The History of Genesee, MI, Chapter X, The First Newspaper

THE FIRST NEWSPAPER.

These early years of Flint under statehood were signalized especially by the growth of the press. All of the newspapers in Genesee county up to 1854 were published in Flint. The first was published as early as January, 1839, it was a democratic sheet known as the Flint river Gazette, published by Joseph K. Averill. The press, fixtures and type with which it was started had previously been in use in the state of New York, and the extent of the equipment may be judged from the purchase price paid by Mr. Averill, namely, one thousand ninety-three dollars and ninety-one cents. Its publication proved unsuccessful and in 1841 it ceased to exist.

The following story about this paper is told by Mr. W. R. Bates: When the population of the embryo city of Flint was well down in the hundreds, the community was somewhat startled by the appearance of a boy on the streets of the hamlet offering for sale a paper. The boy's name was Edward Todd and the name of the paper was the Whip Lash. Mr. Todd informs me that nearly everyone bought a copy because, as he naively added, 'nearly everybody was mentioned in its columns.' He says that for many years no one knew who was responsible for it, but that William P. Crandall and Cornelius Roosevelt secured his services to sell it on the streets, and that they were its editors. This gossiping sheet was printed on the hand press of the first paper published at Flint--The Flint River Gazette--and nearly every item had its sting. So it seems that the modern Town Topics of New York City had its prototype in the forest on the banks of the Flint way back in the thirties."

The second newspaper in the county was The Northern Advocate, Whig in politics, published in 1840 by William Perry Joslyn; but the following year it was removed to Pontiac. In June, 1843, appeared the first number of The Genesee County Democrat, published by William B. Sherwood, who before had unsuccessfully published the Shiawassee Democrat and Clinton Express, at Corunna in Shiawassee county; he was not more successful at Flint. The Genesee Republican, a democratic paper, first appeared in April, 1845. It was understood to be owned by Gen. Charles C. Hascall. In the sane year appeared The Flint Republican, published by Daniel S. Merritt. It was this paper which, in 1848, came under the proprietorship of royal W. Jenny, who had been connected with it at lest since 1840. In 1853 he ceased to publish the Republican and immediately commenced the publication of the Genesee Democrat, one of the most successful of the early newspapers. Two short-lived paper, the Western Citizen and The Genesee Whig, the first owned by O. S. Carter, the second by Francis H. Rankin, were published about 1850. In that year, Mr. Rankin founded what proved to be a worthy rival of the Genesee Democrat, namely The Genesee Whig, whose name after the dissolution of the Whig party was changed first to The Wolverine Citizen and Genesee Whig and finally to the Wolverine Citizen. From the organization of the Republican party at Jackson in 1854 this paper was a distinctively republican paper of the "stalwart" type. Its editor was actively instrumental in reorganizing the anti-slavery elements of the old Whig and Democratic parties of Genesee county.