Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/81

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center than Newbern, and Stewart printed, for the time, many local items, but the paper did not take with the public and was discontinued for lack of support in 1767.

The second newspaper in Wilmington was The Cape Fear Mercury and was published by Adam Boyd. Number 7 had the date of November 24, 1769, and if there were no omissions in weekly publication, the first appearance must have been on October 13, 1769. An examination of the early issues shows that Boyd was not a practical printer, as his typography was very poor: yet the paper survived till the War of the Revolution broke out, being printed on the press and with the type that formerly belonged to Stewart.

ORIGIN OF JOURNALISM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

New Hampshire got its first newspaper in a rather unique way. Daniel Fowle, after he left The Independent Advertiser of Boston, opened a small shop on Anne Street, where he sold books and pamphlets in addition to doing odd jobs on his press. Arrested in 1754 on the suspicion of having printed "The Mon- ster of Monsters," said to be a reflection on the House of Rep- resentatives, and later sent to jail for having sold a few copies, he became disgusted with the Government of Massachusetts. At the psychological moment, to use a modern expression, a call came from New Hampshire to come over and start a paper in that colony. The call was answered by his removal to Ports- mouth where he brought out Volume I, Number 1, of The New Hampshire Gazette on October 7, 1756.

On November 1, 1765, The Gazette came out with the usual black border, like so many other papers of the same time, and announced that it would cease publication because its printers were unwilling to pay the obnoxious stamp tax. During the War of the Revolution the paper was published rather irregularly and only slightly leaned toward the American cause. In 1776 it printed a communication urging the Provincial Congress not to establish an independent government because such a pro- ceeding might be taken as a desire to throw off British rule. The editor was at once summoned before the Provincial Con- gress, severely censured, and admonished never in the future