CHAPTER XX.
THE COUNTY PRESS.[1]
Early Papers—The First Publication in the County—The Warren Republican and its Career—The Lake George Watchman—The Glens Falls Observer—The Warren County Messenger and its Immediate Descendants—The Glens Falls Spectator—The Glens Falls Gazette—The Glens Falls Clarion—Another Republican—The Rechabite and Temperance Bugle—Glens Falls Free Press—The Warrensburgh Annual—Glens Falls Advertiser—The American Standard—The Warren County Whig—The Present Messenger—Daily Press—The Daily Times—The Morning Star.
WARREN COUNTY does not possess a long or exciting newspaper history. The sparse population of the county at large, and with the exception of Glens Falls, the absence of any large villages, have operated against the establishment of public journals, and have been the prime cause of the premature decay and death of many papers from which their learned editors expected fame and fortune. It is a very sterile and thinly populated district in this great country of ours where at least one man cannot be found who believes himself born to be a journalist; and nothing can ever dispel this prevalent belief but the hard lesson of experience. Hence the number of newspapers that have been started in the county, insignificant as it may seem when compared with those of other larger fields, cannot be counted on one's fingers and toes; and those that have survived the struggle for existence have been and are a credit to the county and to their editors, and have wielded a vast influence in the communities, and no little power in the politics of the State.
In the fall of 1812 John Cunningham, of New England, accompanied by Eben Patrick, a journeyman, and Eliezer Wheelock, an indented apprentice, removed from Windsor, Vermont, to Glens Falls. They brought with them an ample supply of type and an old-fashioned press. Cunningham being taken sick on the way was obliged to defer his coming until the following spring, but the others continued their journey and opened a job office in a building on the corner of Ridge and Glen streets. In April, 1813, Cunningham came on with his family, and in the succeeding month issued a prospectus written by William Hay. On Thursday, the 16th of June, 1813, the first number of the first paper issued in Warren county, was published under the name of The Warren Republican. It was a journal but little larger than a " common spelling book," so folded as to make twelve pages to each number, and was nearly half filled with advertisements. This sheet was devoted to the interests of the dominant party and existing administration, and until the close of the war was well stocked with the exciting reports of domestic and foreign battles and coups d'états, which have since become matters of history. After
- ↑ Largely prepared from newspaper sketches published some years since by Dr. A. W. Holden.
