What could happen to a rumor…

December 9, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

The Daily Journal” newspaper of August 20, 1861 from Wilmington, North Carolina, a Confederate publication, printed an interesting series of dispatches of a fictitious assassination attempt upon President Lincoln (see below). They provide an interesting perspective on how a dramatic event could be much less so once more trustworthy news reports found their way to the press.

The reliability of news reports was a big problem in the 18th & 19th centuries during the pre-telegraph, pre-wire service days when word of mouth was often the source of what made it into the newspaper. This somewhat comical piece illustrates a quandary likely dealt with by most newspaper publishers of the  day.

First use of the term “Columbia”…

December 6, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

Finding “first” mentions of significant, people, places and terms is always a delight for the rare newspaper collector, and with the internet–and the time required–many fascinating items can be found.

The term “Columbia” as a reference to America, very commonly used through the 19th century in both print & image, was first used in the London publication “Gentleman’s Magazine” in 1738. Because the printing of Parliamentary debates was illegal in England, they appeared under the thinly veiled heading of “Debates in the Senate of Lilliput” or similar heading, with names & places often fictitious or taken from Johnathan Swift’s famous work, which was the literary sensation at that time. The term Columbia was coined by the famed Samuel Johnson, a regular contributor to the “parliamentary” reports found in “The Gentleman’s Magazine“.

In the June issue of 1738, the debates from Parliament note: “…It is observable that their conquests and acquisitions in Columbia (which is the Lilliputian name for the country that answers our America,) have very little contributed to the power of those nations…”.

A significant “first use” of a very popular poetic name for the United States of America.

Lamenting the handwritten word…

December 4, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

In today’s world of email, instant messaging, and twitter, there are many who lament the “old days” when people took the time to type out a letter, sign it, and use a stamp & envelope to get it to its destination. This item, found in “The Townsend Messenger” of Montana, issue date of March 18, 1892, takes that “lament” back one step further when the typewriter replaced the handwritten note.

The Traveler… up the canal… ready to sign on the dotted line…

December 2, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

It is so hard to believe that I am now traveling into the journals for December already. I found The Christian Science Monitor of December 2, 1910 to be very interesting, but I’ll highlight only two articles. The front page reports the sailing of the first vessel up the Panama Canal. This was a three-masted steam 17-foot yacht, Visitor II, owned by Commodore W. Harry Brown of Pittsburgh, which sailed to the Gatun lock and returned.

The other article is found on the sports page, “Soon to Sign Contracts for New N.Y. Stadium”. This was to be a $500,000 stadium which President Frank J. Farrell of the New York Americans plans to build at Kingsbridge. After doing quite a bit of internet researching, it isn’t quite certain if this may have been a stadium that existed prior to the earlier Yankee Stadium or not. It is noted that Mr. Farrell and William S. Devery were the first owners of the New York Highlanders, now the New York Yankees.

~The Traveler

General Butler… “The Beast”…

December 2, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

Editorials in Confederate newspapers are always interesting reading–as are many of those from the North–as there is much bias skewed in favor of those reading the newspaper. The Jan. 12, 1865 issue of the “Richmond Examiner” contains a rabidly anti-Butler editorial, even managing to interject his nickname in the South: “The Beast”. This one is worth sharing for all to read:

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