The News of Highlands was started at Highland Falls in 1891. It is published on Saturdays by F. F. & A. G. Tripp, and is politically independent or neutral.
In February, 1892, appeared in Port Jervis the Port Jervis Morning Index, the second attempt in that place to establish a morning daily. It was started by Isaac V. Montanye, of Goshen, and Sherwood Rightmyer, his nephew; was an eight-column folio, independent, or rather neutral, in politics, Mr. Montanye being a democrat and Mr. Rightmyer a republican. The Index was newsy, and well edited, but ceased publication in August of the same year.
Middletown seems to have been the theatre of the sensational in Orange County journalism. The Banner of Liberty, the Whig Press (whose editor was once caned in the streets for a bit of facetiousness); the Sybil, the Mercury, the Mail, the Standard, the News, the Liberal Sentinel, the Labor Advocate, the Conglomerate—each had its day of riotous jest or caustic invective that set the town "by the ears" for a time.
The latest one to enter this field of humor, sarcasm and expletive was The Forum, the first number of which was issued February 28, 1897, by W. T. Doty and H. W. Corey, and which, within a few weeks, expanded into the Middletown Sunday Forum. The first few numbers were printed in New York for the publishers by one of the "patent inside" concerns, and the warmth of its reception was such that its proprietors felt justified in putting in a plant of their own. The office at first was in the business office of the Casino building, in the second floor, but was later transferred to the first floor of the rear of the same building on Henry street. From the unique "greeting" in the first issue, the following excerpt is made as characteristic of the purposes, course and whole conduct of the publication:
"There are a number of reasons why we have concluded to publish The Forum. First, we want to publish it. Second, there are a number of people who don't want us to publish it. Third, there seems need of a publication in this city that will call a spade a spade. Fourth, we can stop it when we want to. Being able to stop publishing it, if we want to, encouraged us in the idea of starting."
And so it was started, and with a pace that took the whole county by storm. It was exultant, exuberant, jocular, sarcastic, hilarious, but never whining, simpering, brawling or lachrymose. It had features such as no other paper in the county had, and all these peculiarities brought it into wider and wider notoriety, and the editions printed almost invariably fell short of supplying the demand. A leading feature was the "sermons" of "Pastor" Corey. There was a vein of the keenest irony in them, generally of more or less local application, and the demand for these lively satires extended to all classes of citizens—those the severest hit as well as those who, from a safe "coign of vantage," liked to watch the unique assaults. Another of its peculiar features was the holding up to ridicule of the driveling "items" and personals sent in by so many cross-roads correspondents of country papers, and which were generally the clever work of "Deacon" Peter F. Kaufman, a local real estate man who always looked on the "funny side" of all events. The unfortunate and severe illness of Mr. Corey necessitated the abandonment of the "sermons." The concern was sold (December, 1897), to Frank L. Blanchard, of New York, and later (1898) to W. T. Doty and Thomas Pendell, of Cornwall. The latter two ran out a daily, The Morning Forum, for some months, in 1898. Then Mr. Pendall purchased the outfit, and transferred it to Massena, N. Y. During the two or three years in which The Forum lived in Middletown it "cut a wide swath," and kept the whole surrounding country wondering "what next?" and, had it continued as it began, would have landed its proprietors—who were getting a pile of fun out of the proceeding—in the ranks of the multi-millionaires or in the penitentiary. A unique financial feature of the experiment was the fact that the paper more than paid its own way from the very first issue.
In October, 1898, S. T. Morehouse started at Cornwall-on-Hudson the Cornwall Courier. This was conducted by various parties, including Mr. Morehouse and his son, Claude, by the well-known writer Creswell McLaughlin, Bernard Call, Clark J. Brown, Clayton Brown, and William Clark, and in 1906, ceased to exist.
The Orange County Record was started at Washingtonville, May 17, 1899, by the Hon. Isaac V. Montanye (since deceased, December 26, 1906) and his nephew, Montanye Rightmyer. Since the death of Mr. Montanye, Mr. Rightmyer is the editor and publisher. The paper is devoted to local news.
In March, 1908, J. B. Gregory started at Monroe the Ramapo Valley Gazette. The plant was that of the Orange County News at Chester, the paper started in 1888 by N. E. Conkling.
MISCELLANEOUS.