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Page 18
In view of these great changes in journalism, the record of the progress
of a successful newspaper during the last four decades contains much
matter of general interest, and if excuse were needed, this would
warrant the publication here of a brief history of The Boston Herald.
Like most, if not all, of the leading journals of the country, The
Boston Herald had a very humble origin. Forty years ago some journeymen
printers on The Boston Daily Times began publishing a penny paper,
called The American Eagle, in advocacy of the Native American or
"Know-nothing" party.
Its publishers were "Baker, French, Harmon & Co." The full list of
proprietors was Albert Baker, John A. French, George W. Harmon, George
H. Campbell, Amos C. Clapp, J.W. Monroe, Justin Andrews, Augustus A.
Wallace, and James D. Stowers, and W.H. Waldron was subsequently
associated with them. The Eagle was successful at the outset, but its
fortunes declined with those of the party of which it was the exponent,
and in the summer of 1846 it was found to be moribund. The proprietors
had lost money and labor in the failing enterprise, and now lost
interest. After many protracted discussions they resolved to establish
an evening edition under another name, which should be neutral in
politics, and, if it proved successful, to let the Eagle die. The
Herald, therefore, came into existence on August 31, 1846, and an
edition of two thousand was printed of its first number. The editor of
the new sheet was William O. Eaton, a Bostonian, then but twenty-two
years of age, of little previous experience in journalism.
The Herald, it must be admitted, was not a handsome sheet at the outset.
Its four pages contained but five columns each, and measured only nine
by fourteen inches. But, unpromising as was its appearance, it was
really the liveliest of the Boston dailies from the hour of its birth,
and received praise on all hands for the quality of its matter.
The total force of brain-workers consisted of but two men, Mr. Eaton
having the assistance, after the middle of September, of Thomas W.
Tucker. David Leavitt joined the "staff" later on, in 1847, and made a
specialty of local news. The editorial, composing, and press rooms were
the same as those of the Eagle, in Wilson's Lane, now Devonshire Street.
"Running a newspaper" in Boston in 1846 was a different thing altogether
from journalism at the present day. The telegraph was in operation
between Boston and New York, but the tolls were high and the dailies
could not afford to use it except upon the most important occasions.
Moreover, readers had not been educated up to the point of expecting to
see reports of events in all parts of the world printed on the same day
of their occurrence or, at the latest, the day following.
For several years before the extension of the wires overland to Nova
Scotia, the newsgatherers of Boston and New York resorted to various
devices in order to obtain the earliest reports from Europe. From 1846
to 1850 the revolutionary movements in many of the countries on the
continent were of a nature to be especially interesting to the people of
the United States, and this stimulated enterprise among the American
newspapers. Mr. D.H. Craig, afterward widely known as agent of the
Associated Press, conceived the idea of anticipating the news of each
incoming ocean-steamer by means of a pigeon-express, which he put into
successful operation in the year first named. He procured a number of
carrier-pigeons, and several days before the expected arrival of every
English mail-steamer took three of them to Halifax. There he boarded the
vessels, procured the latest British papers, collated and summarized
their news upon thin paper, secured the dispatches thus prepared to the
pigeons, and fifty miles or so outside of Boston released the birds. The
winged messengers, flying homeward, reached the city far in advance of
the steamers, and the intelligence they brought was at once delivered to
Mr. W.G. Blanchard, then connected with the Boston press, who had the
brief dispatches "extended," put in type, and printed as an "extra" for
all the papers subscribing to the enterprise. Sheets bearing the head
"New York Herald Extra" were also printed in Boston and sent to the
metropolis by the Sound steamers, thus anticipating the arrival of the
regular mail.
It is interesting, in these days of lightning, to read an account of how
the Herald beat its local rivals in getting out an account of the
President's Message in 1849. A column synopsis was received by telegraph
from New York, and published in the morning edition, and the second
edition, issued a few hours later, contained the long document in full,
and was put on the street at least a half-hour earlier than the other
dailies. How the message was brought from Washington is thus described:
J.F. Calhoun, of New Haven, was the messenger, and he started from the
capital by rail at two o'clock on the morning of December 24; a steamtug
in waiting conveyed him, on his arrival, from Jersey City to New York; a
horse and chaise took him from the wharf to the New Haven d�p�t, then in
Thirty-second Street, where he mounted a special engine and at 10 P.M.
started for Boston. He reached Boston at 6.20 the next morning, after an
eventful journey, having lost a half-hour by a derailed tender and an
hour and a half by the smashup of a freight-train.
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