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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
The heat of partisanship during the Revolution led to the rise of a
local press. The New Jersey Gazette, the State's first real paper, was produced by Isaac Collins, former "Printer to the King," from the identical
plant in Burlington where, several decades earlier, Benjamin Franklin
had printed the first currency for the Province. Backed by Governor William Livingston and members of the State legislature, this weekly appeared
as a single folio sheet, 9 by 14 inches, four columns to a page, on December 5, 1777. Typical of Revolutionary papers, it was pledged to support
the "Interests of Religion and Liberty" and opened its columns with
"pleasure and alacrity" to "Essays useful or entertaining, or schemes for
advancement of Trade, Arts and Manufactures."
Only three contemporary New Jersey papers date back to the eighteenth
century, and only one of these, the Elizabeth Daily Journal, was founded
early enough to participate in the Revolution. Washington and Hamilton
lent "friendly assistance" to Shepard Kollock, a Chatham printer, for the
establishment of his New Jersey Journal, forerunner of the present Elizabeth daily.
Collins' Gazette waned after the peace of 1783 and finally expired in
1786. The same year brought the New Jersey Magazine and Monthly
Advertiser to New Brunswick and the Mercury and Weekly Advertiser to
Trenton -- short-lived, ponderous, pedantic sheets that catered mainly to
the property-holding class. For years Kollock's Journal remained the only
publication in the State with an appeal to the common man.
The passionate controversy between Hamilton's Federalism and Jefferson's Republicanism gave rise to new partisan papers. The present Trenton State Gazetteand the New Brunswick Sunday Times were both
founded in 1792 to champion political movements. In Newark, John
Woods, a former apprentice of Kollock, began, on May 13, 1791, weekly
publication of Woods' Newark Gazette. This ardent Federalist advocate
was soon opposed by one equally vehement for States' rights, the Sentinel
of Freedom, founded in 1796.
The Newark Daily Advertiser, established in 1832 as a daily edition of
the Sentinel, absorbed the parent organization in the following year. It
survived until 1906 on legal advertisements thrown to it by politicians,
although it had no circulation. Today's Newark Star-Eagle, the result of a
merger of the Daily Advertiser, the Newark Evening Star, and the Morning Eagle thus lays claim to the title of the city's oldest daily.
The Sentinel (originally spelled "Centinel") was typical of that intense
personal journalism which frequently led opposing editors to the dueling
grounds. The paper built up Jefferson's political machine in Essex County
and drove the Gazette out of business. A vituperative editorial in the
Sentinel of January 1, 1805 commented:
The Newark Gazette expired on Tuesday of a decline which it bore with Christian fortitude. This legitimate child of federalism was generated by corruption, progressed in infamy, and finally died in disgrace.... Let the people say Amen! Amen!
Undoubtedly the fiercest anti-Federalist, however, was Philip Freneau,
sailor, scholar, and poet of the Revolution. His New Jersey Chronicle,
founded in 1795 at Mount Pleasant (now Freneau), assailed the aristocratic theories of Adams and Hamilton and charged that they were heading the Nation toward monarchy. Jefferson later made Freneau editor of
his National Gazette.
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