Weeklies and Weaklies

Jefferson County has had 47 varieties of newspapers.

(from a scrapbook of clippings in our files, date unknown)

The first newspaper to be published in this county was the Grasshopper, founded at Grasshopper Falls in May 1858 by J.A. Cody. It was a small sheet; Mrs. Cody did the editorial work.

G. Raymond Gaeddert, First Newspapers in Kansas Counties: “Grasshopper,
Grasshopper Falls, June 5, 1858. This is undoubtedly the first newspaper
published in Jefferson county. The first issue appeared June 5, 1858.
J. A. Cody was listed as editor and proprietor, and S. Ward Smith, publisher.
Smith probably was the printer. According to Andreas, Mrs. Cody "did most
of the editorial work." [43] J. A. Cody was "an uncle of the famous scout,
Buffalo Bill," [44] whose given name was William Frederick Cody.”

After four months it suffered coma, was revived by Mr. Ross Whiting, and sold to David W. Guernsey, who rechristened it The Crescent. It proved a waning crescent, however, and its demise occurred a few months later. 

A new paper with the same royal head was established in 1873 by Geo. W. Hoover and Geo. A. Huron. In 1874 Huron consolidated with the New Era, a weekly founded at Lecompton by Rev. S. Weaver and moved to Valley Falls in September of 1871. In 1876 Huron sold the New Era to L.B. Wilson and others. Another year later the establishment was sold to A.G. Patrick and the sheet renamed the Valley Falls New Era. In 1878 Mr. Patrick sold his interest to G.D. Ingersoll. Geo. Harman was for some years publisher of the New Era.

At Oskaloosa, in July 1860, was established the Oskaloosa Independent, which is today the oldest surviving weekly newspaper in Kansas published continuously without change of name or of place.

 

In the fall of 1866 the Oskaloosa Democrat was founded by Stafford & Nesbitt. It was short-lived. The same fall B.R. Wilson and L.A. Heil established the Oskaloosa Statesman, a democratic paper. Wilson stayed with it four years, when it gave up the ghost.

Another democratic effort was the Sickle and Sheaf, 1873, Jules L. Williams and B.R. Wilson, publishers. In 1877 Wilson renamed it the Oskaloosa Sickle. 

It was a seven column folio, printed on a Washington hand press said to be the oldest of its kind in the state, having been brought to Lawrence in 1854 by John Speer, who used it to get out the Kansas Tribune,* and later took it to Topeka, where Speer and Ross used it in the spring of ’56 to publish the doings of the legislature in a daily edition of the Kansas Daily Tribune, the first daily newspaper of the capital city. We do not know what finally became of the old press, but if the State Historical society can tell us we shall be pleased to record it in this column later.** The Sickle and Sheaf persisted until 1886.

*G. Raymond Gaeddert, First Newspapers in Kansas Counties: “The Kansas Pioneer [later Tribune] published at Lawrence, October 18, 1854, although printed at Medina, Ohio, must be regarded as the first newspaper in Douglas county, according to the definition controlling this article. John Speer, editor of the Medina (Ohio) Gazette, was the editor and publisher.”
“The Kansas Herald of Freedom, Lawrence, January 3, 1855, first issue printed in the county. The first issue of The Kansas Herald of Freedom, published by George W. Brown, dated October 21, 1854, but printed September 20, 1854, preceded the Kansas Pioneer, but it must be disqualified in this race for priority because it was not published within the present confines of Douglas county.”

**For a thoroughly confusing account of the earliest printing press in Kansas (although probably not the press used for the Sickle and Sheaf), see Kirke Mechem, The Mystery of the Meeker Press: “The question may still be asked, as it was when this Society was organized in 1875, ‘What has become of Kansas' historic press?’ Perhaps it was destroyed in one of the raids on Lawrence or was disposed of in some obscure transaction of which, so far at least, we have no record. Possibly Kerns did take it to Missouri, and it may still be in existence in some country print shop. Certainly the myths relating its migrations, if they are old enough to be called myths, are as curious as any in the annals of Kansas—and Kansas history contains some strange myths. But whatever the state does, it does wholeheartedly. Where only seven cities strove for the distinction of being known as Homer's birthplace, Kansas, in the short space of seventy-five years, has furnished ten towns with claims on a press which in all likelihood was never seen in any of them.”

See also Douglas C. McMurtrie, Pioneer Printing of Kansas, 1855-1860.

And Kansas territorial newspapers.

This article appeared in “Yesteryears” in October 1989, in honor of National Newspaper Week.