THE GLENCOE REGISTER, NO. I.

Number 2 of its first volume is in the Historical Library, and is dated August 15th, 1857. It began, therefore, on August 8th, 1857; and it was founded by Hon. L. L. Baxter. It was a four-page, six-column, Republican paper at the beginning. William R. Baxter, who was killed at Guntown, Mississippi, during the Rebellion, was editor, and Horace Baxter publisher. The last week of November, 1857, Colonel John H. Stevens and William S. Chapman bought the Register, and it became Democratic. The name of H. O. Hammond appeared as the first publisher under Stevens and Chapman, Colonel Stevens being the editor. May 1st, 1858, Hammond retired, and on May 15th Marshall Robinson became publisher.

In September, 1862, Robinson enlisted to help quell the Indian outbreak, and, as a measure of safety, the Register suspended publication until January, 1863, when it was printed a short time by Frank Daggett. Colonel Stevens still remained editor, however, until August, 1863, when he sold the paper to G. K. Gilbert and A. J. Snyder. They ran it about six months, when it suspended. In November, 1864, Gilbert sold his interest to Snyder. In May, 1866, Snyder leased the paper to C. A. Bennett, who published it as the Glencoe Weekly Register until February 27th, 1868. At that time he sold it to Frank Belfoy, who ran it until April 2nd, 1868, when he tried to turn it into the McLeod County Register; but at Volume 1, No. 13, of the new issue, it ran into the ground, or, as Colonel Stevens tersely phrased it, "It dried up." Belfoy afterward started the first paper ever printed in Meeker county.

February 25th, 1869, James C. Edson started the Glencoe Register, No. 2, as volume one, number one. In that issue he gave a detailed history of Glencoe Register, No. 1, of which the above account is an abstract. This number is on file in the vaults of the Historical Society.

The Register, No. 2, was continued by Edson to Volume 4, No. 12, May 16th, 1872, when he sold the plant to Liberty Hall, who conducted it to Volume 7, No. 36, November 4th, 1875. The next issue thereafter was enlarged to eight columns, and then the volume was jumped from 7 to 19, with the probable in

tention of covering the lifetime of Register No. 1. That paper, however, ran only from August 8th, 1857, to Volume 9, No. 37, making eight years and thirty-seven weeks of continuous existence, in about ten years and eight months of time, including its Indian War and other temporary suspensions meantime. Register No. 2 is still running.

COLONEL JOHN H. STEVENS.

Colonel John H. Stevens was born in Canada, June 13th, 1820; was educated in the common schools; enlisted in the United States Army during the Mexican War; served through it, and came to Minnesota in 1849; and was the first settler on the west side of the river in what is now Minneapolis. The house he built stood on part of the ground now occupied by the Union railway depot. It stands at present in Minnehaha park, belonging to the city, having been drawn there by thousands of the school children of Minneapolis, working by relays, in the spring of 1896. The excitement of the day was too much for Colonel Stevens, and he suffered a stroke of paralysis in consequence, from which he never recovered. He died May 28th, 1900.

Colonel Stevens was a born farmer. He loved the vocation as he did his life. Many a time, while editor of the Express over on the St. Anthony side of the river, I have gone to him for local items. He never failed to respond with from one to two columns; and the best stock and biggest squash, pumpkins, and watermelons of the farms around Minneapolis, were prolific subjects of his graphic sketches. Besides the Glencoe Register, he conducted the Minneapolis Chronicle, Farmer and Gardener, Farmers' Tribune, and the Farm, Stock, and Home. As president of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, he did much to introduce superior methods of farming and stock-rais. ing.

He was the first register of deeds of Hennepin county, and served several terms in both branches of the Legislature of Minnesota. His book of "Personal Recollections" is full of valuable chronicles of early days, and will become more and more useful as the years go by. During the Indian uprising of 1862 he served as brigadier general of the militia sent to the front to subdue the savages. Through his position as the first claimholder

where the largest part of Minneapolis now stands, Colonel Stevens had the chance of his life to die a millionaire. His unselfish efforts to foster and upbuild Minneapolis, however, prevented this. He died in comfortable circumstances, however, the same genial, free-handed, noble-hearted man that he had lived through his long life of nearly eighty years.

SUMMARY TO August 25th, 1857.

Of the nineteen newspapers established in Minnesota between January 1st and August 25th, 1857, only one, the Mantorville Express, survives. Indeed, few of these papers survived the boom that brought them into existence.

The ballooning of the journalism of those days was very aptly burlesqued by John P. Owens, in the Daily Minnesotian of May 18th, 1857. I believe that I cannot close this part of my paper more appropriately than by quoting a portion of the article. The supposed newspaper of which he wrote was named "The Exponent of Morality, Truth, and Justice." The paper had become so popular in the new city of Olean that its publishers were compelled to issue an extra prospectus. They said:

We come before the tremendous and hourly increasing number of our readers this morning, in an enlarged form. Our advertising friends have actually compelled us to make room for them, two of our clerks having been crushed to death in the crowd of patrons who thronged the countingroom with advertisements. We have added forty-five columns to our paper. Our city circulation is immense. We employ two hundred compositors and fifty pressmen. Three editors are constantly at work, and we are in hopes, as soon as we can procure workmen, to be able to issue a semidaily the size of a bed blanket.

N. B.-Thirty carriers wanted immediately.

P. S.-Wanted, a partner with a little money.

P. P. S.-Wanted, Fifty compositors. Lots in Olean given for work!!! Great inducements to printers! ! ! !

FIFTH PAPER, AUGUST 25TH, 1857, TO MAY 11TH, 1858.

The old time editor was a thorough pioneer. He helped lay the foundations of Minnesota deep and strong, and was as honorable in his calling as the early merchant, doctor, lawyer, or business man. Politically, he was a partisan, and a firm and hon

est believer in the adage, "To the victor belong the spoils." To keep body and soul in touch, he needed the infrequent doles of mail-letting advertisements and the Territorial and County printing of those times, to supplement his attenuated returns from subscriptions, advertising,and job work; and when his party was in power he carefully corralled such helps.

Where a party fight was on, he was ready and usually pretty rough; where a public or party service was needed, he was expected to be the pack-horse to carry supplies. In the community at large, he was the genial, good-natured squash advertiser, for which he usually got the squash. The situation was rather broadly described by an early editor who printed this notice: "Our family being now settled in housekeeping, we will take for subscriptions anything we can wear or that hogs can eat."

A man of infinite resources was the old time editor. He was a rare combination of editorial writer, type-setter, and printer's devil. As a rule, he had the spirit and grit of an carly editor of the Freeborn County Standard. When some miscreant whom he had scored tried to even up by stealing the lever of his hand press, he set up a scalding note explanatory of the delay in getting out his paper, unlocked the editorial form, put it in, and then worked off the edition with a fence rail.

But amid all his hustling wear and tear, no editor of any class, time, or kind, preserved a larger measure of integrity. I could name some of those sturdy pioneer editors who threw up their jobs rather than support men or measures dictated by boodling newspaper owners.

Do not understand by this tribute to his common honesty that I praise the early editor as a saint. He often said and did things that would neither sound nor look well inside a church; but it was never said of him, as has been too often said of the modern editor, that it was his vocation to "raise hell and sell newspapers." Nor did he pander to the animal instincts of human nature by watching the dirty debris of society to see where the devil would break out next, and have a reporter on hand to tell about it.

Giving the modern newspaper full credit for the mighty power it wields for good in the affairs of men, the scandals it too often prints spread moral disease among the young, with tre

mendous counteracting effect. It is human nature to want to see into hell as far as possible, but there is a place in the way where the bars should be put up before our boys and girls and not removed until they come to years of discretion.

THE FINANCIAL CRASH OF 1857..

August 25th, 1857, the Ohio Life and Trust Company of New York, with a branch in Cincinnati, failed. It had liabilities of nearly seven million dollars. With it went down a large number of banks. These failures started the financial crash of 1857.

Undeterred by this disaster, Lucius F. Hubbard, afterward a general in the Union army, and governor of Minnesota, started a newspaper in Red Wing. He named it

THE RED WING REPUBLICAN.

Its first issue was dated September 4th, 1857, and it was the sixty-second weekly begun in Minnesota Territory. That its foundations, even in those insecure times, were built deep and strong, is shown by the fact that it is one of the few Minnesota newspapers which survived the trying crisis of 1857 and is yet in good working order. It started as a four-page, seven column sheet; and it then was, and still is, Republican in politics.

November 20th, 1857, F. D. Meredith, who died some years ago, became associated with Hubbard, and the firm name was Hubbard and Meredith until October 1st, 1858. Then Meredith retired, and Mr. Hubbard went on alone until August 12th, 1859, when Charles L. Davis joined Hubbard, and the managers became Hubbard and Davis, the former being the main editor. At that time, the name was changed to the Goodhue County Republican.

December 19th, 1861, Mr. Hubbard enlisted in the Fifth Minnesota Regiment, and the firm of Hubbard and Davis was dissolved. Mr. Meredith then returned, and the name of the firm. again became Hubbard and Meredith, the former being the proprietor, and the latter the editor and manager during the absence of Mr. Hubbard. March 28th, 1862, the ownership and editorial management went to C. L. Davis, and Meredith once more re