The History of Orange County New York

by Unknown

The office of the Repository was, in 1793, near the court house. The Repository was sold to John G. and William Heurtin, in 1800, at which time its name was changed to the Orange County Patriot. In 1801 Gabriel Denton secured the interest of William Heurtin, and in 1803 Denton sold his interest to William A. Carpenter, and the name of the paper was changed to that of The Friend of Truth. The year following it again changed owners and names, when Ward M. Gazlay became its publisher and it became the Orange Eagle. The next year (1805) the office was burned and Mr. Gazlay removed the remains to Newburgh, where the paper, in union with The Recorder of the Times, which Mr. Gazlay purchased, became the Political Index, and this lived until 1829.

According to the record the second journalistic venture in the county was in 1795, when the Newburgh Packet appeared, printed at Newburgh by Lucius Carey, and in 1797 it became The Mirror under David Denniston. Denniston had purchased the paper of Carey (1797), in which year it was announced that the paper was printed by Philip Van Home. In 1798 Joseph W. Barber was the printer, and he advertised, "also, Printing and Book Binding carried on by David Denniston." The Mirror was absorbed (1804) by the Rights of Man, and the latter by The Recorder of the Times in 1805.

In 1799 we hear of the New Windsor Gazette, through the removal of a paper of that name from New Windsor to Newburgh, by Jacob Schultz. How long it had existed at New Windsor is now purely conjectural, but as most of the newspapers of that early period were sort of birds of passage, it is assumed that the year 1799 witnessed the Gazette's hatching at New Windsor and its fledgling flight to Newburgh, where it became the Orange County Gazette. It became The Citizen when later purchased by David Denniston.

The year 1799 also brought forth at Newburgh another publication, The Rights of Man, with Dr. Elias Winfield as its sponsor, for whom it was "printed by Benoni H. Howell." David Denniston purchased this paper and merged in it the Orange County Gazette. We learn that the Mirror of 1797 was absorbed by The Rights of Man in 1804, and then the Packet, the Mirror, and the Gazette disappear. The Mirror and the Citizen espoused the patriotic political works and probably the religious doctrines of Thomas Paine, who wrote "The Crisis," "Common Sense," and "The Rights of Man," while the Gazette advocated opposite theories. The paper, The Rights of Man, which absorbed the Mirror and the Citizen, represented the Jeffersonian branch of the Republican party, while the Recorder of the Times, claiming to be Republican in politics, represented the Federalists and Burr, then a Federalist.

In 1803 appeared at Newburgh the Recorder of the Times, by Dennis Coles. Then at Goshen the same year, The Friend of Truth, under the management of Ward M. Gazlay, and in 1804 at Goshen the Orange County Gazette, conducted by Gabriel Denton. It will be seen there were, within five years, two Orange County Gazettes in the county—one at Newburgh, one at Goshen. As the former metamorphosed itself into the Public Index, the Orange Telegraph, the Newhurgh Telegraph and the Newburgh Register, with short pauses between, it may be that it had thrown off the first epidermis and was emerging in new form when its Goshen namesake burst into the sunlight.

Montgomery was looming up from its settlement in 1721, or soon thereafter, and in 1810 it was large enough, or felt important enough, to become incorporated as a village. But as early as 1806 the printer or publisher saw an "aching void" in the growing hamlet, to pervade which the Orange County Republican was called into existence that year. It was "published for the Proprietors by Cyrus Beach and Luther Pratt." Who the "Proprietors" were is not in evidence.

It is worthy of record right here that this Montgomery journalistic venture is the only one, up to that date, that lives to-day. Through migration and other changes this Orange County Republican ultimately became the Independent Republican, with a permanent abiding place in Goshen.

That venerable editor and historian, Edward M. Ruttenber, says the Orange County Republican was first published "at Ward's Bridge," the title of the first post-office in Montgomery, so called from the fact that it was located and kept at James Ward's gristmill, where he had thrown a bridge across the Wallkill, constituting it one of the most convenient locations for the delivery of mail matter.

The money to start the paper was advanced in equal shares by twenty-four "Patriotic citizens of this county, consisting chiefly of respectable farmers and mostly inhabitants of the town of Montgomery." This excerpt is from a statement in the paper itself of the issue of June 9, 1806. The paper "admitted there was some honesty among Federalists," but was bitterly opposed to Dewitt Clinton. January 18, 1812, Luther Pratt, the publisher then, changed its name to the Independent Republican as more clearly indicating its political policy and views. It was not until 1822 that it was removed to Goshen, four years after James A. Cheevey became its proprietor. He was a Frenchman and a practical printer.

In 1806 appeared another publication, the Political Index, at Newburgh, by Ward M. Gazlay. The latter's Orange Eagle plant at Goshen was burned in 1805, and he had removed the remnants to Newburgh, the Phoenix emerging from these ashes being the Political Index. The Index is credited with having, some years later, "apparently consolidated the interests of the Republican party." It gave a "hearty support to the administration of Jefferson and Madison, and to the war of 1812." It is further stated that "its political articles were mainly from the pen of Jonathan Fisk, one of the most able men of the period."