Main Menu | NJ Bicycle Routes | Great Jersey City Stories | New Jersey History | Hudson County Politics | Hudson County Facts | New Jersey Mafia | Hal Turner, FBI Informant | Email this Page
Removing Viruses and Spyware | Reinstalling Windows XP | Reset Windows XP or Vista Passwords | Windows Blue Screen of Death | Computer Noise | Don't Trust External Hard Drives! | Jersey City Computer Repair
Advertise Online SEO - Search Engine Optimization - Search Engine Marketing - SEM Domains For Sale George Washington Bridge Bike Path and Pedestrian Walkway Corona Extra Beer Subliminal Advertising Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs Pet Care The Tunnel Bar La Cosa Nostra Jersey City Free Books

NEW JERSEY
A Guide To Its Present And Past
Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of New Jersey
American Guide Series

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 Press
Part 2

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.

Next

Return To
New Jersey: The American Guide Series
Table of Contents

Hudson County Facts  by Anthony Olszewski - Hudson County History
Print Edition Now on Sale at Amazon

Read Online at
Google Book Search

The Hudson River Is Jersey City's Arena For Water Sports!

Questions? Need more information about this Web Site? Contact us at:

UrbanTimes.com
297 Griffith St.
Jersey City, NJ 07307

Anthony.Olszewski@gmail.com