journal, which it retains to the present day. On June 1, 1861, Cyrus B. Martin became the owner and its whole character at once radically changed for the better. Mr. Martin was peculiarly fitted for editorial duties and under his able management the paper soon attained a large circulation and eventually gained that high standing and wide sphere of influence, which under the wise control of his successors it has ever since retained.

Mr. Martin remained the owner of the Journal until 1877, when he sold out to the Messrs. Samuel Ritchie, Lawrence C. Bodine and Frank S. Hull. Before the year was up, Mr. Bodine disposed of his interests to his partners, and those two gentlemen have managed the paper ever since, although their interests are merged in the corporation known as the Newburgh Journal Company.

The Journal is housed in a building owned by itself, a handsome, spacious structure, located on the corner of Smith and Third streets, where it maintains one of the most complete printing establishments and book bindery plants to be found in the county.

The Republican Banner existed in Montgomery in 1833 or 1834. or in both those years, with Calvin F. S. Thomas as its publisher, but that is all that seems to be known about it.

In 1834 a handsomely printed weekly appeared in the thriving locality of Brookfield or Slate Hill, known as the Republican Sentinel, or "the Farmers' Protests Against Political Speculation and Dictation."

The writer has a few copies of the Sentinel, which show it to have been a highly creditable publication, in its make-up, its typographical appearance, and in its literary features. The issue for April 12, 1834, was No. 6, of Vol. I, and it was "Printed by Tho's P. Evans for the Publisher." May 17 the issue was No. 10, and announced that "The Republican Sentinel is printed every Saturday by D. Yokum for the Proprietor." The issue for June 28 was No. 16, and contained the same announcement as to the printer, but in no issue does it appear who the editor or publisher was. The Sentinel was a five-column folio, improving typographically with each issue, and printed from clean-faced brevier or possibly minion type. When it ceased to exist no one now living seems to know.

In 1834, in Newburgh, Wallace T. Sweet issued the National Advertiser, which was merged into the Newburgh Telegraph, though in what year is not stated.

The Reformed Presbyterian appeared in Newburgh March 1, 1836, with Rev. Moses Roney as editor. It was a monthly of thirty-two pages. In 1849 he removed it to Pittsburgh, Pa.

In 1840 A. A. Bensel began the publication of Middletown's first recorded newspaper venture. He called it the Middletown Courier. It was a weekly paper, democratic in politics. In April, 1846, he removed the entire plant to Kingston, N. Y., where he started the Ulster Democrat.

In 1845, in Newburgh, the Rev. David L. Proudfit began issuing the Christian Instructor, a monthly of thirty-two pages. Two years later he sold it to the Rev. J. B. Dales, who removed it to Philadelphia.

So far as records can be found the first publication to appear in Warwick was an Old School Baptist journal, the Doctrinal Advocate and Monitor. This was in 1845 or 1846, possibly earlier. It was published and probably edited by Elder Jewett. In 1846 it was merged with Elder Gilbert Beebe's Signs of the Times.

Middletown was without a paper from April to July, in 1846. At the latter date John S. Brown began there the publication of the Orange County News. It was neutral in politics, and Mr. Ruttenber says it was hardly deserving the name of a newspaper. It died in 1849, the material being purchased by Gilbert J. Beebe for his new paper.

In August, 1848, Gilbert J. Beebe started in Middletown the publication of the Banner of Liberty. It was issued monthly as a conservative journal—opposing all the modern ideas of reform in politics, in religion, in laws and in temperance. In 1856 it became a weekly, and espoused the cause of the democratic party. In 1856 Mr. Beebe issued the Campaign Banner—a sort of auxiliary to the Banner of Liberty. Both were more or less pro-slavery in all their utterances; the particular limb of the democracy to which they clung being known as "Hunkerism" prior to the Civil War, as "Copperheadish" during and after the Civil War. In ante-bellum days both papers attained a big circulation for those times—"fully 27,000 copies," Mr. Ruttenber says. The Banner of Liberty was taken everywhere in the South and Southwest, and below Mason and Dixon's line it was all-powerful. And even north of that line there were many who swore by the Great Horn Spoon and the Banner of Liberty. The income was great, and had Mr. Beebe been as astute a business man as he was aggressive in polemics, he would have been numbered with the exclusive few of that day known as millionaires. But Gilbert Judson Beebe was a different type of man. Like his venerable father, he had a principle—right or wrong, but right as he saw it—and pelf was powerless against his adamantine purposes.

His father, Elder Gilbert Beebe, was in position to "roll in wealth." He had a great income from his Signs of the Times, and from his writings and books; he had the machinery of his church to manipulate for his own aggrandizement, if he so willed; he was almost an idol wherever the Old School Baptists had an abiding place in this country; but he disdained all sordid allurements, and, armed with his own peculiar interpretation of the Scriptures, he lived frugally and pounded his theorems and theological dogmas for three and four straight hours every Sunday in one of his pulpits, and during the fortnight in the columns of his Signs.

The writer of this knew him well; set type a long time in his office in Orchard street, Middletown; fed his presses; helped get out one of his book of songs and sermons, and always held the venerable editor-preacher in respect if not in absolute awe. Looking back at those days from the year 1908, the writer understands better the magnetism which gave Elder Beebe his great power among the people.

This peculiar personality was not lost in his children. In Gilbert Judson Beebe—who made the Banner of Liberty the most powerful pro-slavery journal for years in ante-bellum days—individuality, aggressiveness, polemics, even the most violent dogmatism, were constantly in evidence. Not only did he wield a most trenchant, bitter pen, ever dipped in the wormwood of invective and the gall of expletives—he was an orator as well; and could work his hearers up to a pitch of frenzy or tears. The writer, yet in his teens, was employed on the Banner of Liberty as a "compositor" for a considerable time, and had much opportunity for learning the characteristics of the man.

The Banner of Liberty lost much of its power when the Civil War boomed its terrors over the land. Its circulation fell off daily, but the editor every week just as religiously sailed into the "Lincoln hirelings" with a venom that came near landing him in Fort Lafayette. The writer was one of those "hirelings," and, while "sticking type" in his office had many doubtless indiscreet arguments with the aggressive editor on the issues of the day. Mr. Beebe seemed rather pleased, not to say amused, at the temerity of the boy-printer, and gave him opportunity to expound his "abolition heresies."

As the Civil War went on, the paper continually lost prestige, and when the venerable editor—broken-hearted in the lost cause—died in 1872, the Banner of Liberty became homeless. It was bought by the Benedict brothers, Thomas E. and Gilbert H., and was removed to Ellenville. The writer's recollection is that it was later transferred to Brooklyn, L. I., where it ceased to exist. On this point, however, he may err; however, it did not long survive its talented founder.

Gilbert J. Beebe also, in 1848, started another paper—the Middletown Mercury. This paper was less virulent than his Banner of Liberty, and being devoted to local news, attained a considerable circulation. In 1860 Mr. Beebe sold the Mercury to James H. Norton, who had been conducting the Tri-States Union at Port Jervis. Mr. Norton associated with him in this purchase a young printer and ready writer, Isaac F. Guiwits. The two were thoroughly practical men, and soon made their personality and their good taste vividly apparent in their work. The Mercury was enlarged, new type and machinery were installed, and it was not many months before the paper began to grow in circulation and in power. It got better and neater with each issue; its managers seemed to vie with each other in this work. Within five years the Middletown Mercury became famous for being the handsomest newspaper in the United States. For those days, it was a model of beauty. What is more, it became a leading newspaper; its local news was gotten up the best, much attention being paid to this feature—practically an innovation in journalism, strange as this statement may appear to newspaper men and readers to-day. Mr. Norton was a democrat of the pro-slavery type, and his editorial utterances during the war were often vitriolic, notwithstanding which the paper flourished, many paid-up republican subscribers contributing to its success, admiring its journalistic features while cursing its politics. In 1867 Isaac V. Montanye purchased an interest in the paper, and in 1868 became sole proprietor. In 1869 S. M. Boyd became its owner. In 1873 the Middletown Mail was merged in the Mercury, when Dr. Joseph D. Friend and George H. Thompson became its editors and owners. Dr. Friend retired in 1874. In 1878 the Weekly Argus consolidated with the Mercury, which became the Mercury and Argus. In 1876 Cornelius Macardell and George H. Thompson became proprietors, with Mr. Thompson as editor, who continued thus until his death in May, 1904. The Mercury and Argus plant remains in the Macardell family, known as the Argus and Mercury Publishing Company, with Cornelius Macardell, president; A. B. Macardell, vice-president and secretary; A. E. Nickinson, treasurer and general manager; A. B. Macardell, editor; Henry P. Powers and Horace A. MacGowan, city editors.

In 1849 Thomas George began in Newburgh the publication of the Newburgh Excelsior. E. M. Ruttenber purchased this paper in May, 1851, and merged it with his Telegraph.

In January, 1850, appeared the first newspaper in Port Jervis, the Port Jervis Express. This journalistic venture deserves especial notice from the fact that it was started by a colored man. P. H. Miller—the first publication of such distinction in Orange County, and possibly in the State. The Express was well printed, and ably edited. But it died in October the same year.

The Middletown Advertiser was started in Middletown in 1850 by G. J. Beebe. It was a monthly advertising sheet, and lived two years.

In November, 1850, Colonel Samuel Fowler—a leading citizen—started the Tri-States Union in Port Jervis. It was a democratic paper, with John I. Mumford as editor. Lucius F. Barnes, a rising young lawyer of Milford, Pa., purchased the paper and edited it until August 10, 1854, when he sold it to James H. Norton. The latter sold the paper in 1861, to G. W. Allen, of Honesdale, Pa., and Wallace W. Farnum, a deaf mute, of Port Jervis. The latter was a practical printer, and remained in the office many years. It was under Allen and Farnum that the politics of the paper changed from democratic to republican. In 1862 Allen's interest in the paper was purchased by Daniel Holbrook, a recent graduate of Harvard College and fresh from the position of principal of the school at the House of Refuge, Randall's Island, N. Y. Mr. Holbrook made it a lively republican paper, ably maintaining the Union cause during the Civil War then waging. September 27, 1869, Mr. Holbrook sold the paper to Foster & Mitchell, of Chambersburg, Pa. In 1871 the paper was purchased by Charles St. John, Jr., William T. Doty, and Alfred E. Spooner. In 1872 Mr. Spooner's interest was purchased by Erwin G. Fowler. All through this year the Union was one of the foremost supporters of the liberal republican movement that led to the nomination at Cincinnati of the lamented Horace Greeley for President. Soon after Greeley's nomination the Union's proprietors issued The Wood-Chopper, a campaign paper which was full of fire and enthusiasm, but died with the ambitions of its martyred presidential candidate. In January, 1873, Mr. Doty retired from the firm to take charge of the Gazette. Mr. Fowler retired from the paper later in the same year. In April, 1877, Fred R. Salmon, Mr. St. John's brother-in-law, young and fresh from a commercial school, entered the office as bookkeeper. He displayed aptitude and business qualities from the start—points Mr. St. John quickly recognized—and in 1884 he was made a member of the firm, which became St. John & Salmon, and thus remained until 1894, when the same members became the Tri-States Printing Co. In May, 1895, the firm was incorporated as the Tri-States Publishing Co., which it remains, though on October 1, 1907, Mr. Salmon purchased Mr. St. John's interest and became sole owner.

In 1878 the Tri-States Union was changed from a weekly to semi-weekly issue, but within a year or two was changed back to the weekly issue, which it continues. In 1871 it was changed from a folio to a quarto, which it remains.

In January, 1873, Mr. St. John started the Port Jervis Daily Union. It was issued as a morning paper for a year or two, since which time it has been an afternoon paper. It has been edited successively by Ed. H. Mott, E. A. Brown, Henry A. Van Fredenberg, E. G. Fowler, Fred R. Salmon, Charles O. Young, James Bennet, Charles A. Starr, Merritt C. Speidel, and at present by W. T. Doty.

On November 26, 1851, John W. Hasbrouck issued at Middletown the first number of the weekly Whig Press. In March, 1868, Mr. Hasbrouck sold the plant to Moses D. Stivers. In 1870 Albert Kessinger bought a half interest in the paper, and the firm was Stivers & Kessinger until August, 1872, when the junior member died. In October, 1872, Mr. Stivers sold the plant to F. Stanhope Hill, who sold an interest to John W. Slauson, and the firm became Hill & Slauson. Mr. Hill sold his interest to Mr. Stivers July 1, 1873, and the firm became Stivers & Slauson. In 1880 Mr. Stivers sold his interest to Mr. Slauson, and Charles J. Boyd entered the firm under the firm name of Slauson & Boyd. This continued until February, 1906, when the whole plant was sold to the Middletown Times Publishing Co., and the familiar old Press lost its identity in the Times-Press. It seemed lamentable to see this staunch old paper die. It was the pet of that venerable and conscientious laborer in the literary field, John W. Hasbrouck, and his estimable wife, Dr. Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck. Both labored for years, literally side by side, in the editorial room and in the work-shop of the establishment, and they had built up a fine property. Under its successive changes, in the hands of Messrs. Stivers, Slauson and Boyd the Press had become one of the best country newspapers in the State. Its plant was very valuable, with the most improved machinery, and the whole establishment was shrewdly managed, the paper ably edited, and nothing but the menace of a distinguished rival could ever have induced Messrs. Slauson and Boyd to consent to the disposal of so valuable a plant.

The temperance agitation evidently struck Port Jervis heavily early in the fifties, for in June, 1852, J. L. Barlow and John Dow began the publication of the Mirror of Temperance. This lived about eighteen months.

In 1853 another temperance paper appeared in Port Jervis, when John Williams issued The Sentinel. It died in 1855. Mr. Williams was a pugnacious Englishman, and while his Sentinel was still on guard, he issued another temperance paper, in the fall of 1854, which he called The Precursor of Temperance.

With the demise of the latter publication and the Sentinel, in 1855, the starting of temperance papers in Port Jervis ceased entirely. Whether this was due to the complete and perpetual reclamation of the place by the army of temperance agitators that swooped down upon it in the fifties, or to the belief that the warfare was utterly hopeless, is not certain. Any way, the vanquished (or conquering?) John Williams shook the dust of the town from his heels and tarried long enough in Middletown to start the Hardwareman's Newspaper, later the Iron Age, in the office of the Whig Press.

In 1855 the Newburgh American was issued by R. P. L. Shafer. It had a life of only three or four weeks.

In 1855, at the office of the Whig Press in Middletown, John Williams, who had wrestled with the liquor question in Port Jervis for a few years, started out in a new line. He had Mr. and Mrs. Hasbrouck print for him a trade journal—one of the earliest ventures of this kind in the country. He called it the Hardwareman's Newspaper, and published it monthly. After three years its name was changed to the Iron Age, and it is published yet in New York by David Williams, son of its founder, and is one of the leading trade journals.

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 temperance 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 publication. 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 character. 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 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 February 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 printing 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 Virginia. April, 1874, it was purchased by Daniel F. Welling. He sold it to Stewart & Wilson (August 5, 1876), who sold it to Stewart & Demerest. 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 practical 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 newspaper should be—as generally had the graduates of Mr. and Mrs. Hasbrouck's school of practical journalism. It is still in Mr. Tate's possession.

Though short-lived, a bright little specimen of ambitious young journalism appeared in Middletown in September, 1866. It was called The Rising Sun, and was the first venture in this field by Stephen H. Sayer, a recent apprentice in the Whig Press office. The Rising Sun was a literary 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 nebulae 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 god-fatherly interest in this promising luminary, and regrets that one of the too common cataclysms in the journalistic empyrean over whelmed the bright little orb ere its rays had scintillated a single scintillation 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 Walden Herald.

From these ventures Mr. Sayer went to Deckertown (now Sussex), N. J., and started the Sussex Independent, which has always been one of the brightest newspapers in New Jersey. After retiring from the Independent, 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 members 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 Magazine, and it attained 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 1, 1869, which he called the Republican and Standard, which is continued to this day, as the Montgomery Standard and Reporter.

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, and 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 Gazette. 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 Gazette 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 Gazette 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, purchased the establishment, and turned it into a Republican organ, supporting General Grant in his second presidential campaign. 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, and 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. Nearpass. The paper has since been democratic. W. T. Doty continued as editor for several years, being succeeded by James J. Shier, of Middletown, and since his death, by Mr. Nearpass as editor. Associated with Mr. Nearpass in the management and ownership of the paper was Abram Shinier, 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 Shinier as secretary and treasurer and business manager, with Mark V. Richards as associate editor, and James Skellenger 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 Sunday, 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 Middletown 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 Mercury, when Dr. Friend and George H. Thompson became the proprietors of the combined publication. The Mail was a local newspaper, with democratic 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 associated 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. Bensel, of Newburgh, issue No. 1 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 Argus, 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 Macardell, 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 A. 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 started by a rival organization, in 1876. In June of the latter year the Post was discontinued, 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 emerging from the Telegraph under the able management of the lamented Edward M. Ruttenber. The Register later passed into the hands of Herbert P. Kimber & Co., who made of it a bright, newsy, democratic paper. Succeeding Mr. Kimber as editor were John A. Mason, Francis Willard and A. L. Moffatt, the latter of whom fought the Bryan element of the democratic 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 V. Tucker, whose utterances were evidently more in harmony with the views of the democratic county committee. But the Register suspended publication February 24, 1908.

In 1877 the Cornwall Reflector was started by John Lee. Later H. H. Snelling became editor. The paper lived until the latter part of 1888.

In 1879 James C. Merritt started the Cornwall Mirror at Highland Falls. In 1895 it was merged with the Cornwall Local.

On April 4, 1880, appeared in Port Jervis the first number of the Sunday 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 assaults, 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 independent 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 declining 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, 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 built 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 business 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, became 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. Dillon'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 educated 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 entered 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 botanical scholar, a marvelous linguist, a proficient mathematician, had a rare knowledge of chemistry, geology and pomology, and was a careful student in dairy and agricultural matters generally. That The Farmer has prospered beyond all expectations under his wise and able editorial management 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 transferred 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 Fredenberg 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 Monroe 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 H. 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.

In June, 1885, George F. Ketchum started at Warwick the Warwick Valley 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 surroundings, 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 carried on by the Newburgh News Printing 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 installation 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 newspaper in a city of equal size anywhere. Its plant represents a large investment of capital and it carries on its pay-roll upwards of fifty employees.

The handsome building, the modernly equipped plant, the large circulation and volume of advertising all indicate that the News enjoys the support 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 Newburgh, August 21, 1842, and learned his trade under the late E. M. Ruttenber. 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.

In 1887 St. John & Salmon started in Port Jervis a small quarto called Sunbeams. It was a semi-humorous publication, but the quality or quantity of its revelry failed somehow to attack the risibles of a sufficient clientèle of the American public, and its weary publishers concluded to let the prosaic citizens plod on in their own dull, flat, Boeotian way.

In 1888 N. E. Conkling & Co. started at Chester the Orange County News, a weekly, six-column folio, with N. E. Conkling as editor. It was an independent paper, giving much attention to local news. At times the paper published editions for Unionville and Pine Bush. In February, 1908, the plant was sold to J. B. Gregory, and removed to Monroe, where the latter started the Ramapo Valley Gazette, March, 1908.

In April, 1888, the Cornwall Local appeared at Cornwall-on-Hudson, under the management of H. A. Gates. In September, 1889, he disposed of the plant to C. P. Brate, of Albany, who installed his brother-in-law, Thomas Pendall, a practical printer and bright writer, as editor and publisher. In June, 1892, the Local came under the management of Lynn G. Goodenough, by whom it is still conducted. The paper was classed as independent politically until it came into Mr. Goodenough's possession. In 1896 he made the Local a republican paper, and as such it became a useful and influential member of Orange County republican newspaperdom. Recently the name of the paper became the Local-Press, as more significant of a newspaper than the name Local. In 1895 Mr. Goodenough purchased Mr. Merritt's right, title and good will in the Cornwall Mirror, and consolidated that publication with the Local.

In 1887 the Walden Citizen came into existence. It is a six-column quarto, republican in politics, well edited by J. H. Reed, and is a newsy and meritorious publication.

A valuable monthly publication was begun in Port Jervis in 1888, when Church Life was issued. It was printed under the auspices of the Reformed church of that place. It usually appeared in eight pages, with two and three broad columns to a page. Its work was largely that of gathering up local historical matters, and one of its most valuable contributors was William H. Nearpass, whose penchant in that direction enabled him to furnish much valuable historical information that otherwise might have been lost to all generations. Another contributor was the Rev. S. W. Mills, D.D., for many years pastor of the Reformed Church of Deer Park. The paper was issued for about fifteen years, but why it was allowed to cease no one connected with the church seems to know. It was printed at the Gazette office.

The Orange County Dairyman was started at Middletown in the office of the Mercury and Argus, in December, 1888. The publishers were Macardell, Thompson and Barrett (Cornelius Macardell, Sr., George H. Thompson, and Leon Barrett, the artist.) Its editor was W. C. Cairns, of Rockland, Sullivan County, better known as "Rusticus." The Dairyman was a five or six-column quarto. It never became profitable, and went out of existence in January, 1890.

The only Sunday paper of the four or more started in this county that seemed to have vitality enough to come down to our day was the Telegram of Newburgh. It was started in 1889 by Edward M. Ruttenber, the venerable and learned printer, editor, author and historian, who lately passed to his great reward, mourned by all, and beloved and revered by those who knew him best. The Telegram is now published by J. W. F. Ruttenber, son of its founder. Though started as a Sunday paper, it is now issued on Saturday, and is known as The Newburgh Telegram. It is ably conducted, as it always has been. A free lance in principle, it is fearless in its assaults, and sometimes makes things very interesting for residents of the Hillside city and its purlieus.

One of the publications that made a sensation at its starting, and during its entire career was a subject of wide interest, was called The Conglomerate. It was started June 15, 1890, by patients in the State Homeopathic Hospital at Middletown. The first number was a four-column folio, but it soon grew to a quarto, and its circulation increased until, at its zenith, over 3,000 copies were issued. It circulated in all parts of America, had subscribers in New Zealand, and in fact in nearly every country, and its articles were copied everywhere. The Conglomerate stood for reform in lunacy matters, and for this reason, and because of its too outspoken policy against the State's lunacy commission, the authorities caused its suspension. It was gotten out entirely at the State Hospital, where a fully-equipped newspaper and job-printing office was established by the patients under whose tutelage it was called into existence. Its pages were full of bright things. Not only were its editorials able, but its contributions were from brilliant minds, the names of whose writers, for obvious reasons, are withheld. It ceased publication in 1897, after a brilliant career, during which it was eagerly sought, read with avidity, and was a force for good throughout its whole brief career.

On the afternoon of April 29, 1881, appeared in Middletown one of the county's—aye, one of the State's—marvels of journalistic success under the title of the Middletown Daily Times. The first numbers were issued from the Hasbrouck printing office in the Hasbrouck block, corner of North and Depot streets, and was a seven-column folio. While it announced that Lewis S. Stivers and John D. Stivers were editors and proprietors, it was understood that ex-Congressman the Hon. Moses Dunning Stivers, their father, stood sponsor for the publication, and this able writer and shrewd politician soon made his personality evident in every issue of the Times. Rapidly did the paper gain in circulation, in influence, and in popular confidence. Congressman Stivers was a man of pronounced personality, had a way of winning friends and retaining them, and with the recent expiration of a successful term in Congress he was in position to build up a powerful country newspaper plant. And that is just what he did. In this work he was most ably assisted by his two sons, whose names appeared at the head of the editorial columns. Lewis S. Stivers was a practical printer, a pressman, and a thorough, all-round mechanical expert; young, with a love for the trade—credited by all printers as being not only practical but one of the most capable men in the State. His brother, John D. Stivers, had been his father's private secretary all through his congressional career, had acquitted himself with entire credit, and having been "brought up" in a printing office, was well qualified to enter the editorial department of the establishment. As a reporter, as one ready and quick to grasp the importance of legitimate news, he proved his fitness for the position by keeping the Times in the lead in its local and general news departments. It was under such auspicious conditions that The Middletown Daily News presented itself to the public every afternoon in the week, except Sunday, and its rapid growth in favor was the fulfillment of the auguries of those who best knew its esteemed sponsor and its managers. Within a short time the establishment was removed to the first floor on the James and Henry street corner of the Casino block. Here it remained until it was removed to its present quarters at the corner of King and Center streets, in the handsome four-story brick building of its own, and known as the Times building or Stivers block. Here are fast presses, three Mergenthaler Linotype machines and all the necessary accouterments to enable the management to issue one of the best daily newspapers in this country, outside of the larger cities. Its circulation is now daily considerably over 5,000 copies. The death of the Hon. M. D. Stivers and later of his son, Louis S. Stivers, removed two of the brightest members of the Orange County newspaperdom, and necessitated reorganization of the Times Publishing Co., which is now known as the Stivers Printing Company, with John D. Stivers as president and Dr. M. A. Stivers as secretary and treasurer. On February 11, 1906, the Middletown Daily Press merged with the Times and the combination has since issued as the Middletown Times-Press. The editorial writer on the Times and Times-Press since November 1, 1905, has been A. W. Russell, whose bright, well-put comments are one of the features that commend this widely-read journal.

The News of Highlands was started at Highland Falls in 1891. It is published on Saturdays by F. F. & A. G. Tripp, and is politically independent or neutral.

In February, 1892, appeared in Port Jervis the Port Jervis Morning Index, the second attempt in that place to establish a morning daily. It was started by Isaac V. Montanye, of Goshen, and Sherwood Rightmyer, his nephew; was an eight-column folio, independent, or rather neutral, in politics, Mr. Montanye being a democrat and Mr. Rightmyer a republican. The Index was newsy, and well edited, but ceased publication in August of the same year.

Middletown seems to have been the theatre of the sensational in Orange County journalism. The Banner of Liberty, the Whig Press (whose editor was once caned in the streets for a bit of facetiousness); the Sybil, the Mercury, the Mail, the Standard, the News, the Liberal Sentinel, the Labor Advocate, the Conglomerate—each had its day of riotous jest or caustic invective that set the town "by the ears" for a time.

The latest one to enter this field of humor, sarcasm and expletive was The Forum, the first number of which was issued February 28, 1897, by W. T. Doty and H. W. Corey, and which, within a few weeks, expanded into the Middletown Sunday Forum. The first few numbers were printed in New York for the publishers by one of the "patent inside" concerns, and the warmth of its reception was such that its proprietors felt justified in putting in a plant of their own. The office at first was in the business office of the Casino building, in the second floor, but was later transferred to the first floor of the rear of the same building on Henry street. From the unique "greeting" in the first issue, the following excerpt is made as characteristic of the purposes, course and whole conduct of the publication:

"There are a number of reasons why we have concluded to publish The Forum. First, we want to publish it. Second, there are a number of people who don't want us to publish it. Third, there seems need of a publication in this city that will call a spade a spade. Fourth, we can stop it when we want to. Being able to stop publishing it, if we want to, encouraged us in the idea of starting."

And so it was started, and with a pace that took the whole county by storm. It was exultant, exuberant, jocular, sarcastic, hilarious, but never whining, simpering, brawling or lachrymose. It had features such as no other paper in the county had, and all these peculiarities brought it into wider and wider notoriety, and the editions printed almost invariably fell short of supplying the demand. A leading feature was the "sermons" of "Pastor" Corey. There was a vein of the keenest irony in them, generally of more or less local application, and the demand for these lively satires extended to all classes of citizens—those the severest hit as well as those who, from a safe "coign of vantage," liked to watch the unique assaults. Another of its peculiar features was the holding up to ridicule of the driveling "items" and personals sent in by so many cross-roads correspondents of country papers, and which were generally the clever work of "Deacon" Peter F. Kaufman, a local real estate man who always looked on the "funny side" of all events. The unfortunate and severe illness of Mr. Corey necessitated the abandonment of the "sermons." The concern was sold (December, 1897), to Frank L. Blanchard, of New York, and later (1898) to W. T. Doty and Thomas Pendell, of Cornwall. The latter two ran out a daily, The Morning Forum, for some months, in 1898. Then Mr. Pendall purchased the outfit, and transferred it to Massena, N. Y. During the two or three years in which The Forum lived in Middletown it "cut a wide swath," and kept the whole surrounding country wondering "what next?" and, had it continued as it began, would have landed its proprietors—who were getting a pile of fun out of the proceeding—in the ranks of the multi-millionaires or in the penitentiary. A unique financial feature of the experiment was the fact that the paper more than paid its own way from the very first issue.

In October, 1898, S. T. Morehouse started at Cornwall-on-Hudson the Cornwall Courier. This was conducted by various parties, including Mr. Morehouse and his son, Claude, by the well-known writer Creswell McLaughlin, Bernard Call, Clark J. Brown, Clayton Brown, and William Clark, and in 1906, ceased to exist.

The Orange County Record was started at Washingtonville, May 17, 1899, by the Hon. Isaac V. Montanye (since deceased, December 26, 1906) and his nephew, Montanye Rightmyer. Since the death of Mr. Montanye, Mr. Rightmyer is the editor and publisher. The paper is devoted to local news.

In March, 1908, J. B. Gregory started at Monroe the Ramapo Valley Gazette. The plant was that of the Orange County News at Chester, the paper started in 1888 by N. E. Conkling.

MISCELLANEOUS.

In addition to the above-mentioned so-called "regular publications," there have been numerous amateur, church, society, labor, semi-literary, and other more or less sporadic productions throughout the county from the time of the introduction of printing into the county at Goshen in 1788 to the present time.

An enterprise of importance that may be classed under this heading was that of the Franklin Printing Company, starting in Middletown, in 1879. At the head of the concern were James H. Norton, Isaac F. Guiwits, of Middletown and William H. Nearpass, of Port Jervis. A considerable building was erected on Mill street, Middletown, next to the residence of Mr. Norton, and several presses and a finely equipped printing establishment was installed, to print "patent insides." A big business was there built up, and continued until the purchase and absorption of the plant by the New York Newspaper Union, and the transfer of the same to that city.

From 1884 to 1886 the United States Official Postal Guide for New York City was printed by W. H. Nearpass at the Port Jervis Gazette office. Anthony M. May & Co. had the contract for this work.

About 1886-7 lawyer T. A. Reid, of Middletown, amused himself for a few months with a paper he called The Jeffersonian.

Soon after, the Rev. Charles M. Winchester, a Free Methodist, came to Middletown, probably in 1879, he started a daily paper which he called The Standard or The Standard-Bearer. It was published in the interests of the temperance cause, and made a considerable excitement during the eight or ten months of its existence.

The Pine Bush Herald is a lateral production of the Walden Herald, and dates from 1904, with George W. Jamison as editor.

Town Life was a weekly issued in Middletown from June, 1904, to January, 1905, by Nelson W. Dix. It was a humorous publication with illustrations by the young publisher, who has a taste and a remarkable aptitude for drawing and cartoon work.

The Orange County Magazine was started in Newburgh in 1906, and in the same year the Goshen Independent Republican issued a side edition called the Chester Independent Republican, with George W. Ball as editor.

The first number of the St. Paul's Herald was issued in August, 1892, and each month thereafter for about one year. It contained eight pages, 9 by 12 inches to a page, and a cover. The Herald was issued in the interest of St. Paul's M. E. Church, and Middletown Methodism. The editor and proprietor was Henry P. Powers, the present City Editor of the Middletown Argus, and it was printed at the Times office.

The Worker's Advocate was started in Middletown about 1903, and conducted several years by W. H. McCarter, as an independent weekly paper.

The Church Helper was issued under auspices of Drew M. E. Church in Port Jervis, for about one year. The first number appeared in June, 1889. It was a monthly, devoted almost exclusively to church and temperance work.

The Parish Monthly has been issued since 1906 by sanction of the Rev. John J. Morris, pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Port Jervis. It is a two-column folio, printed by P. J. Gaudy, Port Jervis, for the dissemination of local church news.

The Golden Rod is a monthly issued by Frederick Arthur Gates, M.A., pastor of the Ridgebury Presbyterian church, and printed at the office of the Middletown Times-Press. The Associate Editor is Mary C. Clark, with a corps of correspondents. It contains 10 pages and a cover, with two columns to a page, and with a subscription price of 25 cents a year. It has some local news and advertisements, but is devoted mainly to church and temperance work. It was started in January, 1907.

AMATEUR PUBLICATIONS.

The county has seen the birth and death of many amateur publications. The first in the county, so far as now known, and believed to be one of the first in the whole country, was issued in Port Jervis in 1862. It was called The Tiger. It was a diminutive production of four small pages, and was printed on one of the Adams Amateur presses, one of the first made, and the type, furnished by the same concern, was set by the energetic young publisher, William Henry Nearpass. The Tiger was issued semi-occasionally, to suit the whim or convenience of the publisher, for two or three years. Mr. Nearpass was then a clerk in the grocery and dry goods store of Charles St. John, at the corner of Pike and West Main streets. Mr. Nearpass was then about twenty-two years of age.

Newburgh has had many of these amateur prints, beginning in 1875. Among them may be mentioned the following: Union Jack, American Eagle, The Comet, The Index, The Collector, The Packet, The Laurel, The Amateur Herald.

In 1877 Port Jervis had the Amateur Guide, and in 1880 The Cricket.

Academy Miscellany was started by the Port Jervis high school students in March, 1889, and was discontinued in May, 1895. It was a monthly publication, of eight pages, with two broad columns to a page, was devoted to school matters almost exclusively, and was a bright publication.

The Owl is a bright twenty-page monthly issued by the Middletown high school students, and printed at the office of the Times-Press. It has been issued for several years, and is a particularly commendable school publication, both for the neatness with which it is gotten out, the literary character of its contents, and the business-like character of the publication. The present editor is James A. Rorty, the business manager, E. C. Faulkner.

During 1897 The Union School Journal was published by Merritt C. Speidel, now of the Tri-States Publishing Co., Port Jervis, and Hugh M. Cox, now a practicing physician in New York City, who were the editors and managers. It had 12 pages of 10 by 12 inches, three columns to a page, and had a circulation of 500. The publication was devoted to the interests of the schools and to matters of a general educational nature. The paper had the official sanction of the school authorities, and many prominent Orange County writers contributed to it.

The Publications of the County.

IN ANCIENT GOSHEN.

The Goshen Repository was issued in 1788, by David Mandeville and David M. Westcott, at the Goshen Academy. The nature of the publication seems now unknown; nor is the size of the publication, or its character. In 1793 its office was near the court house. In 1800 it was sold to John G. and William Heurtin, thus showing a life of twelve years—a much better showing than that made by many of its successors there and elsewhere. Messrs. Heurtin changed its name to the Orange County Patriot, and in 1801 William Heurtin sold his interest to William A. Carpenter, when the name was changed to The Friend of Truth. In 1804 it passed to the ownership of Ward M. Gazlay or Gazley, and again its name was changed. This time it became the Orange Eagle. A fire in 1805 in the office singed the Eagle's feathers, but it was enabled to move about, and took its flight to Newburgh, where it became the Political Index.

Taking its name from an extinct Newburgh paper, Gabriel Denton, in 1804, issued the Orange County Gazette. Edward M. Ruttenber traces its history to Elliott Hopkins in 1807, to Elliott Hopkins & Co. in 1811, to Elliott Hopkins in 1812. to F. J. & A. D. Houghton in 1813, and to 1818, when it was "printed and published for the proprietor." How long after this it lasted is not known.

In 1808 Gabriel Denton started the Orange County Patriot and Spirit of Seventy-six. It was doubtless a patriotic publication, probably a jingo organ firing the American heart for another struggle with Great Britain, which came in 1812. In 1811 it was removed to Newburgh by Lewis & Crowell, where it was published as a "new series." T. B. Crowell became its publisher, and announced that its columns were "open to all parties" but were "influenced by none." In 1822 Mr. Crowell moved the paper back to Goshen, and sold it to R. C. S. Hendrie, who, February 22, 1834, sold it to F. T. Parson, who changed its name to the Goshen Democrat. In 1842 Charles Mead associated with Mr. Parson. Nathaniel Webb secured Mr. Parson's interest, and the firm became Mead & Webb, and later Charles Mead & Son, after the death of Mr. Webb. In 1843 R. C. S. Hendrie started the True Whig, two years later selling it to Charles Mead, who merged it with his paper under the title of The Goshen Democrat and Whig. Later the name Whig was dropped, and the paper remains to this day the Goshen Democrat. The firm of Mead & Son came into existence January 1, 1865, and continued until January 1, 1892, when the elder Mead sold his interest to Edwin L. Roys. William W. Mead and Edwin L. conducted the establishment under the firm name of Mead & Roys until September 1, 1902, on which date they sold the concern to J. R. Colburn, of Washington, D. C. Two months later (November 1, 1902), John F. Barringer, of Walden, bought the plant and, two months later (January 1, 1903), sold it to John B. Scott and George V. Gregg, who conducted the same under the firm name of Scott & Gregg, until September 1, 1905. on which date Mr. Scott sold his interest to George F. Gregg, who has since been its proprietor.

In 1820 Williams & Farrand started the Orange Farmer. Mr. Ruttenber speaks of this as the Orange County Farmer, but as the copies now in existence bear the title Orange Farmer, the writer is inclined to believe the word "County" is a slip of the usually very accurate pen of Mr. Ruttenber. Its founders were graduates of the Albany Plow-Boy, and aimed to make the Farmer an agricultural publication. How long it lasted is not known. A well-preserved copy of this Farmer is now in possession of Dr. James J. Mills, of Port Jervis. It is volume IV, No. 195, dated November 17, 1823.

About 1822 there moved into Goshen a lusty young pioneer, sixteen years of age, under the patronymic of The Independent Republican. This stripling was born at Montgomery, May 6, 1806, and there christened the Orange County Republican. Under the tutelage of Luther Pratt in 1812, in its sixth year, its name was changed to that of the Independent Republican, and in 1818 James A. Cheevey became its sponsor, and removed it to Goshen about 1822. In 1832 the Independent Republican plant was sold to Henry H. Van Dyck, who sold it in 1836 when he became State Senator, to Victor M. Drake, then a young printer twenty-seven years of age, who had for some time been employed in the office, as apprentice and journeyman printer. In 1841 Mr. Drake sold the establishment to Moses Swezey, who came to Goshen from Long Island in 1834 as a violinist and dancing master. He was a fine penman, a good bookkeeper, and an excellent accountant, and became the head clerk for County Clerk Lebbeus L. Vail. As editor of the Independent Republican he wielded a powerful and caustic pen, and became a power in Orange County politics. He was the father of the present Surrogate, John B. Swezey.

In 1846 Mr. Swezey sold the plant to Clark & Montanye. It continued, as it long had been, the local organ of the "Hunker" faction of the Democracy. Late in the '50's Mr. Clark went to Iowa and started a Republican paper. James J. McNally purchased the plant in 1853, and sold it to Isaac V. Montanye in 1857, only to repurchase it, selling it again in 1869 to Edward M. Ruttenber and H. P. Kimber. Mr. Ruttenber retired, and in 1874 Mr. Kimber sold it to Thomas P. McElrath, an ambitious New Yorker, who had some fond illusions which he hoped to engraft into Orange County journalism. He made friends and foes fast and furious—particularly the foes—and in 1876 retired to New York, utterly disgusted with journalism in Orange County.

Then Hon. I. V. Montanye and his son, Lucien, secured the paper. In 1883 the former retired, and Frank Drake secured an interest in the concern, under the firm name of Montanye & Drake. In March, 1892, Mr. Drake became sole owner, and remains such to-day (March, 1908).

The present proprietor of the Independent Republican, Frank Drake, is a son of that veteran Orange County journalist, Victor M. Drake, and is a "chip of the old block," a good newspaper man. He is making the paper newsy, keen, merry and bright. He changed it from a weekly to a semi-weekly edition, issued on Tuesdays and Fridays. It is a five-column quarto.

The Independent Republican has not always had things its own way in Goshen Democratic politics. In 1843 Hector Vail, son of County Clerk Lebbeus L. Vail, and T. W. Donovan started the Democratic Standard under the firm name of Vail & Donovan. The Standard represented the "Barn-Burners" or Free Soil element in the Democratic party, and in antagonism to the interests represented the "Hunkers" and the Independent Republican. In 1844 Mr. Donovan retired, and Hector Vail changed its name to the Goshen Clarion. The Democratic factional fight became stronger, and the Clarion had such backers as Lebbeus L. Vail, Asa D. Jansen, James H. Jansen, John B. Booth of Goshen; Merritt H. Cash, Minisink, and Francis Tuthill of Chester. On the death of Lebbeus Vail, the Clarion, in 1879 was discontinued, the subscription list going to the Independent Republican and the material to Milford, Pa., having been purchased by John M. Heller or James J. McNally, or both, and where it became the Pike County Democrat and later the Milford Herald.

One paper devoted exclusively to theological subjects had its origin in Goshen, and lives to-day to tell the tale. In 1832 the Signs of the Times was started, by Lebbeus L. Vail, a convert from Congregationalism to the Old School Baptist tenets. Between politics and theology Mr. Vail was kept pretty busy. He was a candidate for county clerk on the Democratic ticket, and in 1834 was elected. About this time an earnest young expounder of Mr. Vail's new-grounded faith appeared on the scene. Mr. Vail could not very well run a religious journal and the county clerk's office at the same time, so he turned the Signs of the Times over, body and soul, to the youthful preacher, and Elder Gilbert Beebe took his prize in a wagon, and landed it in New Vernon, near Middletown. Thence he moved it to Alexandria, Va., whence it came to Middletown, where it is domiciled to-day.

During the fight in the Democratic party between the "Hard-Shell" faction, representing the pro-slavery element, and the "Soft-Shell," representing the Douglas, Squatter-Sovereignty, or Anti-Nebraska element in the party, in 1854, the Democratic Recorder was started by A. G. Tucker. The Recorder had a short life, and the subscription list and materials were purchased by James J. McNally and absorbed by his Independent Republican.

The next and last paper to appear in Goshen was the Goshen News, in 1888, under James J. McNally, which, as already told, passed into that ever-open haven of refuge, the portals of the Independent Republican, on the death of Mr. McNally, in 1892.

NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR.

When New Windsor leaps into the arena of contest with a journal of uncertain antiquity, but clearly at the daybreak of journalistic chronology in Orange County, she has grounds for contesting the concession that Newburgh was second, or Goshen even first, in the honors due to pioneerism in the printing art.

E. M. Ruttenber says: "In 1799 Jacob Schultz removed to Newburgh the New Windsor Gazette, the name of which he changed to Orange County Gazette." It is not in evidence when this New Windsor paper began and it may have been immediately or long prior to its removal to Newburgh.

But Mr. Ruttenber says the first paper published in Newburgh was the Newburgh Packet in 1795. The proprietor was Lucius Carey, son-in-law of Rev. John Close, Presbyterian minister at Newburgh and New Windsor. Carey sold the paper to David Denniston in 1797, who changed its name to The Mirror, Philip Van Home (1797) and Joseph W. Barber (1798) appearing as proprietors.

In 1796 a pamphlet entitled, "An Apology for the Bible," was printed in Newburgh, by David Denniston. It was written by R. Watson, D.D., F.R.S. It is said it was creditably printed and bound.

When the Orange County Gazette emerged from the New Windsor Gazette in 1799, Newburgh had two printing shops where books as well as papers were printed, and the legend is that the Gazette became The Citizen, though Mr. Ruttenber questions this, as none of the issues are to be found. As Mr. Denniston was, about this time, connected with the American Citizen, of New York City, this fact may have given rise to the belief that a local Citizen had existed.

The Rights of Man was started in 1799 by Dr. Elias Winfield. Mr. Denniston also purchased this paper, evidently merging it with his Orange County Gazette.

The Recorder of the Times was started by Dennis Cole, in 1803. The Mirror was absorbed by the Rights of Man in 1804, and the latter by The Times, in 1805. Ward M. Gazlay, this year, drove into town with the remnants of his Orange Eagle, whose office had been burned in Goshen, purchased the Recorder of the Times, in 1806, and changed the name to the Political Index, and it lived until 1829, when it became the Orange Telegraph and the Newburgh Telegraph under Charles M. Cushman. Under many changes it lived to become, under E. M. Ruttenber, in 1876, the Newburgh Register.

In June, 1822, John D. Spaulding started the Newburgh Gazette. Through a succession of owners it came, in 1856, to Eugene W. Gray, who, in connection with the Gazette, began the publication of a political paper which he called the Daily News. In 1864 the name of the News was dropped and Daily Telegraph substituted, and later in the same year it became the Daily Union, in 1866 all the previous titles were dropped and that of The Press substituted, in 1869 the title of Telegraph restored, and in 1876 that of Register.

The Newburgh Journal, started in 1833-4 by John D. Spaulding, became the Highland Courier in 1843, and in 1859, under Rufus A. Reed, it became the Highland Chieftain. The establishment came into the possession of Cyrus B. Martin, who resumed the name of Newburgh Journal, and in 1863 began the publication of the Daily Journal, which is continued to-day by Ritchie & Hull.

The Beacon, an anti-Jackson paper, was commenced in 1828 by Judge William B. Wright. Wallace & Sweet, in 1834, published the National Advertiser, and later merged it in the Gazette. In 1849 Thomas George issued the Newburgh Excelsior, which was purchased by E. M. Ruttenber (May, 1851), who merged it in the Telegraph. For three or four weeks in 1855 R. P. L. Shafer published the Newburgh American. The Newburgh Times, a temperance paper, was started in March, 1856, by Royal B. Hancock, "as agent for an association of gentlemen." After passing into the ownership of R. Bloomer & Son, Alexander Wilson and Charles Blanchard, it became, under the latter, the Newburgh Daily Democrat, and lived thus only a few months.

An association of printers, in October, 1875, started the Daily Penny Post, and in 1876 a rival association started the Daily Mail. The Post died in 1876, and in 1877 the Mail was absorbed by the Register.

Newburgh's theological serial publications began in 1824, when the Rev. J. R. Wilson started the Evangelical Witness, a religious monthly of forty-eight pages, devoted to the interests of the Reformed Presbyterian church. In four years (1828), it was succeeded by the Christian Statesman, which lived one year. Authorized by the Synod of the same church, the Rev. Moses Roney, March 1, 1836, began the publication of the Reformed Presbyterian, a monthly of thirty-two pages. In 1849 Mr. Roney removed the magazine to Pittsburgh, Pa., where he died in 1854, and his widow continued its publication until succeeded by the Rev. Thomas Sproul. For one year the Family Visitor lived, a monthly quarto, conducted by the Rev. David L. Proudfit. Beginning in 1845 he published the Christian Instructor, a thirty-two page monthly. Two years later the Rev. J. B. Dales bought it and removed it to Philadelphia. The Catholic Library Magazine was begun in 1856 by the Catholic Library Association, with John Ashhurst as editor. It was published monthly, and lived until August, 1860.

Newburgh has been a fertile field for the production of newspapers and periodicals of all sorts, as seen above, the religious as well as the secular press felt the popular pulse, and then passed away.

There were also literary ventures more or less pretentious, each budding, blossoming and fading in a short season.

Tables of Rural Economy was issued in May, 1832, by John Knevels. It was a monthly quarto and lived less than a year. The Literary Scrap-Book was a monthly of forty-eight pages, started in 1855 by R. B. Denton. Its life was short. In 1857 Domaski's School began the publication of The Acorn, which lived until 1859. Some time afterward the title was rescued in a publication by the students of the Newburgh Institute under charge of Mr. Siglar, and again it died.

One of the most profitable of all these literary ventures in Newburgh was that of the Household Advocate, by S. S. Wood, begun in 1867. It was an eight-page monthly and soon secured a large circulation. Mr. Wood later changed its name to the Household Magazine. It attained a circulation of 60,000, and the writer is one of the many who read its pages with eagerness until it failed in 1874.

Another publication which the writer remembers reading with much pleasure was Home, Farm and Orchard, an eight-page weekly started in 1869 by A. A. Bensel. It lived until the spring of 1876.

During the years of 1872 and 1873 Demorest & Burr issued the Musical Bulletin, a monthly quarto.

In amateur papers there were several. Among them: The Union Jack, by Master A. Ludlow Case (1865 to 1873); the American Eagle, by Frank S. Hull, aged twelve years (1865); The Comet, by Henri Gerard (1871); The Index, by J. Walker F. Ruttenber (1871); The Collector, by D. W. Jagger (1871); The Packet, by W. H. Wood and D. W. Corwin (1872); The Laurel, by a Milligan (1872); the Amateur Herald, by T. R. Balf (1872).

AT MONTGOMERY.

Montgomery seems to have come forth into the journalistic arena.

The Orange County Republican was printed there from 1806 to 1818. It was begun May 6, 1806, and was printed by Cyrus Beach and Luther Pratt. This publication, as already shown in the Goshen notes, was removed to Goshen and became the Independent Republican.

In 1833-1834 the Republican Banner was printed there by Calvin F. S. Thomas. In June, 1859, William H. Smith started the Montgomery Standard. The Montgomery Republican was issued in September, 1868, by Lester Winfield, being a continuation of a publication he started at Galeville Mills, Ulster County, in May, 1864, and which he removed to Pine Bush and called the Pine Bush Weekly Casket, in November, 1867. May 1, 1869, the Standard and the Republican united their forces and became the Republican and Standard, under Lester Winfield. In 1896 Lyman H. Taft started the Reporter. Later the Reporter and the Republican and Standard united, and became the Montgomery Standard and Reporter, which it is now (March, 1908), with Lyman H. Taft as editor and proprietor, and Charles M. Miller, associate editor. It is a large nine-column folio, republican in politics, with a decided tendency to be independent.