JOHN DIBBEN, No. 354 Bowery.
On June 15, 1837, the name of Benjamin H. Day, which had appeared at the masthead of the Sun since its beginning, disappeared. In its place was the legend: “Published daily by the proprietor.” This gave rise to a variety of rumours, and about a week later, on June 23, the Sun said editorially:
Several of our contemporaries are in a maze of wonder because we have taken our beautiful cognomen from the imprint of the Sun. Some of the loafers among them have even flattered themselves that our humble self in person had consequently disappeared. Not so, gentlemen—for though we may not be ambitious that our thirty thousand subscribers should daily pronounce our name while poring over advertisements on the first page, we nevertheless remain steadily at our post, and shall thus continue during the pleasure of a generous public, except, perchance, an absence of a few months on a trip to Europe, which we purpose to make this season.
With regard to a certain report that we had lost twenty thousand dollars by shaving notes, we have nothing to say. Our private business transactions cannot in the least interest the public at large.
Day’s name never went back. The reason for its disappearance was a libel-suit brought by a lawyer named Andrew S. Garr. On May 3, 1837, the Sun printed a report of a case in the Court of Chancery, in which it was incidentally mentioned that Garr had once been indicted for conspiracy to defraud. The reporter neglected to add that Garr had been acquitted. At the end of the article was the quotation:
When rogues get quarreling, the truth will out.
Garr sued Day for ten thousand dollars, and Day not only took his name from the top of the first column of the first page, but apparently made a wash sale of the newspaper.
The case was tried in February, 1838, and on the 16th of that month Garr got a verdict for three thousand dollars—“to be extracted,” as the Sun said next morning, “from the right-hand breeches-pocket of the defendant, who about a year since ceased replenishing that fountain of the ‘needful’ from the prolific source of the Sun’s rays by virtue of a total, unconditional, and unrevisionary sale of the same to its present proprietor.”
The name of that “present proprietor” was not given; but on June 28, 1838, the following notice appeared at the top of the first page:
Communications intended for the Sun must be addressed to Moses Y. Beach, 156 Nassau Street, corner of Spruce.