Top of page

Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities
BETA

Newspaper Bellows Falls Times (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965

View All Front Pages

About Bellows Falls Times (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965

From 1856 to 1965, the Bellows Falls Times served the village of Bellows Falls, Vermont, and surrounding Connecticut River Valley communities. The first issue of the Times appeared in August 1856 under the direction of Albert N. Swain, who had gained experience as a printer and editor with the Vermont Republican. Swain published the four-page weekly for 32 years. The paper regularly included fiction and poetry, miscellany, state news, county court reports, an agricultural column, and pages devoted to editorial content and various local matters. Swain was a staunch antislavery advocate, and during the Civil War the Times was a strong Union paper.

When Swain retired in 1888, a series of proprietors and editors followed in quick succession. The tenures of Frank H. Brown, Edwin A. Start, and Eugene G. Allis were very brief, while Arthur W. Emerson stayed with the Times for several years, from January 1891 through April 1895. During this period, the paper’s eight-page issues included more local coverage. In May 1895, peripatetic Vermont newspaper entrepreneur Lewis P. Thayer acquired the Times and hired Willis C. Belknap, a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan Law School and a reporter for the Chattanooga Daily Times, to be the editor. Belknap started as a partner with a one-third interest in the Bellows Falls Times, but by November 1896, he was the sole owner.

Anticipating that progressive Times readers were ready for more frequent local news, Thayer and Belknap began to publish the paper twice a week in January 1896. They added an enthusiastic slogan to the masthead that proclaimed, “All the news, while it is news, while it is fresh.” The slogan disappeared in the fall of 1899, when the Times once again became a weekly paper. An editorial statement in the New Year’s issue of 1900 emphasized that the Times was “first and last a local paper,” and urged readers who wanted general news to subscribe to a second paper, such as the Rutland Daily Herald. A network of reporters and correspondents collected an impressive quantity of news, documenting everything from personal social gatherings to labor strikes and plant closings.

Over time, Belknap created a syndicate of weekly papers in the Connecticut River Valley. In 1909, he purchased the Vermont Journal, published in Windsor. The company reorganized as the Vermont Newspaper Corporation in 1921 and acquired the Vermont Tribune (Ludlow) in 1922 and the Springfield Reporter in 1930. After 37 years as editor, Belknap stepped down in 1933, and his sons continued the family association with the Times. In 1963, when Preston D. Belknap was the publisher, the Vermont Times Reporter Company acquired the Bellows Falls, Windsor, Ludlow and Springfield weeklies. In 1965, the weeklies were consolidated into a daily paper, the Connecticut Valley Times-Reporter.

Provided By: University of Vermont

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Bellows Falls Times (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965

Names

  • Swain, A. N.

Dates of Publication

  • 1856-1965

Created / Published

  • Bellows Falls, Vt. : A.N. Swain, 1856-1965.

Headings

  • -  Bellows Falls (Vt.)--Newspapers
  • -  Vermont--Bellows Falls
  • -  United States--Vermont--Windham--Bellows Falls

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Aug. 6, 1856)-v. 109, no. 40 (Oct. 7, 1965).
  • -  Publisher's name recorded in Childs, H. Gazetteer ... of Windham Co., Vt.
  • -  "Republican". Cf. Rowell, 1869-1877.
  • -  Editor: A.N. Swain, 1856-
  • -  Also issued on microfilm from Graphic Microfilm of New England, and from the Vermont Public Records Library.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Merged with: Vermont journal (Windsor, Vt. : 1844), and: Vermont tribune (Ludlow, Vt.), and: Springfield reporter (Springfield, Vt. : 1878) to form: Connecticut Valley times-reporter.
  • -  Vermont tribune (Ludlow, Vt.) (OCoLC)16881927
  • -  Springfield reporter (Springfield, Vt. : 1878) (OCoLC)37645987
  • -  Vermont journal (Windsor, Vt. : 1844) 2641-225X (DLC)sn 84022091 (OCoLC)10288261
  • -  Connecticut Valley times-reporter (OCoLC)37328663

Medium

  • volumes : illustrations (chiefly advertisements) ; 60-77 cm

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn84022549

OCLC Number

  • 10467562

ISSN Number

  • 2475-2827

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.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

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

Chicago citation style:

Bellows Falls Times Bellows Falls, Vt. -1965. (Bellows Falls, VT), Jan. 1 1856. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84022549/.

APA citation style:

(1856, January 1) Bellows Falls Times Bellows Falls, Vt. -1965. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84022549/.

MLA citation style:

Bellows Falls Times Bellows Falls, Vt. -1965. (Bellows Falls, VT) 1 Jan. 1856. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn84022549/.