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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: 
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:
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
The Traveler… premature death… Tecumseh… substituting…
April 21, 2014 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled to Boston, Massachusetts by the way of The Yankee dated April 22, 1814. There I found an article on an embargo of vessels in the American harbors. This also included “…[Here the Editor gives a report of the capture of the President by the Majestic; and, says the article, Commodore Rodgers was killed.]…” Considering he died on August 1, 1838, I would say that this was a premature reporting of his death!
The last page of this issue contains a great “Biographical – Character of Tecumseh.” “The celebrated aboriginal warrior, Tecumseh was in the 44th year of his age, when he fell at the battle of the Thames. He was of the Shawanoe tribe, five feet ten inches, high, well formed for activity and the endurance of fatigue, which he was capable of sustaining in a very extraordinary degree…”
A great story from Georgia. A “youthful citizen” had volunteered his services to the military. Approaching battle, he was afraid that he may not survive so he found himself a substitute and returned home to his “heart’s delight.” She had already heard of what he had done and was not pleased of his patriotic indignation. When he had informed her of his intentions of their engagement, she replied “I must refuse to fulfill my engagement, until you employ a substitute.”
~The Traveler
#20 – Thoughts on the most historic 19th century report… (*revisited)
March 21, 2014 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
A few weeks ago we had some interesting comments on what collectors thought was the most historic 20th century newspaper report. Let’s try the same with the 19th century. But given the tremendous diversity of events from 1801 thru 1900 I’m going to break the century into three parts: pre-Civil War; the Civil War; and post-Civil War. Let’s work our way backwards and discuss the post-Civil War era first.
There are many ways to approach “most historic”. My approach will be the most life-altering event with emphasis on “event”. One could argue that the second Industrial Revolution dramatically changed the world but it cannot be pinned down to a single date or event.
Several items come to mind: the first successful Atlantic cable in 1866 was a major step in causing the world to be much smaller–a trend which continues to this day; the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the United States was a major step in the westward expansion & settlement of the United States which changed the country in many ways; and then there is the Battle of Wounded Knee which was the last battle in the American Indian Wars and the official end of the Old West. Not to be omitted would be the invention of the automobile by gentlemen in Germany in 1889.
I’m going to go with the completion of the transcontinental railroad. In thinking of the multitude of events which played off this event and how it changed the fabric of America (pardon the ethnocentrism) I’ll vote for it as the most historic event of the 19th century post-Civil War era.
What are your thoughts?
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*The Fall of 2013 marked the 5th anniversary of the History’s Newsstand Blog by Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers. We are grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to the newspaper collecting community, and appreciate those who have participated through guest posts, comments, and readership. This year (2014) we are revisiting the top 25 posts (measured by activity), with the number 1 post being re-posted during the first week of 2015. Please enjoy. If you would like to contribute a post for consideration of inclusion on the blog, please contact Guy Heilenman at guy@rarenewspapers.com.
The Traveler… victory over Indians… horrible finding…
March 3, 2014 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled through Boston, Massachusetts, by the way of The Yankee (March 4, 1814). There I found a lengthy report on the Indian battle taking place, known as the Battles of Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek. The battles were under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, General Coffee and Captain Hamilton. This battle included “friendly Indians” fighting against the Creek Indians. This report was submitted by Andrew Jackson.
“A Tale of Horror” report from Rutland, Vermont, was of a merchant, Joseph Green, who suddenly went missing. The town people thought he may have gone out of town, but when he did re-appear, they investigated his business and found his mangled remains behind a large woodpile under the stairs. “A person by the name of James Anthony, a hatter by trade, was strongly suspected of being accessory to his secretion, if not murder, in consequence of marks of violence which appeared on his face, and the manner in which he accounted for the same.” He was found guilty and commitment to prison until the sitting of the supreme court in the town the following Monday.
~The Traveler
The Frederick Douglass’ Paper… Solomon Northup…
February 24, 2014 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
I absolutely love this collectible!
We had in our possession for a number of years an original issue of the Frederick Douglass’ Paper, dated March 17, 1854. It certainly was a grand paper – it being a continuation of Douglass’ North Star. However, while the notoriety of the title was well-established and the angst of slavery oozed throughout, it was a 21st century movie which infused new life into it’s weary 150+ year-old raglinen pages.
A collector recently went to see the theatrical adaptation of “Twelve Years a Slave – The Memoir of Solomon Northup“, and was moved to visit the Rare & Early Newspapers‘ website to see if we had newspapers with his mention. Searches for his name were unsuccessful – but this collector was not to be deterred. Having previously viewed the Frederick Douglass’ Paper in question, he took the next step and began to go over the corresponding images with a fine-tooth comb. Success. The newspaper was not only noteworthy for its editor and rarity, but it also had an article on the front page with mention of Solomon Northrup (see below). Fantastic.
Like I said, I love this collectible!
Valentine’s Day flowers… chocolates… rare newspapers?
February 13, 2014 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
“I love you!” Why is this so hard to say to those whom we love? The old adage goes that when I seasoned relic from the mid-20th century school of cold-knocks was asked why he never tells his wife he loves her, he replied, “I told her I loved her the day we married. If anything changes I’ll let her know.” While a bit humorous, one can’t help but hear the sad sound of little-girl dreams gone unrealized. Valentine’s Day has certainly served its role in helping to remind us to say the things that often go unsaid. Chocolates, flowers, and cards are great tokens of our love, but they pale in comparison to the very words themselves: I love you!
The following historic newspapers, like the February 16, 1861 issue of Harper’s Weekly (shown to the right), provide a chronological look through time at how the holiday has been viewed: Newspapers with Valentine’s Day coverage.
Perhaps a different meaning for “idiot” in 1856…
January 27, 2014 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
The following appeared in the “New York Clipper” sporting newspaper in its December 6, 1856 issue: