The Rights of Man was started in 1799 by Dr. Elias Winfield. Mr. Denniston also purchased this paper, evidently merging it with his Orange County Gazette.
The Recorder of the Times was started by Dennis Cole, in 1803. The Mirror was absorbed by the Rights of Man in 1804, and the latter by The Times, in 1805. Ward M. Gazlay, this year, drove into town with the remnants of his Orange Eagle, whose office had been burned in Goshen, purchased the Recorder of the Times, in 1806, and changed the name to the Political Index, and it lived until 1829, when it became the Orange Telegraph and the Newburgh Telegraph under Charles M. Cushman. Under many changes it lived to become, under E. M. Ruttenber, in 1876, the Newburgh Register.
In June, 1822, John D. Spaulding started the Newburgh Gazette. Through a succession of owners it came, in 1856, to Eugene W. Gray, who, in connection with the Gazette, began the publication of a political paper which he called the Daily News. In 1864 the name of the News was dropped and Daily Telegraph substituted, and later in the same year it became the Daily Union, in 1866 all the previous titles were dropped and that of The Press substituted, in 1869 the title of Telegraph restored, and in 1876 that of Register.
The Newburgh Journal, started in 1833-4 by John D. Spaulding, became the Highland Courier in 1843, and in 1859, under Rufus A. Reed, it became the Highland Chieftain. The establishment came into the possession of Cyrus B. Martin, who resumed the name of Newburgh Journal, and in 1863 began the publication of the Daily Journal, which is continued to-day by Ritchie & Hull.
The Beacon, an anti-Jackson paper, was commenced in 1828 by Judge William B. Wright. Wallace & Sweet, in 1834, published the National Advertiser, and later merged it in the Gazette. In 1849 Thomas George issued the Newburgh Excelsior, which was purchased by E. M. Ruttenber (May, 1851), who merged it in the Telegraph. For three or four weeks in 1855 R. P. L. Shafer published the Newburgh American. The Newburgh Times, a temperance paper, was started in March, 1856, by Royal B. Hancock, "as agent for an association of gentlemen." After passing into the ownership of R. Bloomer & Son, Alexander Wilson and Charles Blanchard, it became, under the latter, the Newburgh Daily Democrat, and lived thus only a few months.
An association of printers, in October, 1875, started the Daily Penny Post, and in 1876 a rival association started the Daily Mail. The Post died in 1876, and in 1877 the Mail was absorbed by the Register.
Newburgh's theological serial publications began in 1824, when the Rev. J. R. Wilson started the Evangelical Witness, a religious monthly of forty-eight pages, devoted to the interests of the Reformed Presbyterian church. In four years (1828), it was succeeded by the Christian Statesman, which lived one year. Authorized by the Synod of the same church, the Rev. Moses Roney, March 1, 1836, began the publication of the Reformed Presbyterian, a monthly of thirty-two pages. In 1849 Mr. Roney removed the magazine to Pittsburgh, Pa., where he died in 1854, and his widow continued its publication until succeeded by the Rev. Thomas Sproul. For one year the Family Visitor lived, a monthly quarto, conducted by the Rev. David L. Proudfit. Beginning in 1845 he published the Christian Instructor, a thirty-two page monthly. Two years later the Rev. J. B. Dales bought it and removed it to Philadelphia. The Catholic Library Magazine was begun in 1856 by the Catholic Library Association, with John Ashhurst as editor. It was published monthly, and lived until August, 1860.
Newburgh has been a fertile field for the production of newspapers and periodicals of all sorts, as seen above, the religious as well as the secular press felt the popular pulse, and then passed away.
There were also literary ventures more or less pretentious, each budding, blossoming and fading in a short season.
Tables of Rural Economy was issued in May, 1832, by John Knevels. It was a monthly quarto and lived less than a year. The Literary Scrap-Book was a monthly of forty-eight pages, started in 1855 by R. B. Denton. Its life was short. In 1857 Domaski's School began the publication of The Acorn, which lived until 1859. Some time afterward the title was rescued in a publication by the students of the Newburgh Institute under charge of Mr. Siglar, and again it died.