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Newspaper Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal (Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa.) 1840-1848 American

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About Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal (Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa.) 1840-1848

The Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal was born in response to a political emergency but lived on to become the oldest 19th-century newspaper in Sunbury, the seat of Northumberland County. What became Sunbury was once Shamokin, a cluster of three villages and the Indian capital of central Pennsylvania under Shikellemy, chief of the Six Nations. The area was the westernmost settlement in Pennsylvania in 1724 and the site of Fort Augusta in 1756. Sunbury was the seventh and last proprietary town in Pennsylvania, laid out in 1772 for the heirs of William Penn, who owned the property and sold the original lots. Located near the confluence of the north and west branches of the Susquehanna River, Sunbury became a port on the Pennsylvania Canal and a major railroad center. The area boomed with the development of local anthracite coal mines and various industries such as textile mills. Thomas Edison installed the first successful three-wire electrical lighting system in the United States in Sunbury, illuminating the City Hotel on July 4, 1883.

Northumberland County in the 1830s was overwhelmingly Democratic, and receiving a nomination from the party was tantamount to winning the election. This meant that any campaign battles took place at the nominating convention. Twice-elected state legislator Charles W. Hegins, taking re-nomination for granted, was surprised to be preempted by a rival candidate from Milton at the 1840 county Democratic convention. The upstart was supported by the two local Democratic newspapers, the Sunbury Gazette and the Milton Ledger. Hegins’s friends promptly organized another convention in protest and nominated him, but there was no newspaper to promote his campaign. Within ten days of the protest convention, on September 12, 1840, Henry B. Masser, the deputy attorney general for the county, and printer Joseph Eisely launched the Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal, initially giving away large numbers of copies as there was no subscription base.  Despite the heroic efforts, Hegins’s opponent was narrowly elected, but the new four-page publication with the unwieldy slogan (“Absolute acquiescence to the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of Republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism. – Jefferson”) found its niche within the available reading population.

Amended to become simply the Sunbury American in 1848, the newspaper provided a solid weekly offering of national and regional political coverage, fiction, reprinted news and feature stories from all over, county legal notices, local news, and advertising. Masser customarily advertised his law office directly below the subscription and advertising rates on the front page. The newspaper was Democratic until the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, at which time it became Republican and remained so. Masser was joined in 1864 by Emanuel Wilvert, who had lived with the Masser family in the 1850s while a printer’s apprentice. In 1866, Masser’s nephew, Norman S. Engle, joined the business. Emanuel Wilvert’s son, Austin, worked with the American for a few years, during which time (on April 11, 1879) it merged with the Sunbury Gazette, at one time a great rival, and became the Sunbury Gazette-American.

Provided By: Penn State University Libraries; University Park, PA

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal (Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa.) 1840-1848

Other Title

  • American

Dates of Publication

  • 1840-1848

Created / Published

  • Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa. : Henry B. Masser and Joseph Eisely, 1840-1848.

Headings

  • -  Sunbury (Pa.)--Newspapers
  • -  Pennsylvania--Sunbury
  • -  United States--Pennsylvania--Northumberland--Sunbury

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Sept. 12, 1840)-v. 8, no. 26 (Mar. 18, 1848).
  • -  Published every Saturday.
  • -  Issues for called also .
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Sunbury American (Sunbury, Pa. : 1848) 2166-5591 (DLC)sn 84026403 (OCoLC)10470581

Medium

  • 8 volumes : illustrations (chiefly advertisements) ; 56 cm

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn85054702

OCLC Number

  • 12253728

ISSN Number

  • 2166-5605

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:

Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa. -1848. (Sunbury, PA), Jan. 1 1840. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn85054702/.

APA citation style:

(1840, January 1) Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa. -1848. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn85054702/.

MLA citation style:

Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa. -1848. (Sunbury, PA) 1 Jan. 1840. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn85054702/.