As time allows, we will bring you items from Vermont newspapers now available on the Chronicling America website from 175 and 150 years ago. This week, we’re looking at the Rutland Herald and Burlington Free Press.

The August 5, 1836 issue of the Burlington Free Press found the editor, H.B. Stacy, promoting the Presidential aspirations of William Henry Harrison. Harrison failed to reach the presidency in that election, but would succeed in 1840. The commencement at the University of Vermont was noted. Amongst the other items in the issue was a report about two pranksters who had caused quite a consternation by sending a boat with two dummies in it over Niagara Falls:

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Amid reports of the “Texas War” and the Creek war, the August 2, 1836 Rutland Herald printed a report of a new machine that achieved perpetual motion, and that “with the power of one man…would be sufficient to propel the largest ship across the Atlantic, in an incredible space of time.” If only! Check it out:

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The August 2, 1861 Burlington Free Press weekly edition was dominated by reports and recriminations after the Union loss at Bull Run just days before. A letter from a soldier in the Vermont 2nd describes their actions in Northern Virginia leading up to the battle–a very interesting read, I might add–and elsewhere in the issue includes a summation of the events of the battle. Here’s an excerpt:

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Take a look at these and other Vermont newspapers on the Chronicling America website: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ . Enjoy!

Tom McMurdo

To highlight our newly available Vermont newspapers on the Chronicling America website, I’d like to direct your attention to some issues for 150 and 175 years ago. We have titles from both 1861 and 1836 now available, with more to come.

In the July 26, 1836 edition of the Rutland Herald (available here), amongst the week’s poems, anecdotes and fiction, the editor was trumpeting the Presidential ticket of Wm. H. Harrison and Francis Granger, and the gubernatorial candidate Silas H. Jennison. Page 3 contained a series of reprinted news items that are particularly interesting, including a notice of a gentleman who was struck by lightning in Belchertown, MA. It seems the town billed the man’s widow:

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The Herald also printed an item about the planned state insane asylum in Brattleboro:

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1861: Amongst all the articles detailing the stirrings of war, the July 26 1861 edition of the Burlington Free Press weekly edition contains a pair of letters from J.T. Drew of the Vermont Second Regiment written to the Free Press for publication. Click through here to see the page online. Mr. Drew details the comings and goings of the regiment, and ends with a plea that readers send some dried fruits so that the men weakened by illness might recover:

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A sad reminder that the tragedies of war so often occur far from the battlefield.

I encourage you to explore these issues and other Vermont titles now available on the Chronicling America website: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ . Take a look for yourself and see what you find!

– Tom McMurdo

As of this morning, our first batch of newspapers are now available on the Library of Congress Chronicling America page. This first batch includes close to 10,000 pages from the Vermont Farmer, Rutland Herald, and Burlington Free Press weekly edition. The Vermont papers can be viewed here . Once you have navigated to that page, use the calendar icon to browse issues of these titles, or search using the date range and search box above. We are very pleased to have our first batch of issues online–the result of over a year’s worth of work. I think you will find that the wait has been well!
worth it once you take a look at the Vermont newspaper pages. Vermont now has the earliest pages available out of all the states on Chronicling America. The pages from the 1830s predate any others available. These pages on this first batch also include Civil War era issues of the Burlington Free Press. I was browsing the July and August 1861 issues and was pleased to see letters from a soldier correspondent from the Vermont 2nd, marching through Northern Virginia.

Now that these papers are available, we plan to post weekly links to issues 150 and 175 years ago for a given week in the hopes of enhancing your experience with these great historical Vermont Newspapers.

In the coming months, we look forward to making available tens of thousands more Vermont newspaper pages from titles around the state. These newspapers are freely searchable, and are a very small part of your federal tax dollars at work. We hope these titles, and those to come, will enhance interest and understanding of Vermont’s great history. The research and education value of these images is evident, and we are optimistic that you will find compelling and interesting material in this collection. Enjoy, and be on the lookout for more pages and titles coming soon!

Tom McMurdo

VTDNP members Chris Kirby and Tom McMurdo joined the Boston Public Library’s Chrissy Rissmeyer at the Massachusetts Library Conference in Late April for a presentation: “Spread the News: the National Digital Newspaper Program.” Chrissy outlined a potential Massachusetts digital newspaper project component of the NDNP. Chris described Vermont’s process of applying for the NDNP grant, organizing the structure of the VTDNP, and pulling together resources for a successful project. I (Tom) outlined the processes involved in going from film in a drawer to an online digital image. The presentation was well received and generated enthusiasm for the VTDNP, the potential Boston Public Library-based Massachusetts!
state project, and helped stimulate further discussions about NDNP participation in other New England states.

Chrissy and her colleagues at the Boston Public Library were welcoming, fun hosts. The organizers of the Massachusetts Library Conference put on an interesting event that I would recommend attending!

In other news, newspaper digitization keeps rolling along here. We are poised to send our first batch to the Library of Congress. The batch, which will be submitted this week, contains nearly 10,000 pages. It is composed of issues of the Rutland Herald from 1836-1854, the Vermont Farmer from St. Johnsbury, dating from 1872-1877, and the first part of the Burlington Weekly Free Press, with issues from 1836-1864. We look forward to seeing our state’s newspapers available on the Chronicling America website (available here: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/), hopefully before the end of summer. It is our understanding that the Rutland Herald and Burlington Free Press will be the first NDNP titles from the 1830s, as no other NDNP participants have submitted material that extends to the earliest years of the grant period.

The VTDNP is continuing work on the Burlington Free Press weekly edition. We plan to scan issues from 1836 to 1920 of that title. This long run should provide researchers with a long running history of not only Burlington, but statewide news, and a Vermont-based perspective on world events.

The weekly Free Press, weekly Rutland Herald, and Vermont Farmer are just the first three titles our advisory board selected for the grant. We will be working on digitizing titles throughout Vermont from the 1836-1922 grant period. Here’s the complete list:

Vermont Farmer – St. Johnsbury, Vermont, 1872-1877

Rutland Herald weekly titles – 1836-1854

Burlington Free Press weekly edition – 1836-1920

Rutland Daily Globe – 1873-1877

Windham County Democrat – Brattleboro, VT, 1837-1853

Vermont Transcript – St. Albans, VT, 1864-1870

Vermont Phoenix – Brattleboro, VT, 1836-1922

State Journal/Watchman title family – Montpelier, VT, 1836-1910

Middlebury Register title family, 1836-1922

Spirit of the Age, Woodstock, VT, 1840-1913

and portions of the following two titles, dates to be determined:

Caledonian, St. Johnsbury, VT, begin 1837, and Bennington Banner titles, begin 1858.

We will be working on these titles into summer of 2012, and we will announce each title as it becomes available on the Chronicling America site. We will continue to provide background and context for these titles to inform your understanding of our work.

– Tom McMurdo

Members of the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project’s advisory committee are currently identifying historical Vermont newspapers to digitize. This is no small task, as they have over 500 titles to consider.
In August 1905, Charles S. Forbes devoted an issue of his monthly periodical, The Vermonter, to an extensive history of the Vermont press. Forbes charts the establishment of weekly papers by decade, as shown in the table below.

Weekly Papers Established in Vermont 1780-1905

To emphasize how phenomenal this activity was, Forbes noted that the number of newspapers established was much greater than the increase in the state’s population. Many of these weeklies lasted only for short periods. According to Forbes, in 1850 there were just 35 weeklies in print. In 1905, he identified 84 weekly papers in print.
Vermont papers also issued daily editions, beginning with the Daily Free Press in 1848. Forbes lists 25 dailies that were established between 1848 and 1905. Again, over half had ceased; only 10 were being published in 1905.

– Prudence Doherty, VTDNP Project Management Group