THE first newspaper in the State, the New Hampshire Gazette, was established in Portsmouth in 1756 by David Towle, and has been appearing each week ever since, the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. David Towle, the printer, had begun business in Boston in 1740, but in 1754 he was arrested by order of the Massachusetts House of Representatives on suspicion of having printed a pamphlet entitled ‘The Monster of Monsters, by Tom Thumb, Esq.,’ which contained severe criticisms of some of the members of the House. Finally released from prison without trial, Towle was so disgusted with the government of Massachusetts that he transferred his printing press to Portsmouth.
His nephew and partner, Robert Towle, having had a difference of opinion with his uncle respecting the rights of the Colonies, established a printing office in Exeter in 1774. His newspaper, the title of which was changed every few weeks, was issued at irregular intervals until some time in the year 1777, when his Tory proclivities became so obnoxious to Exeter that he was obliged to decamp. It was said that after he had been employed to print some of the paper money issued by New Hampshire, a great quantity of bills of the same typography, but with forged signatures, was found to be in circulation. Suspicion at once fastened upon Towle as having supplied his loyalist friends with printed sheets, and instead of awaiting an investigation he hastened to place himself within the British lines at New York.
As a result of the topography of New Hampshire and the distribution of its population, a few newspapers serve large sections in some parts of the State. This wide circulation enables the papers to combine their treatment of provincial matters and national affairs with a skill that places many of them out of the ‘small-town’ class. A few of these papers have had an important influence upon national as well as State life. Notable among these latter is the Concord Monitor-Patriot, established as a weekly in 1809, and now a progressive Republican daily. This was one of the papers to which the country turned when it wished to know the opinions of Andrew Jackson’s so-called ‘Kitchen Cabinet’; and through its columns in 1852, Franklin Pierce, then its owner, announced his views and policies as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. It was also the original mouthpiece of Mary Baker Eddy in promulgating the doctrine that is known today as Christian Science.
Isaac Hill, founder of the Monitor-Patriot, was an ardent Jeffersonian Democrat. His support of the Madison administration brought him the favor of Andrew Jackson, while his editorials in support of the State during the Dartmouth College case embroiled him in State politics. During Jackson’s administration he disposed of the Monitor-Patriot and became a member of the ‘Kitchen Cabinet,’ powerful in that period. He served as United States Senator from 1830 to 1836, and as Governor of New Hampshire from 1836 to 1839.
The L’Avenir National, published at Manchester, is the only foreign-language daily in New Hampshire, and perhaps the principal French paper of some thirty in New England. A tri-weekly, L’Impartial, is published at Nashua. Two Greek newspapers are published in New Hampshire — Ergatis (Worker), a tri-weekly, at Manchester, and Athena, a weekly, at Nashua.
The forty-two weekly newspapers in the State which feature local news of interest represent the survival of the fittest among many that have come and gone. Among the survivors is the Milford Cabinet, established in Amherst in 1802 by Joseph Cushing, under whom Isaac Hill served his apprenticeship, and ever since conducted by lineal descendants of Richard Boylston, who purchased it in 1809. It is said that during the Civil War, when print paper was scarce and there was not enough left in the office for his work, Boylston used rolls of wall paper which he had in his shop.
When the Coos County Democrat of Lancaster first appeared in 1840, it had a rival in the Mountain Aejis, which printed verse by the prominent poets of all periods, Whig news, and woodcuts of everything from stage coaches to stove-pipe hats. The editor of the Democrat began immediately to call attention to the fact that the Aejis was printed on a second-hand press and from old type. The editor of the Aejis replied that it was indeed a second-hand press, having been used to print religious papers and Bibles. Nevertheless, these pious associations could not save the Whig paper in a Democratic community, and the Aejis was eventually discontinued, while its rival, the Democrat, endures today. It was with the Democrat that the noted Yankee humorist, ‘Artemus Ward’ (Charles Farrar Browne), served as an apprentice.
An oddity among New Hampshire papers was Among the Clouds, appearing just after the Civil War. It was run off twice daily in the snow and sleet at the top of Mount Washington, and came to an end when the printing shed burned and an apprentice was killed in a ‘shingle-express’ descent. This ‘express,’ a primitive sort of sled, part iron and part wood, which natives call a ‘Devil’s Shingle,’ may still be seen at the railroad base of Mount Washington. Whip and Spur, a campaign newspaper published at Newport in 1839, was one of the first illustrated papers in the United States.
New Hampshire now has fifty-four newspapers, twelve of which are published daily, the remainder weekly. No Sunday newspaper is published in the State. The paper having the largest circulation is the Manchester Union-Leader, founded in 1863 as an organ of the Democratic Party. From its editorial chair, Gordon Woodbury went to Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during President Wilson’s administration. Its present owner is Colonel Frank Knox of Chicago, Republican candidate for Vice-President in 1936.
New Hampshire has three radio stations. The Laconia station, WLNH, opened in 1922, is the pioneer station in the State and one of the oldest in the country. Stations WFEA in Manchester and WHEB in Portsmouth were opened in 1932. In addition to their other services, all three stations carry frequent programs broadcast by the New Hampshire University Extension Bureau, including lectures by agricultural experts intended primarily for the farmers of the State, talks by women prominent in the field of home economics, and Farm Bureau programs dealing with the activities of 4-H Clubs throughout the State. Manchester broadcasts weekly a market report for farmers, compiled by the State Department of Agriculture. Portsmouth turns to the students of the near-by University of New Hampshire for occasional talent, and broadcasts during the academic year a fortnightly panel discussion of current affairs by students.
