Tag Archives: Plymouth Indiana newspaper

Newspaper histories

A Brief History of the Marshall County Independent (Plymouth, Ind.)

56 issues of the Marshall County Independent are available by clicking here.
56 issues of the Marshall County Independent are available by clicking here.

The 1900 U.S. Census reported that Plymouth, Indiana, located in a rich agricultural area in north-central Indiana, had a population over 3,600.  The town had supported two major newspapers, the Plymouth Republican and the Plymouth Democrat, since the 1850s.  With the rise of Populism in the 1890s, another newspaper debuted in Plymouth in 1894, the Marshall County Independent.

42 issues of the Semi-Weekly Independent can be accessed here!
42 issues of the Semi-Weekly Independent can be accessed here!

Albert R. Zimmerman started the Independent as an eight page weekly.  He took on A. D. Smith as a partner in July 1895, changed the paper to a semiweekly titled the Plymouth Semi-Weekly Independent, and began issuing a daily edition, the Plymouth Daily Independent.  Reported circulation for the Independent was 750 in 1897, barely half the respective circulations for its in-town rivals.  In 1896, Smith sold his interest to Zimmerman who then sold the paper to Silas H. Joseph and Clinton H. Grube.  The new owners split management and editing duties, but after a year they sold the Independent to Clay W. Metsker.

185 issues of the Marshall County Independent from 1897-1901 are available here.
185 issues of the Marshall County Independent from 1897-1901 are available here.

In 1897, Metsker changed the title back to the Marshall County Independent and by 1900 returned to a weekly publication schedule.  By then, the Independent was faring well in terms of circulation with its chief competitors, the Republican and Democrat.  In March 1902, Metsker purchased the Plymouth Democrat and continued issuing the daily edition as the Daily Independent, but he switched the title of the weekly edition from the Independent to the Weekly Democrat.  The acquisition of the Democrat nearly doubled the Independent’s weekly circulation from 1,650 to 3,200.  Metsker retired the Independent name completely in 1909 when he started issuing the daily edition as the Plymouth Daily Democrat.  Metsker sold the paper in March 1931.  The new owners changed the daily title to the Plymouth Daily News and discontinued the weekly edition of the Democrat in 1941.

 

Newspaper histories

Plymouth’s Democratic Newspaper from 1856-1870 Digitized

Issued as the Marshall County Democrat from 1855-1859, digitized issues are available through Chronicling America.
Issued as the Marshall County Democrat from 1855-1859, digitized issues are available through Hoosier State Chronicles.

The Marshall County Democrat debuted on November 15, 1855, in Plymouth, an agricultural community in north-central Indiana.  The paper originated not long after the Kansas-Nebraska Act divided the Democratic Party.  While the Marshall County Democrat declared, “Slavery is wrong, either North or South of the Missouri Compromise line,” it also endorsed popular sovereignty stating, “All territory is free until it becomes a State, and then the people alone can control the institutions.”  Thomas McDonald co-founded the paper, and he and his sons, Platt and Daniel, and grandsons, John and Louis, would intermittently own the Democrat over the next 47 years.

Issued as the Plymouth Weekly Democrat from 1860-1869, click to access these issues from Chronicling America.
Issued as the Plymouth Weekly Democrat from 1860-1869, click to access these issues from Hoosier State Chronicles.

During the Civil War, Daniel E. VanValkenburgh acquired the newspaper, which the Union Army suppressed in May 1863.  Early that month, General Ambrose Burnside issued General Orders No. 38 which permitted military commissions to try any private citizen who expressed opposition to the Lincoln administration or sympathy for the Southern rebels.  VanValkenburgh editorialized on what he viewed as Lincoln’s abuses of power, and lamented, “It may be that our liberties are ‘clean gone forever.’”  The last straw was VanValkenburgh’s criticism of Burnside’s lieutenant, General Milo S. Hascall.  The Democrat wrote, “Brig. Gen. Hascall is a donkey, an unmitigated, unqualified donkey, and his bray is long, loud and harmless.”  A few days later, Union soldiers arrested VanValkenburgh and brought him before General Burnside in Cincinnati to answer charges of treason.  Burnside ultimately released VanValkenburgh but cautioned him to be more careful of his criticisms in the future.

After several changes in ownership, the McDonalds reacquired interest in the Democrat in 1869.  By 1877, Daniel McDonald had become complete owner, and with the exception of an interruption in 1879-81, he owned and edited the paper until 1902.  By 1894, the Democrat had expanded to eight pages. It reached its peak circulation around that time with a reported 1,650 copies.

Clay W. Metsker, the owner of the Marshall County Independent, acquired the Democrat in March 1902.  He merged the two publications but continued issuing them under separate titles as daily and weekly editions respectively until 1909 when the Democrat replaced the Independent as the daily edition.  Metsker sold out to Roland B. Metsker and Heyward P. Gibson in March 1931.  The new owners renamed the paper the Plymouth Daily News. They also retained the Democrat title for the weekly edition until discontinuing it in January 1941.

Related articles

Bibliography

Miller, John W. Indiana Newspaper Bibliography. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1982.
Towne, Stephen E. “Killing the Serpent Speedily: Governor Morton, General Hascall, and the Suppression of the Democratic Press in Indiana in 1863.” Civil War History 51 (2006): 41-65.
N. W. Ayer & Son’s American Newspaper Annual & Directory. Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer & Son, various years.
Geo. P. Rowell & Co’s American Newspaper Directory. New York: Geo. P. Rowell & Co., various years.

Newspaper histories

A History of the Plymouth Republican

Access over 20 years of the Marshall County Republican and other Plymouth newspapers at Chronicling America
Access over 20 years of the Marshall County Republican and other Plymouth newspapers at Chronicling America.

Click on the hyperlinks throughout this essay to access digitized issues of the newspapers.

In March 1852, Richard Corbaley acquired the Plymouth Pilot, situated in an agricultural community in north-central Indiana, and changed the title to the Plymouth Banner.  The paper changed ownership five times during the next four and a half years.  In 1855 the paper became the Plymouth Weekly Banner.  Then, on the eve of the 1856 election, Ignatius Mattingly purchased the paper and changed its name to the Marshall County Republican.  While the Banner had aimed to be not “a strictly political paper – but a home newspaper,” the Republican intended to “advocate, zealously and fearlessly” for the Republican Party’s candidates and causes.

Mattingly owned the paper until 1868, and was succeeded by ten other proprietors over the next decade.  In February 1878, John W. Siders and Walter L. Piper bought the Marshall County Republican.  Although Siders’s partners would change over the years, Siders retained ownership of the newspaper until 1890.  Siders shortened its name to the Plymouth Republican in December 1878. He expanded the four-page weekly to eight pages by 1882 and increased circulation from 960 in 1880 to 1,382 in 1890 in the city of 2,570 residents.

In 1890, Siders shared editorial duties with his partner, Edward S. Brooke, before leaving the paper the following year.  Brooke established a daily edition in April 1896 called the Plymouth Evening News and continued publishing the Republican as a weekly.  Rolla B. Oglesbee owned and operated both papers beginning in April 1897, before selling them to William G. Hendricks the following year.  Hendricks combined the Republican and the Evening News into the Plymouth Tribune in 1901.  The Tribune reached a peak circulation of 1,800 in 1911.  Hendricks sold the paper that year to Samuel E. Boys, owner of the Plymouth Daily Chronicle.  Boys combined the Tribune and Chronicle into a single newspaper, which he renamed the Plymouth Republican, and continued issuing daily and weekly editions.  In 1922, Boys discontinued the weekly edition, and recalling the newspaper’s first incarnation, re-titled it the Plymouth Daily Pilot.  The Daily Pilot operated until Boys merged it with the Plymouth Daily News to form the Plymouth Pilot-News in 1947.