Hidden Gems within Rare & Early Newspapers/Magazines… 1792 edition…

May 12, 2023 by · Leave a Comment 

We recently listed a Massachusetts Magazine from 1792 with the following description:

Benjamin Franklin’s Will…

The bulk of the issue is taken up with a wide range of eclectic articles as noted on the full title/contents page.
The issue begins with: “Extracts from Dr. Franklin’s Will” which takes over a full page and provides many details on various beneficiaries.

Also within: “Thoughts on Dueling” “The Child Trained up for the Gallows” “A Description of the Dismal Swamp in Virginia” “The Distresses of a Frontier Inhabitant” “Fourteen Causes which Enrich a Country” “On the Climate of South Carolina” and much more.

Near the back is a: “Collection of Publick Acts Papers, etc.” including 3 Acts of Congress, each noted as: “Approved by the President…”, and also: “Abstract of the Proceedings of Congress” taking several pages. Then: “Domestick Chronicle” with news of the day, state-by-state and which includes much on Indian troubles.

Based on only the abbreviated list of articles we included within this issue’s listing, if you could only read one article, which one most attracts your attention? For me it would be Ben Franklin’s will, with “The Child Trained up for the Gallows” and “Thoughts on Dueling” a distant second and third choice. But what if I was from Ohio… perhaps even a region steeped in history related to westward expansion and the Northwest Territory? Well, one such collector fits this description, and without providing the title of the article, perhaps you can guess which captured his interest.

One never knows what one may find within the pages of Rare & Early Newspapers.

PS  Food for thought: Viewing the past through a romanticized lens may not always provide the most accurate view.

First newspapers in Ohio…

March 21, 2011 by · Leave a Comment 

Ohio was still part of the vast Northwest Territory when the first newspaper in present-day Ohio was published in 1793.  The date was November 9 and William Maxwell’s newspaper the “Centinel of the North-Western Territory” was the first product of the printing press anywhere north of the Ohio River & west of the Allegheny & Blue Ridge mountains. The city of publication was Cincinnati, but just a few years earlier it’s name had changed from “Losantiville”. The newspaper would continue until June of 1796, although records show the newspaper was sold to Edmund Freeman in 1796 who changed the name to “Freeman’s Journal“. Records show, however, that it did not publish until July of 1800 and lasted less then 6 months.

The second newspaper published in Ohio was also done in Cincinnati, called the “Western Spy and Hamilton Gazette“, begun in May of 1799 and lasting till the end of 1822. Only one other pre-statehood (1803) newspaper published in Ohio, being the “Scioto Gazette” published in Chillicothe, it beginning  January 8, 1801 and lasting through the end of 1803.