GREENFIELD — When William Coleman, Greenfield’s first lawyer, decided to publish a journal of current events and thinking in the years just after the nation’s birth, who could have imagined what it would become in 2017?
Back in 1792, Greenfield was on the northern fringe of Hampshire County, and it would be more than a decade before Franklin County would be incorporated.
At 225 years old today, the seventh-oldest newspaper in the nation has been called by many names: The Massachusetts and Vermont Telegraph, The Franklin Freeman, The Franklin Herald, The Greenfield Gazette and Courier, The Greenfield Recorder-Gazette and finally, The Recorder.
Coleman convinced Thomas Dickman, a journeyman printer, to come from Worcester at age 23 to become editor of the new Impartial Intelligencer.
Dickman would become Greenfield’s first postmaster and, after moving to Springfield, became a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, while Coleman would go on to become a law partner of Aaron Burr in New York and join Alexander Hamilton in founding the New York Post.
On a press that had been used by Dickman to print Bibles for his former employer, Isaiah Thomas in Worcester, the new editor printed his first edition on Wednesday, Feb. 1 and sold it for eight shillings a year, “delivered at the printing office.”
“The editor of this paper can only assure the publick, that his greatest exertions shall be employed to make it the earliest informant of every important intelligence, whether foreign or domestick, and as serviceable as any publication subject to the same disadvantages,” said the first four-page edition.
During its earliest years, the newspaper appeared also on Thursdays, Mondays and Saturdays, “changing every little while,” according to David Proper of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association in Deerfield.
Like many of the newspapers of its time, including The Western Star, which began in Stockbridge in 1789 and endures today as The Berkshire Eagle, and the Hampshire Gazette, first published in 1786 with news of Shays’ Rebellion, the Impartial Intelligencer contained essays on a variety of subjects as well as poetry, news of current events taken from other newspapers and dispatches from travelers.
The circulation was just a couple of hundred copies, as it would remain for decades in a young nation where the citizenry was just becoming literate. Schools were mostly private and farmers needed their children to work at home.
The first newspaper included news of a disaster the previous November on the frontier, north of Cincinnati. Indian tribes, egged on by British promises of arms and trade goods, and infuriated by the encroachment of white settlers, had raided. American troops, led by Northwest Territory Governor Major Gen. Arthur St. Clair, had marched on Indian territory in a show of strength, and 900 were killed by the Miami tribe led by Little Turtle — the largest number of casualties in a single battle in American history, according to former Recorder Editor and historian Timothy Blagg.
There were also reports from the Legislature, a moral essay, some jokes and a few small advertisements.
“Wanted,” read one advertisement: “A few hundred feet of cherry tree boards, for which good pay will be made by Elijah Alvord.”
In another, “Caleb Clap and John Stone beg leave to inform the publick, that they have purchased the store in Greenfield formerly owned by (Doctor) Edward Billings, where they have now opened, and ready for sale, under the firm of Clap & Stone, a new assortment and great variety of drugs and medicines, also apothecaries scales and weights, surgeon’s pocket instruments, and a general assortment of dye stuffs and paints. The same store is also furnished with English and Westindia goods and the best of wines for sickness. Physicians will be supplied with medicines on the best terms and at the usual credit.”
On Nov. 5, 1795, according to Proper, a notice appeared in the paper announcing that “the Printing Office, Post Office and Book Store will in future be kept in the new building, east of Mr. Munn’s Tavern.”
Dickman had been appointed postmaster, and people from around the region had to visit the newspaper office-bookstore to collect their mail. If they didn’t, the newspaper would publish lists of letters remaining in the office.
Dickman in 1798 sold the newspaper — which, in the days before neutral reporting, had always held to views of Federalism, which was espoused by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, rather than Thomas Jefferson’s Republicanism. The new owner Francis Barker added, “A Register of Genuine Federalism” to the paper’s title.
Dickman took over the paper again the following year, when Barker “joined John Adams’ army as Captain, to fight the French.”
In 1811, as Hampshire County was divided and Franklin County was created, the newspaper was sold again and became The Franklin Herald.
It was later called the Advertiser, The Franklin Freeman, and finally the Greenfield Gazette and Courier, which merged in 1932 with The Greenfield Recorder, started in 1902.
The new newspaper was introduced as The Greenfield Recorder-Gazette. The “Gazette” was removed in 1970 and “Greenfield” was removed from the name in 1985.
“At 225 years old, The Recorder is feeling as young as ever,” says current publisher Michael Rifanburg. “Our readers can take comfort in knowing that The Recorder continues to support a strong print daily newspaper while offering a strong web and mobile news presence. Many of our readers follow us through email newsletters, Facebook and Twitter activity. Unchanged, broad delivery of news, and community engagement, continue to be cornerstones of our mission.”
Today The Recorder is owned by Newspapers of New England, a corporation headquartered in Concord, N.H. It also owns The Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, The Valley News in West River Junction, Vt., the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, as well as weeklies The Amherst Bulletin, The Valley Advocate and The Monadnock Ledger in Peterborough, N.H.