with The Boston Chronicle. Titcomb retired from the paper with the issue of February 16, 1786, and Wait changed the title to The Cumberland Gazette on April 7, 1786. When part of Falmouth was incorporated as Portland on July 4, 1786, the latter town soon appeared in the imprint, but on January 2, 1792, the title was changed, to avoid confusion with another Portland paper of a similar name, to The Eastern Herald. In 1796 John K. Baker bought the paper and consolidated it with The Gazette of Maine, on September 3, 1796. An attempt was made to make the paper a semi-weekly, but failed: subscribers would not pay the increased cost. On March 5, 1798, Baker admitted Daniel George as a partner, but left the paper himself with the issue of November 3, 1800. From December 29, 1800, till February 2, 1801 George had Elijah Russell as a partner in the enterprise, but after the latter date he ran the paper until discontinued on December 31, 1804. Such, in brief, was the history of Maine's first newspaper.
The Gazette of Maine was brought out on October 8, 1790, at Portland by Benjamin Titcomb, Jr., but was consolidated with The Eastern Herald which has already been mentioned. Howard S. Robinson started The Eastern Star at Hallowell on August 4, 1794. It had a short life, being followed the next year by The Tocsin, but not until The Kennebeck Intelligencer had been established November 21, 1795, by Peter Edes in what is now called Augusta, but what was then Hallo well. Though discontinued with the issue of June 6, 1800, it was revived as The Kennebec Gazette on November 14, 1800. A fire in the printing-office caused a suspension of the paper from February 11, to March 28, 1804. A second suspension from November 21, 1804, to January 16, 1805, was due to a lack of financial support. On August 8, 1805, Edes took in his son Benjamin as a partner, but as the paper could not support both, the son was forced to leave. Changing the character of his paper and making it more a party organ, Edes, on February 13, 1810, adopted the title of The Herald of Liberty for his paper. In 1815, probably with an issue in September, Edes suspended The Herald of Liberty and left Augusta, where he had "sunk property by tarrying so long with so little encour-
