ANCIENT INSTITUTIONS IN CONCORD.
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��Hampshire. He is also a Trustee of the State Normal School, by appointment of the Governor and Council ; and is Chair- man of the Dover Board of Education.
��Ecclesiastically, he is one of the mana- gers of the New Hampshire Missionary Society.
��ANCIENT INSTITUTIONS IN CONCOBD.
��BY ASA MC FARLAND.
��1. The New Hampshire Patriot.
Between the years 1790 and 1810 sev- eral weekly journals were born and died in Concord. They severally partook of the scrap-book character of the papers of that early period, and exercised very little influence upon public opinion, be- cause important topics were seldom dis- cussed in their pages. Poetry, anec- dotes, charades, riddles, with a meagre record of domestic and foreign occur- rences, marriages and deaths in the vil- lage, with a few advertisements, occu- pied the sheet. Indeed, the public jour- nals of Boston, during the period here mentioned, partook somewhat of the character of those in country villages. Reference to ancient flies of papers, printed in the New England metropolis during the period now under considera- tion, will fully sustain the assertion that the press of that day had not become a great power in the State.
The New Hampshire Patriot was established by the late Isaac Hill, Esq., and the year 1809 is the date of a new de- parture in journalism, so far as this State is concerned. Mr. Hill was a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and served an apprenticeship at the printing busi- ness with Joseph Cushing, proprietor and publisher of the " Farmer's Cabinet," a paper then and still living in Amherst, this State. The Patriot had been in ex- istence a few months before it came into the possession of Mr. Hill, but its infan- cy was of sickly nature, and it would have gone the way of many predecessors in Concord but for a change of owner- ship. Mr. Hill was a gentleman of un- tiring industry and decided convictions ; wrote with facility and vigor, and the pa-
��per soon commenced to exercise an influ- ence upon public opinion, not only in Concord and vicinity, but through a wider range, until it became a controling power in the State.
There had been a season of much polit- ical warmth ten years before the Patriot became a vital force in New Hampshire — immediately before and during that can- vass which terminated in the election of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency, and the birth of the journal here spoken of was, as seen by the date above given, in a period of no inconsiderable amount of fervor, as events were tending toward a war with England. Mr. Hill entered with zeal into the discussion of public affairs, and his paper was virtually with- out a competitor in the central, western, southern and northern portions of the State. Like all public journals, even such as number only two or three dec- ades — and the Patriot lacks but about two years of three-score and ten — it has been owned and conducted by several publishers. Its present proprietor is Ed- win C. Bailey, Esq.
2. The New Hampshire Statesman.
This public journal was commenced in the year 1823, the first number appearing on the 3th day of January, and therefore may be regarded as one of the ancient institutions of Concord. In the early years of the present century, when the present Main Street — a mile and a half long— contained the chief residences, stores and other business buildings, there grew up a degree of jealousy between the North and South End, which exer r cised a disturbing influence for many years, and entered even into the social relations of the inhabitants. Little feuds
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