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A gem from the American Antiquarian Society…
August 11, 2014 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
In celebration of its 20oth anniversary the American Antiquarian Society published a beautiful exhibition catalog titled “In Pursuit Of A Vision – Two Centuries of Collecting at the American Antiquarian Society”. Featured are a fascinating array of books, documents, maps & other paper ephemera, as well as several very rare & unusual newspapers we felt worthy of sharing with our collectors (with permission from the A.A.S.).
172. “The Chess Monthly“, New York, February, 1859
It has been common practice when binding periodicals — whether by publishers in order to sell cumulative volumes, or by libraries and private owners for purposes of convenience and preservation — to remove the outer wrappers and advertisement leaves from individual issues, leaving only the main body of text. However, periodical wrappers and advertisement leaves often contain important material which scholars (and bibliographers) are increasingly finding vital to their research. In recent years AAS has made it a priority to collect early American periodical issues with wrappers intact, even going so far as to acquire second, wrappered copies to complement a set bound without wrappers. In many instances, wrappered copies prove to be exceptionally rare survivals.
This issue of The Chess Monthly is a good example. The journal’s editor was Daniel W. Fiske (1831-1904), then chess champion of the New York Chess Club and later Cornell University’s first librarian. For a time, American chess prodigy and unofficial world champion Paul Morphy (1837-1884) held the title of co-editor, lending the magazine his marquee name. Only on the wrappers, however, are their editorial roles mentioned. The wrappers also contain publication information not available elsewhere, an advertisement for a set of Morphy- endorsed chessmen made of cast iron and — perhaps most important of all — the answers to chess problems published in the previous issue.
The grave-site legacy of Benjamin Franklin…
August 1, 2014 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
If you have never traveled to Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, PA, it is certainly worth the trip. One of the centerpiece structures of the park is Christ Church, with its adjoining cemetery containing the remains of many of America’s Founding Fathers. Among the most noteworthy include those of Benjamin Franklin and his wife Deborah. We recently found a National Intelligencer from November 18, 1848 which speaks quite eloquently of both Franklin and the resting place of his remains: 
The Traveler… make your own island… a tribute…
July 21, 2014 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled back to Salem, Massachusetts, by the way of the Salem Gazette of July 19, 1814. There I found reporting in regards to Captain Porter and his taking possession of an island in the South Seas. The natives called it Noosheevah but he renamed it “Madison’s Island” after President Madison. He also establish Fort Madison as well.
Judge Parker provides a very nice tribute to the “Character of late Chief Justice” Samuel Sewall which he addressed at the Bar. In reading further information on the internet about Mr. Sewall, I found that his great-grandfather was a judge at the Salem witch trials!
~The Traveler
A life wasted…
July 18, 2014 by GuyHeilenman · 2 Comments
We were not designed to spend our days consumed with self, meaningless activity, and various forms of virtual reality (note: a quick search on the Rare Newspapers website for “self”, “meaningless activity”, and “virtual reality” is returned void). The following article found in a National Intelligencer from November 21, 1848 is worth pondering:
A gem from the American Antiquarian Society…
July 14, 2014 by TimHughes · 1 Comment
In celebration of its 20oth anniversary the American Antiquarian Society published a beautiful exhibition catalog titled “In Pursuit Of A Vision – Two Centuries of Collecting at the American Antiquarian Society”. Featured are a fascinating array of books, documents, maps & other paper ephemera, as well as several very rare & unusual newspapers we felt worthy of sharing with our collectors (with permission from the A.A.S.).
117. “Frontier Scout“, Fort Rice, Dakota Territory, June 15, 1865
Thanks to Donald McKay Frost, AAS owns a complete run of the second newspaper printed in the Dakota Territory, preceded only by a paper of the same title issued at Fort Union the previous summer. Located in south central North Dakota, Fort Rice was a 500-foot square wooden stockade erected in the summer of 1864 to protect vital transportation routes from increasingly frequent Lakota attacks. Initially it was manned by “galvanized Yankees” — former Confederate prisoners of war who had enlisted in the Union Army rather than wait indefinitely in prison camps for parole or exchange.
In order to ward off the stress of isolated frontier living, the soldiers engaged in various diversions, including theatrical performances and the publication of their own newspaper printed on a portable press. Captain E. G. Adams and Lieutenant C. H. Champney of the First United States Volunteer Infantry Regiment served as editor and publisher respectively. In this inaugural issue, Adams encouraged the troops to contribute poems, stories, and adventures. “When this is done our paper is formed, a living, speaking, embodiment of the society in which we dwell.” The last of the fifteen weekly issues appeared on October 12, 1865, shortly before Adams and Champney left the fort. Most issues were printed on sheets of ruled blue ledger paper.
Interesting comments on Jesse James…
June 6, 2014 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
The April 27, 1881 issue of the rare “Elk Mountain Pilot” from the ghost town of Irwin, Colorado, has 3 interesting and unusual tidbits concerning the recent death of the noted outlaw, Jesse James: “Jesse James has climbed the golden stairs, (?) to interview those he has sent before.” and: “The papers throughout the country are publishing the picture of Jesse James and no two of them are alike.” as well as: “We have not heard of any one taking up a subscription to erect a monument to the memory of Jesse James.” Yet another tidbit mentions the death of Charles Darwin – making these mentions an interesting tandem.
Arlington Cemetery is consecrated… 150 years ago…
May 25, 2014 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Memorial Day – Unfortunately, for most, this hallowed holiday has degraded into nothing more than a day off to have family picnics and to rest. While these activities have value, too often we forget the cost paid by many to both provide and then preserve our ability to do so in a free and safe society. However, we recently discovered a video (see below) made to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the consecration of Arlington Cemetery which helps to bring us back to our roots. This also led us to explore our inventory to see if we could find any coverage which might relate – which, as you can see, we did in a New York Times from June 20, 1864.(see right) and a Harper’s Weekly from June 20, 1868 (see above). Feel free to read, watch, ponder… and be thankful.
Greater love has no One than this, that One lay down his life for His friends. (John 15:13)
The Traveler… Gen. Lee’s wagon train… Davy Crockett makes a monkey…
May 19, 2014 by The Traveler · 2 Comments
This week I traveled back to New York City by the means of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper of May 21, 1864. There I found on the front cover the illustration of “Rebel Attack on Gen. Lee’s Wagon train at Mansfield, LA., April 8”. 
“In the late reverses in Louisiana one of the most disgraceful points was the loss of the wagon train of Gen. Lee’s cavalry, which had been sent so far forward that it became impossible for the defeated cavalry to retreat. This led not only to the disgraceful rout of the men but also the capture of the train…”
Also in the issue was the following: “The celebrated David Crockett, on visiting a menagerie, was comparing the countenance of a monkey to that of one of his fellow-members of Congress. Turning, he saw the gentleman had overheard his remarks; so, to make matters pleasant, he said, ‘I do not know which to apologize to, you or the monkey.'”
~The Traveler
Niles’ Weekly Register, a newspaper rich in history…
May 12, 2014 by TimHughes · 2 Comments
This post is taken almost entirely from the work by Bill Earle at www.nilesregister.com, whose database of the entire run of this notable newspaper provides a very inclusive perspective of life not only in America but the world for much of the first half of the 19th century. But this post offers insight beyond the Niles’ Register. It provides a perspective of the broader scope of newspaper publishing from this significant era.
The national and international newsweekly Niles’ Register is well known today primarily to collectors & those and genealogists who have sampled its treasures. But in the first half of the 19th century, the Register was as well known as the New York Times and Washington Post are known today. From 1811 to 1849, it was the principal window through which many Americans looked out on their country and the world. The scope of the work was immense, its circulation was large (the largest in the United States, by some accounts), and its influence was reflected in generous compliments from such readers of the publication as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson.
The Register was founded by Hezekiah Niles in Baltimore in 1811. A printer and journalist of Quaker background from the Wilmington-Brandywine-Philadelphia area, Niles had worked in Philadelphia and Wilmington before moving to Baltimore in 1805 as editor of the “Baltimore Evening Post”. When that paper was sold in 1811, he launched his “The Weekly Register“. The editor had large ambitions: he intended to be “an honest chronicler” who “registered” events not just for his contemporaries but for posterity as well. Although politics would be covered extensively, the Register would eschew any partisan slant — “electioneering,” as the editor called it. Furthermore, the paper would ignore local news in favor of national and international news. The paper would cost $5 per year, a premium price in an era when a dollar might constitute a generous day’s wages.
Niles had secured some subscribers before his first issue appeared on September 7, 1811, but those initial subscribers would be able to cancel after 13 weeks if the work did not meet their expectations. After six months, however, Niles was able to boast that few initial subscribers had withdrawn. Furthermore, so many new subscribers had signed on that the editor had had to produce three printings of some early issues to supply those who wanted complete sets of the new publication. Niles would never get rich producing the Register–his published complaints about slow subscription payments are a recurring theme throughout his career–but the paper was clearly well established almost from the outset.
The value that subscribers saw in the publication is easy to understand. It was exceptionally dense with material: there was no advertising, and only a handful of illustrations ever appeared (desired issues by collectors); consequently, the pages were packed with text. Furthermore, Niles frequently added extra value to the basic publication. He would occasionally reduce the type size if momentous events left him with important material that he needed to “get in,” or he would extend the regular 16-page length of the paper by adding extra pages. On a number of occasions, special supplemental volumes on topics of particular interest — occasionally amounting to hundreds of pages — were sent gratis to subscribers. One such supplement carried a very early printing of the Star Spangled Banner.
In addition to the sheer volume of material, there were two other outstanding aspects of the Register which distinguished it. First was its scope. While The Register emphasized political, commercial, agricultural, and industrial news, and paid only limited attention to cultural or social issues, it reported on events worldwide. Foreign coverage was more abbreviated than domestic reporting, but major events abroad were routinely summarized. Furthermore, Niles drew both domestic and foreign news from a host of sources — his own reporting and extensive correspondence, foreign newspapers and domestic “exchange papers,” commercial correspondence received in the major international port of Baltimore, and private correspondence passed on to him by friends and acquaintances. Finally, he emphasized “getting in” texts of major documents — texts of treaties, laws, and court decisions, transcripts of speeches, official reports, and records of Congressional proceedings (perhaps a quarter of the 30,000 pages that the Register eventually contained were given over to proceedings in Congress). Collectors love that Niles included within its pages the declaration of War for the War of 1812, the constitutions of many states as they entered the Union, inaugural addresses of Presidents of the era as well as their annual state-of-the-union addresses, the Monroe Doctrine, and virtually every other national document of note. For any significant national event “Niles Register” can be counted on to provide a detailed account.
Second was its even handedness. Niles’ pledge in the first issue of The Register to avoid party politics distinguished the paper from much of the American journalism of the era. Many newspapers in that day represented parties, or factions within parties, or even particular candidates, and political reportage was usually one-sided and strident. The Register, however, ignored the petty disputes between “the ins and the outs.” As a result, there is a balanced quality to the Register that gave it an authority no other publication of its time could match.
One other great advantage favored the Register: the richness of events in the era. The Napoleonic Wars were still going on when the Register first appeared, and its pages were soon thereafter crowded with the events of the War of 1812, reporting in fine detail all major battles both on land & the sea. The Texas war for independence including a nice account of the Battle of the Alamo can be found within its pages. Indian wars and foreign revolutions erupted periodically, and the war between Mexico and the United States occurred late in the period. Domestic debates about major national issues–the tariff, public land policy, slavery, internal improvements–continued ceaselessly. Industrial and technological developments abounded (the steam engine, the building of the Erie Canal & other canals and railroads, introduction of the telegraph), and an ample cast of larger-than-life characters was readily available–Napoleon Bonaparte, Tsar Alexander, the Duke of Wellington, Queen Victoria, Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, John C. Calhoun, and so many others. It was an accident of history that the Register had all these fascinating developments and personalities to cover, but Niles made the most of it.
Hezekiah Niles’ editorship of the Register lasted 25 years. In 1836, advancing age and declining health obliged him to turn the paper over to his son, William Ogden Niles. William Niles had been raised as a printer/journalist, and was involved with other newspapers both before and after his term at the Register. His first editorial showed him to be his father’s son: he expressed himself determined to “maintain the well-earned reputation of the Register” and to “record facts and events without fear or favor, partiality or affection, — in brief, to preserve its national character.” However, he quickly showed that he had his own ideas, too. His first issue expanded the traditional format of the paper, he changed the paper’s name to “Niles’ National Register”, and he soon moved the paper to Washington, D,C., evidently hoping to extend the paper’s national political influence.
However, the move to Washington failed. The paper returned to Baltimore in 1839 and William Ogden’s tenure as editor ended that same year. During his editorship, legal title to The Register apparently remained with Hezekiah. When Hezekiah died in 1839, William Ogden’s step-mother, Hezekiah’s second wife, sold the property and William Ogden was out.
Jeremiah Hughes bought the franchise. A long-time resident of Annapolis (he was in his mid-fifties when he acquired the Register), Hughes was cut from the same cloth as his long-time friend, Hezekiah Niles. Both had served in the militia in the War of 1812. Most importantly, however, Hughes was a journalist, having been publisher of the Maryland Republican at Annapolis for many years. Thus, although the Whig partisanship of the Register increased notably during Hughes’ tenure, its essential news-reporting function was unimpaired.
Hughes’ editorship lasted until 1848 when business difficulties and declining health persuaded him that he could no longer publish The Register. It was suspended in March. The cause of the Register’s suspension is not clear. It may have resulted from nothing more than the ordinary ebb and flow of fortune in the publishing business. In a broader sense, however, the Register was clearly losing its special place in American journalism. The paper’s cachet had always been two-fold — its concise news summaries from around the United States and the world, and the relatively non-partisan tone of its political coverage — but the uniqueness of both these characteristics was being eroded by the late 1840s.
First, improved communications were making it easier for daily newspapers to offer the coverage from elsewhere that Hezekiah Niles had originally had to cull out of ship letters and exchange papers. By the 1840s, faster mail service via steamboats and railroads, as well as spreading telegraph lines, had deprived the Register of its exclusive franchise on this kind of reportage. Second, partisanship in American journalism was declining. By the 1840s, the newspaper business was established as an industry in its own right.
Rising literacy rates were giving the newspapers a growing market at the same time that improved printing processes were yielding a more affordable product to that market. The newly independent newspapers began to replace their former dependence on political ideology with a developing journalistic ideology, “objective” journalism, journalism without an obvious partisan slant. It is ironic that the Register missed this development in journalistic style. Hezekiah Niles had pioneered “objective” journalism–indeed, he is sometimes called its progenitor–but Jeremiah Hughes’ Register of the 1840s was much more clearly a partisan Whig publication than it had been in earlier years. Any partisan alliance would have hurt a paper such as Niles’ Register at a time when partisan journalism was waning, but an alliance with the divided and dying Whigs was particularly unfortunate.
Whatever caused the paper’s decline, it remained suspended until July, 1848. It then reappeared under the editorship of George Beatty from new headquarters in Philadelphia. Little is known about Beatty, but he apparently was a novice at publishing when the opportunity to acquire the Register arose. However, he made a serious effort to revive the franchise, and ran it for a year. But it was too little, too late. Beatty’s journalistic inexperience showed too clearly in the paper’s pages, and the Register’s place in the marketplace disappeared. The last regular issue appeared in June, 1849. Three abbreviated issues appeared in September, 1849, but they were the last.
In one sense, however, the publication never died. The full 38 years of the Register’s run is a common holding in libraries (either in paper or in 20th-century-produced microform), and bound volume commonly turn up in library deaccessionings. They are often found on booksellers shelves as well. Collectors relish the wealth of content while acknowledging its small size (some argue it was a magazine and not a newspaper) does not fit the expectation of a newspaper. But if any collector wished for a single-title collection of major events from 1811-1849, Niles’ Register would be the undisputed choice.
Consequently, it remains available for historians, genealogists, and certainly collectors of old newspapers. As one historian has said, “Probably no day passes without some researcher digging into the information supplied with so much care and responsibility by Hezekiah Niles.” The statement was made several decades ago — and Niles would be delighted to know it is still true.
Exploring Mother’s Day with Rare Newspapers…
May 2, 2014 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
With not much more than a week to go: Flowers… a card… taking her out for dinner… going to visit her… While these may be the most common gift ideas for Mother’s Day, another source are the beautiful prints found on the covers of and within historic newspapers. We’ve created a number of Pinterest Boards which feature such decorative prints. Please enjoy:
Mother-Themed Prints