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Newspaper The People (Concord, N.H.) 1868-1878

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About The People (Concord, N.H.) 1868-1878

In 1809 Isaac Hill (1789-1851), a young printer’s apprentice, moved to Concord, NH and purchased the American Patriot, a short-lived weekly established several months before by William Hoit, Jr. With his first issue, Hill changed the paper’s name to the New-Hampshire Patriot, inaugurating what would become one of the most influential Democratic publications in nineteenth-century New England. Hill, a firebrand and later prominent New Hampshire politician, quickly earned infamy by using his earliest issues to decry the politics of New Hampshire’s Federalist governor, Jeremiah Smith (1759-1842). Derided by the Federalist political class, he nonetheless became popular among his Democratic-Republican readership, and within four months had increased his subscriber base substantially.

In this early period, the Patriot, which changed titles in 1819 to the New-Hampshire Patriot & State Gazette, was one of few non-Federalist papers in the state. In 1816, Hill’s anti-Federalist writings resulted in a formal vote of censure by the New Hampshire House of Representatives; Hill was acquitted by a narrow margin. In 1827, as the specter of a second John Quincy Adams term loomed, Hill used the Patriot to lambast Adams and the formation of the National Bank. Consequently, New Hampshire’s federalist Secretary of State stripped Hill of his status as public printer, assigning it instead to the New-Hampshire Journal, a competitor run by Hill’s brother-in-law. Already involved in state politics, Hill wrote in in favor of Andrew Jackson during the election of 1828, and this endeared him to the future president, resulting in an appointment to the United States Treasury Department. Leaving for Washington in 1829, Hill sold the Patriot to his brother Horatio Hill and Cyrus Barton. Barton bought out the younger Hill after several years, and beginning in October 1834, his name appears alone on the Patriot’s masthead.

Isaac Hill went on to serve as a United States senator, and New Hampshire’s governor from 1836 to 1839. At the end of that time, facing financial difficulties, Hill attempted to repossess the Patriot, claiming he had never ceded ownership to Cyrus Barton. The two parties entered a legal dispute, with Barton refusing to yield to Hill without due compensation. Dissatisfied, Hill established a competitor paper, Hill’s New-Hampshire Patriot, installing his sons as publishers. Barton left his Patriot in the wake of the dispute, passing ownership to Henry Carroll and Nathaniel Baker (1818-1879). The two papers called New Hampshire Patriot operated separately for seven years, before finally merging in 1847 under the direction of William Butterfield and John Hill, another son of Isaac Hill

With Butterfield and Hill at the helm, the reunited Patriot maintained a staunchly Democratic stance throughout the antebellum period. In the lead up to the election of 1860, the paper’s May 7 issue claimed Lincoln’s politics to be “false, dangerous, revolutionary and treasonable,” and anti-abolitionist writings filled its pages throughout the Civil War. The paper’s title changed several times throughout the 1860s and 1870s, assuming the title New Hampshire Patriot and Gazette in 1863, New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette in 1867, and simply the New-Hampshire Patriot a year later.

In 1878, the Patriot merged with another Concord-based Democratic paper, the People, established 10 years earlier by Charles C. Pearson. The merged paper, titled the People and New Hampshire Patriot, and after 1883, simply People and Patriot, was published by Pearson until 1886, and afterwards by the New Hampshire Democratic Press company, maintaining its hold on Democratic politics through the remainder of the century.

Provided By: Dartmouth College

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The People (Concord, N.H.) 1868-1878

Dates of Publication

  • 1868-1878

Created / Published

  • Concord, N.H. : Charles C. Pearson & Co.

Headings

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (June 11, 1868)-v. 11, no. 16 (Oct. 3, 1878).
  • -  Also issued on microfilm from the Library of Congress, Photoduplication Service.
  • -  Daily ed.: Daily people (Concord, N.H.), 1870-1878.
  • -  New-Hampshire patriot (Concord, N.H. : 1868) 2638-2296 (DLC)sn 84026668 (OCoLC)10596753
  • -  People and New Hampshire patriot 2638-2318 (DLC)sn 84020379 (OCoLC)10712678

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn84020392

OCLC Number

  • 10671404

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The People Concord, N.H. -1878. (Concord, NH), Jan. 1 1868. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84020392/.

APA citation style:

(1868, January 1) The People Concord, N.H. -1878. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84020392/.

MLA citation style:

The People Concord, N.H. -1878. (Concord, NH) 1 Jan. 1868. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn84020392/.