William Wooldridge of
Suffolk, Virginia, recently donated an early issue of the Falmouth
Gazette and Weekly Advertiser, Maine’s first newspaper.
The Gazette was published weekly beginning on New Year’s Day 1785. We have the tenth issue published on March 5th, 1785.
The Gazette was a sign of the times. The Revolutionary War had come to
an end just two years before. Falmouth had borne the heaviest burden of
any town in Maine during the struggle for independence. The central
market and seaport—today Portland’s Old Port—were destroyed in a British
attack eight months before the colonies declared independence. The
threat of another attack by British ships in the Gulf of Maine caused
many families to move away from the coast and rebuilding did not begin
until the war was over. Falmouth endured more hardship by sending men,
supplies and ships to support the fight.
By
1785, Falmouth was rebounding from the war. People were returning and
the town was being rebuilt. The establishment of a newspaper was a
symbol of a town on the rise.
Falmouth in 1785 consisted of the present-day cities of Portland and
Westbrook as well as today's town of Falmouth. Cape Elizabeth, including
today's city of South Portland, had split off in 1765.
Portland would break away in 1786 with Westbrook following in 1814.
The paper was published by Benjamin Titcomb, son of a prominent Maine
family, and Thomas Wait, a newly-arrived printer from Boston who had set
up his business on Middle Street in Portland--then known as "Falmouth (Casco-Bay)" to distinguish it from the other Falmouth on Cape Cod. Maine would be part of Massachusetts for another thirty-five years.
|
Henry Dunnack, Librarian at
the Maine State Library, captured the significance of the Gazette in
his Book of Maine (1920, Augusta, Maine):
On the first day of January, 1785, there appeared in the town of
Falmouth the first issue of the pioneer newspaper of the District of
Maine, under the name of The Falmouth Gazette and Weekly Advertiser.
It came from the press of Titcomb and Wait of Falmouth and was printed
on four pages, about the size of a sheet of foolscap, with three columns
to a page. In 1786, the year of Portland's incorporation, the name was
changed to Cumberland Gazette.
It is hard to realize the eagerness with which the weekly delivery of
papers was anticipated in the smaller towns in the early days. Local
happenings were reported without delay by the busy newsmongers but the
only connection with the outside world was found in the papers. In 1785
the mail was carried from Falmouth to Portsmouth and from thence to
Boston on horseback and inhabitants of settlements not on the direct
mail route were obliged to send messengers on foot to the nearest place
selected to send letters and receive mail. In case of severe storms or
unusually bad condition of the roads the postman was often delayed for
two weeks and sometimes for more than a month. In Parson Smith's diary,
written in 1785, we find this entry: "The post at last got here, having
been hindered near five weeks."
As comparatively few people in the smaller settlements could afford
individual subscriptions, it was the custom for whole neighborhoods to
unite in subscribing for a single paper, which was read in turn by the
several families and then carefully preserved for future reading.
Congressional news, sometimes not more than sixteen days old, and
foreign news, two or three months late, made up the greater part of the
paper. A few items of local interest were given in the form of death
notices long and eulogistic and advertisements. These varied from
descriptions of proprietary medicines, sure to cure all ailments, to
notices of marital difficulties. No paper was complete without its
advertisements of [West Indies] rum, gin, wines and other cordials.
Masters of runaway apprentices aired their troubles and offered
munificent rewards, varying from two cents to ten dollars, for the
return of their ungrateful servants.
Our issue of the Gazette is not historically significant but—like many
of our artifacts—it is a tangible link to our past. It is also a window
into the lives and times of the people who lived in Falmouth 236 years
ago. For those with deep roots in Falmouth, issues of this newspaper
were held, read, and debated by our ancestors.
Click here to view the document containing full-sized images of the
Gazette. Because small portions of the issue are missing or illegible,
the document includes microfilm images from a fully intact copy of the
same issue on facing pages. By changing your viewer settings for View /
Page Display to “Two Page View” the facing pages will be shown
side-by-side.
Mr. William Wooldridge donated this issue of Gazette to the Falmouth
Historical Society. He is a retired vice president of Norfolk Southern
Railway. He has a longtime interest in state, local, and family
history. A graduate of Harvard College and the University of
Virginia School of Law, he served in the Army during 1969-1973.
He is the author of Mapping Virginia, From the Age of Exploration to
the Civil War. He has served as a trustee of the Virginia Historical
Society, as president of the John Marshall Foundation, president of the
Norfolk Historical Society, and on the boards of public radio station
WHRO and of the Library of Virginia Foundation. |