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After independence from Great Britain had been secured, papers became political organs of which The Gazette of the United States (1789), edited by John Fenno, and The National Gazette (i791), edited by Philip Freneau, were possibly the most important because the former was really con trolled by Alexander Hamilton, the leader of the Federal Party, and the latter by Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the then Re publican Party—now the Democratic. So vitriolic and so vitu perative were the papers that the era is known as one of black journalism. So bitter, for example, was the fight between the two Gazettes already mentioned that Washington had to request his two secretaries to put a stop to their bickerings in the interests of the struggling republic. Politics so promoted publication of papers that the number increased from 37 in 1776 to 359 in 1810.
As the cities on the Atlantic coast increased in size their papers began to appear more frequently : first semi-weekly, later tri-weekly and finally daily except Sunday. The first daily newspaper was an outgrowth of such a tri-weekly—The Pennsyl vania Packet and General Advertiser which first appeared in Phila delphia in Sept. 1784. Just as the colonial weekly adopted Gazette as a part of its title so the daily seized upon the word Advertiser. The second daily, the outgrowth of a semi-weekly at Charleston, S.C., first appeared in Dec. 1784. New York city did not have a daily until March 1785, when Francis Childs started The New York Daily Advertiser. The New York daily beginning an inde pendent existence faced a more difficult struggle to secure financial support both in circulation and in advertising. From the start the daily paper was more of an advertising sheet than it was a purveyor of news. Such news as was inserted was chiefly of a commercial character, such as the arrival and departure of vessels, quotations on produce, the transactions in real estate, etc. The paper itself went to the counting room instead of to the home. The oldest daily newspaper in the United States without change in name and with continuous publication is (1929) The New York Evening Post (Nov. 1801) which started as a Hamil tonian organ under the editorship of William Coleman. The oldest newspaper that has appeared regularly without suspension since its establishment is The Hartford Courant which began as The Connecticut Courant (Oct. 1764)—a weekly which did not be come a daily until long after The New York Evening Post was started. Two men of letters are associated with these two papers:
Charles Dudley Warner with The Courant and William Cullen Bryant with The Post. By 1812 New York had seven dailies but not one of them exceeded 2,000 in circulation.
The weekly and daily newspapers in the United States showed nothing of that enterprise so characteristic of American journalism until Henry Ingram Blake, employed on The Palladium of Boston, stopped waiting for news to come to the office and went out in person after such items. At first he went to the coffee houses for such accounts of foreign events as sea captains might bring there. Still later he had his own skiff and rode out to meet incoming vessels to get the news. From this modest beginning came many innovations to facilitate quick publication. In New York the little rowboat soon gave way to the fast clipper ship owned and chartered by a newspaper. The Journal of Commerce (Sept. 1827), founded as a semi-religious newspaper by Arthur Tappan, not only had the fastest ships but even built a semaphore at Sandy Hook to relay the news from its own boat to Staten Island from which it was taken promptly to the publication office. In gathering the news on land The Baltimore Sun (May 1837), co-operating with other papers, established a pony express to facilitate the collection of news. But the American who really put the news in the news paper was Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse of New York university, the inventor of the telegraph, who stretched a wire directly from news centres straight to the newspaper office. But other wires soon came through leases directly under the control of such organizations as the Associated Press, the United Press, etc. (q.v.).
While better facilities for collecting news were going on, the mulepack, the dugout and the prairie schooner were carrying presses and types farther and farther west to establish The Ken tucky Gazette (1787) at Lexington; The Mississippi Gazette (i800) at Natchez; The Indiana Gazette (1804) at Vincennes ; The Missouri Gazette (1808) at St. Louis; The Arkansas Gazette (1819) at Port Arkansas; The Texas Gazette (1820) at San Felipe—to mention the gazettes that were the first papers in various States. Among the last to have newspapers were Minne sota, The Pioneer (1849) at St. Paul; Utah, The Deseret News (1850), at Salt Lake ; Colorado, The Rocky Mountain News (1859), at Denver; Wyoming, The Leader (1867), at Cheyenne; and North Dakota, the latest with its newspaper, The Tribune (1873), at Bismarck.