Acadiensis/Volume 1/Number 4/The Origin of the New York Herald
The Origin of the New York Herald
No. 57 Pembroke Street,
Toronto, April 20 1901.
D. R. Jack, Esq.
Dear Sir,—I could tell a number of interesting facts about my father. I presume you would hardly know that the great "New York Herald" was started by two young men who were apprentices in Chubb's office in St. John, but that is a positive fact.
Smith and Anderson were both in the same office with my father at Chubb's. They went to New York about two years before my father did, and shortly after, they bought a large press (worked by foot power) and secured the printing of the "New York Sun," and "New York Transcript," both daily papers; also, of course, other work.
One day, early in 1835, my father called in to see them, being old chums in St. John. There was another man in the office, named James Gordon Bennett. Anderson told my father, "We're going to start a daily paper ourselves, but as, if it were known, the "Sun" and "Transcript" would take away their business from us, we have engaged this man Bennett, who is a clever fellow; he is to edit the paper, and have his name on it as editor; and while we supply everything, and only pay him a salary, no one will know our connection with it."
A few days afterwards the first number of the "New York Herald" appeared and it had an immediate success; but the proprietors of the other papers somehow found out or felt jealous of Smith and Anderson, and took their work away. Then, worse still, about one month after the first issue, a great fire took place and destroyed everything, and both Smith and Anderson were ruined. Anderson died in my father's house from his reverses and illness caused thereby. Bennett went to Bruce the typefounder and told him he could make a success of the paper and got credit, and about two weeks after the fire started the paper anew? utterly ignoring Smith and Anderson or any rights they had; and this was the foundation of the "Herald."
Some of these facts are in "Bennett's Life," issued by Stringer and Townsend in 1855. My father used to tell me that he very often saw Bennett personally selling his "Heralds " off the top of a barrel at the corner of Fulton and Ann streets, New York, the first few weeks after the issue of the paper (after the fire, September, 1835).
My father started a small job printing office in a little frame building, corner of Frankfort street and Chatham (now Printing House Row) upon the exact spot and lot where the great "New York World" building now stands. After a year or so he obtained a little credit and began to issue illustrated works (the first ever published in America). His first work was "Illustrations of the Bible." He had hardly courage to issue a first edition of one thousand copies, but they all sold very quickly and before five years he had sold over twenty thousand copies, an unprecedented sale at that time; and in the meanwhile he was issuing other works of a historical and biblical character, profusely illustrated. He was the first one to encourage wood-engraving, and paid thousands of dollars to young artists for their work on wood to illustrate his books.
P. T. Barnum, afterwards the great showman, at that time hardly had bread to eat; he applied to my father to be agent to sell his works. My father gave him a credit of $100 or $200 in books. He sold an immense number, enabling him to get a small capital, with which he bought out a small museum of curiosities and laid the foundation of his great wealth.
I forgot to state that the owner of the lot on which the little printing office stood offered it to my father in 1833 for $2,500. A few years ago the "World" paid $425,000 for the same lot exactly, on which they built their immense building. Naturally I am a bit sorry my father didn't buy the lot and keep it, but no one then had any idea of what New York was to be.
Believe me,
Very cordially yours,
Geo. Edw. Sears.