Sunday Mercury (New York)
Encyclopedia
The Sunday Mercury (sometimes referred to as the New York Sunday Mercury) was a weekly Sunday newspaper
published in New York City
that grew to become the highest-circulation weekly newspaper in the United States
at its peak. It was known for publishing and popularizing the work of many notable 19th century writers including Charles Farrar Browne
and Robert Henry Newell
, and was the first Eastern paper to publish Mark Twain
. It was also the first newspaper to provide regular coverage of baseball
, and was popular for the extensive war correspondence from soldiers it published during the Civil War
.
The Mercury originated as the Sunday Morning Visiter, and was first published on May 12, 1839. By 1840, it changed its name to the Sunday Mercury. It initially gained some notice for its theatrical coverage and so-called "machine poetry" (a 19th century euphemism for slavishly following the "rules" of poetry without any inspiration). By the fall of 1842 the paper had a circulation of 3,000, ranking it third among New York's Sunday papers, trailing the New York Herald
’s Sunday edition and The Atlas
. By the summer of 1844, the Herald took note of the growth of the Sunday papers, calling them "partly literary, partly gossiping, partly silly, partly smart, partly stupid, partly namby-pamby."
Elbridge Gerry Paige (1813-1859) and Samuel Nichols (1809?-1854) were the two key editors of the Mercury in its early years, and Augustus Krauth joined them as a one-third owner in 1842.
Paige had success with his Short Patent Sermons published in the paper (from its outset) under the pseudonym "Dow Junior" (a reference to famous eccentric preacher Lorenzo Dow
who died in 1834), which literary magazines such as The Knickerbocker
lauded for their for their odd and original wit. Paige left the paper in 1849 and went to California
, where he continued to publish Dow Jr. sermons in The Golden Era, but ultimately was unsuccessful there and is said to have died in extreme poverty in 1859.
Nichols was born in Hampstead
, England
around 1809 and after coming to New York City was eventually installed as the editor of the New Times, an organ of the "Conservatives" political party. After that venture failed, he joined the Sunday Mercury and grew it with Paige. His work focused on the theater. Nichols stayed with the paper until his death in September 1854, when he was run over after unsuccessfully trying to board a Third Avenue Railway
car.
Krauth, the other one-third owner of the paper, died in November 1857.
(1824-1907)(3 December 1907) Ex-Senator William Cauldwell, New York Tribune
, Retrieved November 2, 2010 purchased Paige's one-third ownership stake in the paper for $1,200. Cauldwell had gotten into the newspaper field by doing typsetting work, and worked at the New York Sunday Atlas from 1841-49. Cauldwell expanded the paper and increased its coverage of literature, city news, and sports. Sylvester Southworth and Horace P. Whitney (1834- August 24, 1884) soon joined as additional editors, and the paper began to prosper.
Cauldwell and the Mercury are credited as being the first newspaper to regularly cover the sport of baseball
as news, starting in 1853 with a report on a game between the Knickerbockers
and the Gothams. (For some time, this 1853 report was thought to be first game ever reported on by the press, but later 20th century scholarship has located an 1845 report in the Herald.)Martinez, Jose (25 October 2000). Went to bat for baseball: Newspaperman behind game accounts, Daily News (New York), Retrieved November 1, 2010(1 July 1905) Henry Chadwick: The Father of Baseball, The Spokesman-Review, Retrieved November 1, 2010 (citing Henry Chadwick as reporting that the Mercury was the first paper covering baseball, with Cauldwell regularly reporting on games played in New York City) The paper was the first to use the phrase "national pastime", in December 1856. In 1858, Cauldwell hired rising star Henrick Chadwick, later dubbed the "father of baseball", to cover the sport for the paper.
By early 1861, the Mercury's circulation was 145,000, but the advent of Civil War
cut off about 90,000 of them located in the southern and western United States. Cauldwell hit upon an idea for expanding their war coverage with little expense. In April 1861, the paper made an announcement inviting soldiers to send in their reports about the war, and over 3,000 were published during the course of the war as a weekly feature. The soldiers would receive a free copy of the paper for their contributions. In 2000, Civil War historian William B. Styple compiled 500 of the letters in a book, Writing and Fighting the Civil War: Soldier Correspondence to the New York Sunday Mercury.
In 1873, Rowell's American Newspaper Directory stated that with a circulation of 45,000, "the circulation of the Sunday Mercury exceeds that of any other Sunday or daily newspaper in America without exception, and more than triples the combined issues of all the other Sunday journals published in New York."
Southworth retired from the paper before the end of the war, and Whitney departed around 1876 due to poor health, leaving Cauldwell solely in charge. In addition to running the paper Cauldwell also held political office, serving in the New York State Senate
from 1868 to 1879, and also serving as Bronx supervisor.
, Retrieved November 5, 2010 The new venture was quickly losing money, however. Cauldwell apparently began to borrow funds from the estate of millionaire Jason Rogers, of which he was a co-trustee with his son-in-law Thomas Rogers, to try to keep the paper afloat.(12 May 1898) A Heavy Fine: Thomas Rogers Goes To Jail in Default, The Evening Times (Washington, D.C.), Retrieved November 2, 2010 Some sources reported that it was Jason Rogers' and Cauldwell's mutual grandson (also named Jason Rogers) who convinced Cauldwell to expand the paper in the first place. The younger Rogers, for his part, later blamed the failure of the paper on a decision by the "boss" to launch the daily edition as a morning paper, upsetting carefully laid plans and a large number of advance subscriptions for a paper based on afternoon publication. (Rogers later went on to transform the Commercial Advertiser
into The New York Globe
, and helped found the Audit Bureau of Circulations.)
In May 1893, Richard Croker
, a leader of New York City's Tammany Hall
political machine, jumped into the newspaper field and created The Daily America devoted to politics to trumpet Tammany's views (though it also covered sports; Croker was a big horse racing enthusiast). The other Democratic papers in the city balked at the new competition, however, and Croker turned over the paper to the Mercury by the end of the year. In January 1894, The New York Times reported that the two papers had "consolidated" (and that some of "the gentlemen" involved in the America would retain an interest) and would henceforth be published as The Daily America on weekdays with the Sunday Mercury below in small type, and reversed on Sundays.
In August 1894, Cauldwell, now almost 70, gave up editorial control with his grandson Jason Rogers stepping in as publisher, and James F. Graham taking on the editorial duties. The paper also dropped the Daily America title, although it remained a Democratic paper.
The paper continued to lose money (reportedly about $2000 a week), and in March 1895 Cauldwell sold out to William Noble in a somewhat unusual exchange, where he received a hotel called the Hotel Empire (a project which Noble had bought out of foreclosure in 1893 and completed) in exchange for the paper.
News reports from mid-1895 reported that "silver men
", whose support in the East had been limited, had now purchased the paper to be their organ. Although the paper did advocate in support of free silver in 1895, it appears the anticipated sale to "silver men" fell apart, as Noble had to file for bankruptcy in 1899 due to his Mercury debts.
During this same period (early-mid 1895), Adolph Ochs, then-editor of the Chattanooga Times
, was invited to become editor and half-owner of the Mercury in its "free silver" campaign. Ochs turned the offer down, in part because of his own support for the gold standard
. The paper was then offered to Ochs for outright sale, but that also did not come to fruition when it turned out that the Mercury could not assure that its rights to press association copy would transfer to a new owner. Ochs remained on the lookout for a New York paper, however, and in August 1896 he purchased the then also-struggling New York Times
.
The Mercury ceased publishing altogether under that that name around late 1896. Some older sources state the paper failed in 1895, but it was being published well into 1896, though it was certainly on its last legs. On September 20, 1896, the New York Times reported that the office of the Mercury "was still closed last night"(20 September 1896) City and Vicinity, The New York Times
(noting that the office of the Mercury "was still closed last night"), Retrieved November 2, 2010 and the Chicago Tribune
printed on September 28 that the "free silver sentiment in New York was not even warm enough to prevent the fail of the New York Mercury."
When Cauldwell died in 1907, the New York Tribune
called him "the father of Sunday journalism."
The Telegraph went on to become a successful paper and was published until shut down during a strike in 1972. The Telegraph considered itself a continuation of the Mercury, though along the way it somehow backdated its claimed date of founding from 1839 to 1833.
, Josh Billings
, Charles Farrar Browne
(Artemus Ward), Robert Henry Newell
(Orpheus C. Kerr), Ella Wheeler Wilcox
, Charles Godfrey Leland
, David Ross Locke
(Petroleum V. Nasby), Ned Buntline
, and Mortimer Thomson
(Doesticks). Though most of those names are not familiar today, all became well-known popular writers of the time.
Mark Twain's first writing published in the East appeared in the Mercury in 1864 (prior to his success in 1865 with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
), and a number of additional pieces were published in 1867.
Newell, who wrote under the name "Orpheus C. Kerr" (a play on "office seeker"), served for a time as the literary editor of the Mercury, until around 1862. His satirical weekly columns started in Mercury and gained national fame, so much so that President Abraham Lincoln
once remarked of Kerr's writings that “anyone who has not read them is a heathen.”
Celebrated actress Adah Isaacs Menken
contributed a series of poems to the Mercury in 1860-61, as well as a piece praising Walt Whitman
and Leaves of Grass
in 1860 as "centuries ahead of his contemporaries".
Starting in the mid 1870s, John W. Overall (1822-1899) served as literary editor of the paper (until at least 1890). A Southerner, Overall is best known for his pre-Civil War writing supporting the South.
Historian James W. Cook, in a 2005 compilation of writings by P. T. Barnum
(of circus fame, who also appeared in the Mercury), notes that in the mid 1860s, the Mercury was "ubiquitous, with a masthead claim of the largest weekly circulation in America," yet today publications such as the Mercury, which contained few illustrations, are difficult to locate in library collections.
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
published in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
that grew to become the highest-circulation weekly newspaper in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at its peak. It was known for publishing and popularizing the work of many notable 19th century writers including Charles Farrar Browne
Charles Farrar Browne
Charles Farrar Browne was a United States humor writer, better known under his nom de plume, Artemus Ward. At birth, his surname was "Brown." He added the "e" after he became famous.-Biography:...
and Robert Henry Newell
Robert Henry Newell
Robert Henry Newell was a popular 19th century American humorist.During the U.S. Civil War, Newell wrote a series of satirical articles using the pseudonym Orpheus C. Kerr, commenting on the war and contemporary society...
, and was the first Eastern paper to publish Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
. It was also the first newspaper to provide regular coverage of baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, and was popular for the extensive war correspondence from soldiers it published during the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
Early years
Prior to 1825, no American newspapers published editions on Sunday, out of respect to Sabbath. Over time, however, this created a niche for weekly newspapers published on Sunday to flourish.The Mercury originated as the Sunday Morning Visiter, and was first published on May 12, 1839. By 1840, it changed its name to the Sunday Mercury. It initially gained some notice for its theatrical coverage and so-called "machine poetry" (a 19th century euphemism for slavishly following the "rules" of poetry without any inspiration). By the fall of 1842 the paper had a circulation of 3,000, ranking it third among New York's Sunday papers, trailing the New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
’s Sunday edition and The Atlas
New York Atlas
The New York Atlas was a Sunday newspaper in New York City which was published from 1838 until the 1880s.The paper was founded as a Sunday-only paper in 1838 by Anson Herrick and Jesse A. Fell as the Sunday Morning Atlas. It began publication on August 12, 1838. Frederick West soon joined as an...
. By the summer of 1844, the Herald took note of the growth of the Sunday papers, calling them "partly literary, partly gossiping, partly silly, partly smart, partly stupid, partly namby-pamby."
Elbridge Gerry Paige (1813-1859) and Samuel Nichols (1809?-1854) were the two key editors of the Mercury in its early years, and Augustus Krauth joined them as a one-third owner in 1842.
Paige had success with his Short Patent Sermons published in the paper (from its outset) under the pseudonym "Dow Junior" (a reference to famous eccentric preacher Lorenzo Dow
Lorenzo Dow
Lorenzo Dow was an eccentric itinerant American preacher, said to have preached to more people than any other preacher of his era. He was an important figure in the Second Great Awakening. He was also a successful writer...
who died in 1834), which literary magazines such as The Knickerbocker
The Knickerbocker
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865 under various titles, including:...
lauded for their for their odd and original wit. Paige left the paper in 1849 and went to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where he continued to publish Dow Jr. sermons in The Golden Era, but ultimately was unsuccessful there and is said to have died in extreme poverty in 1859.
Nichols was born in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
around 1809 and after coming to New York City was eventually installed as the editor of the New Times, an organ of the "Conservatives" political party. After that venture failed, he joined the Sunday Mercury and grew it with Paige. His work focused on the theater. Nichols stayed with the paper until his death in September 1854, when he was run over after unsuccessfully trying to board a Third Avenue Railway
Third Avenue Railway
The Third Avenue Railway System was a street railroad system in New York City in the 19th and early 20th century.-History:The principal company was the Third Avenue Railroad Company from 1853 to 1910, when it was succeeded in reorganization by the Third Avenue Railway Company...
car.
Krauth, the other one-third owner of the paper, died in November 1857.
Growth, Baseball, and War
In 1850, William CauldwellWilliam Cauldwell
William Cauldwell was a 19th century newspaper publisher of the New York Sunday Mercury. He has been called the "Father of Sunday Journalism", and also served in the New York State Senate.-Biography:...
(1824-1907)(3 December 1907) Ex-Senator William Cauldwell, New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
, Retrieved November 2, 2010 purchased Paige's one-third ownership stake in the paper for $1,200. Cauldwell had gotten into the newspaper field by doing typsetting work, and worked at the New York Sunday Atlas from 1841-49. Cauldwell expanded the paper and increased its coverage of literature, city news, and sports. Sylvester Southworth and Horace P. Whitney (1834- August 24, 1884) soon joined as additional editors, and the paper began to prosper.
Cauldwell and the Mercury are credited as being the first newspaper to regularly cover the sport of baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
as news, starting in 1853 with a report on a game between the Knickerbockers
New York Knickerbockers
The New York Knickerbockers were one of the first organized baseball teams which played under a set of rules similar to the game today. The team was founded by Alexander Cartwright, considered one of the original developers of modern baseball....
and the Gothams. (For some time, this 1853 report was thought to be first game ever reported on by the press, but later 20th century scholarship has located an 1845 report in the Herald.)Martinez, Jose (25 October 2000). Went to bat for baseball: Newspaperman behind game accounts, Daily News (New York), Retrieved November 1, 2010(1 July 1905) Henry Chadwick: The Father of Baseball, The Spokesman-Review, Retrieved November 1, 2010 (citing Henry Chadwick as reporting that the Mercury was the first paper covering baseball, with Cauldwell regularly reporting on games played in New York City) The paper was the first to use the phrase "national pastime", in December 1856. In 1858, Cauldwell hired rising star Henrick Chadwick, later dubbed the "father of baseball", to cover the sport for the paper.
By early 1861, the Mercury's circulation was 145,000, but the advent of Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
cut off about 90,000 of them located in the southern and western United States. Cauldwell hit upon an idea for expanding their war coverage with little expense. In April 1861, the paper made an announcement inviting soldiers to send in their reports about the war, and over 3,000 were published during the course of the war as a weekly feature. The soldiers would receive a free copy of the paper for their contributions. In 2000, Civil War historian William B. Styple compiled 500 of the letters in a book, Writing and Fighting the Civil War: Soldier Correspondence to the New York Sunday Mercury.
In 1873, Rowell's American Newspaper Directory stated that with a circulation of 45,000, "the circulation of the Sunday Mercury exceeds that of any other Sunday or daily newspaper in America without exception, and more than triples the combined issues of all the other Sunday journals published in New York."
Southworth retired from the paper before the end of the war, and Whitney departed around 1876 due to poor health, leaving Cauldwell solely in charge. In addition to running the paper Cauldwell also held political office, serving in the New York State Senate
New York State Senate
The New York State Senate is one of two houses in the New York State Legislature and has members each elected to two-year terms. There are no limits on the number of terms one may serve...
from 1868 to 1879, and also serving as Bronx supervisor.
Ill-fated expansion and collapse
By the early 1890s, competition with the New York daily papers had increased. The paper responded by introducing a one cent daily newspaper dubbed the Daily Mercury, billed as a Democratic paper, in January 1893.(17 January 1893). New Notes of the Metropolis, Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, Retrieved November 5, 2010 The new venture was quickly losing money, however. Cauldwell apparently began to borrow funds from the estate of millionaire Jason Rogers, of which he was a co-trustee with his son-in-law Thomas Rogers, to try to keep the paper afloat.(12 May 1898) A Heavy Fine: Thomas Rogers Goes To Jail in Default, The Evening Times (Washington, D.C.), Retrieved November 2, 2010 Some sources reported that it was Jason Rogers' and Cauldwell's mutual grandson (also named Jason Rogers) who convinced Cauldwell to expand the paper in the first place. The younger Rogers, for his part, later blamed the failure of the paper on a decision by the "boss" to launch the daily edition as a morning paper, upsetting carefully laid plans and a large number of advance subscriptions for a paper based on afternoon publication. (Rogers later went on to transform the Commercial Advertiser
Commercial Advertiser
The New-York Commercial Advertiser was an evening American newspaper.It was published, with slight name variations, from 1797-1904, though it originated as the American Minerva founded in 1793.-History:...
into The New York Globe
The New York Globe
The New York Globe was a daily New York City newspaper published from 1904 to 1923, when it was bought and merged into the New York Sun.-History:...
, and helped found the Audit Bureau of Circulations.)
In May 1893, Richard Croker
Richard Croker
Richard Croker, Sr. was an American politician, a leader of New York City's Tammany Hall.-Biography:...
, a leader of New York City's Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
political machine, jumped into the newspaper field and created The Daily America devoted to politics to trumpet Tammany's views (though it also covered sports; Croker was a big horse racing enthusiast). The other Democratic papers in the city balked at the new competition, however, and Croker turned over the paper to the Mercury by the end of the year. In January 1894, The New York Times reported that the two papers had "consolidated" (and that some of "the gentlemen" involved in the America would retain an interest) and would henceforth be published as The Daily America on weekdays with the Sunday Mercury below in small type, and reversed on Sundays.
In August 1894, Cauldwell, now almost 70, gave up editorial control with his grandson Jason Rogers stepping in as publisher, and James F. Graham taking on the editorial duties. The paper also dropped the Daily America title, although it remained a Democratic paper.
The paper continued to lose money (reportedly about $2000 a week), and in March 1895 Cauldwell sold out to William Noble in a somewhat unusual exchange, where he received a hotel called the Hotel Empire (a project which Noble had bought out of foreclosure in 1893 and completed) in exchange for the paper.
News reports from mid-1895 reported that "silver men
Free Silver
Free Silver was an important United States political policy issue in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Its advocates were in favor of an inflationary monetary policy using the "free coinage of silver" as opposed to the less inflationary Gold Standard; its supporters were called...
", whose support in the East had been limited, had now purchased the paper to be their organ. Although the paper did advocate in support of free silver in 1895, it appears the anticipated sale to "silver men" fell apart, as Noble had to file for bankruptcy in 1899 due to his Mercury debts.
During this same period (early-mid 1895), Adolph Ochs, then-editor of the Chattanooga Times
Chattanooga Times Free Press
The Chattanooga Times Free Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is distributed in the metro Chattanooga region of Tennessee and Northwest Georgia...
, was invited to become editor and half-owner of the Mercury in its "free silver" campaign. Ochs turned the offer down, in part because of his own support for the gold standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
. The paper was then offered to Ochs for outright sale, but that also did not come to fruition when it turned out that the Mercury could not assure that its rights to press association copy would transfer to a new owner. Ochs remained on the lookout for a New York paper, however, and in August 1896 he purchased the then also-struggling New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
The Mercury ceased publishing altogether under that that name around late 1896. Some older sources state the paper failed in 1895, but it was being published well into 1896, though it was certainly on its last legs. On September 20, 1896, the New York Times reported that the office of the Mercury "was still closed last night"(20 September 1896) City and Vicinity, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
(noting that the office of the Mercury "was still closed last night"), Retrieved November 2, 2010 and the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
printed on September 28 that the "free silver sentiment in New York was not even warm enough to prevent the fail of the New York Mercury."
When Cauldwell died in 1907, the New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
called him "the father of Sunday journalism."
Rebirth as the Morning Telegraph
By end of 1896, the operations of the Mercury were taken over and redubbed the New York Morning Telegraph, focusing on sporting (especially horse racing) and theatrical news much as the Mercury had been doing at that point. According to one account published in 1940, the name change came about when Tammany Hall gave $10,000 to writer Blakely Hall, "to run it with the understanding that he was not to get a nickel more. Hall threw out the Mercury title, called the 'new' sheet the Morning Telegraph, hired (Leander) Richardson as managing editor, and put it out as a daily sporting and theatrical newspaper."The Telegraph went on to become a successful paper and was published until shut down during a strike in 1972. The Telegraph considered itself a continuation of the Mercury, though along the way it somehow backdated its claimed date of founding from 1839 to 1833.
Noted contributors and legacy
Aside from the Short Patent Sermons which brought acclaim to Paige's "Dow Jr." pseudonym in the 1840s, the Mercury went on to publish the work of many leading 19th century writers, and was at times the first to introduce them to New York and national audiences, including Mark TwainMark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, Josh Billings
Josh Billings
Josh Billings was the pen name of 19th century American humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw . He was perhaps the second most famous humor writer and lecturer in the United States in the second half of the 19th century after Mark Twain, although his reputation has not endured so well with later...
, Charles Farrar Browne
Charles Farrar Browne
Charles Farrar Browne was a United States humor writer, better known under his nom de plume, Artemus Ward. At birth, his surname was "Brown." He added the "e" after he became famous.-Biography:...
(Artemus Ward), Robert Henry Newell
Robert Henry Newell
Robert Henry Newell was a popular 19th century American humorist.During the U.S. Civil War, Newell wrote a series of satirical articles using the pseudonym Orpheus C. Kerr, commenting on the war and contemporary society...
(Orpheus C. Kerr), Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet. Her best-known work was Poems of Passion. Her most enduring work was " Soiltude", which contains the lines: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone"...
, Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
, David Ross Locke
David Ross Locke
David Ross Locke was an American journalist and early political commentator during and after the American Civil War.-Biography:...
(Petroleum V. Nasby), Ned Buntline
Ned Buntline
Ned Buntline , was a pseudonym of Edward Zane Carroll Judson , an American publisher, journalist, writer and publicist best known for his dime novels and the Colt Buntline Special he is alleged to have commissioned from Colt's Manufacturing Company.-Naval and military experience:Edward Judson was...
, and Mortimer Thomson
Mortimer Thomson
Mortimer Q. Thomson was an American journalist and humorist who wrote under the pseudonym Q. K. Philander Doesticks. He was born in Riga, New York and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan...
(Doesticks). Though most of those names are not familiar today, all became well-known popular writers of the time.
Mark Twain's first writing published in the East appeared in the Mercury in 1864 (prior to his success in 1865 with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain, his first great success as a writer, bringing him national attention. The story has also been published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" and "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"...
), and a number of additional pieces were published in 1867.
Newell, who wrote under the name "Orpheus C. Kerr" (a play on "office seeker"), served for a time as the literary editor of the Mercury, until around 1862. His satirical weekly columns started in Mercury and gained national fame, so much so that President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
once remarked of Kerr's writings that “anyone who has not read them is a heathen.”
Celebrated actress Adah Isaacs Menken
Adah Isaacs Menken
Adah Isaacs Menken was an American actress, painter and poet.-Life and career:There are significant inconsistencies in the various accounts of Menken's early life. In her autobiographical "Some Notes of her life in her own Hand,", Menken claimed she was born Marie Rachel Adelaide de Vere Spenser...
contributed a series of poems to the Mercury in 1860-61, as well as a piece praising Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
and Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman . Though the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death...
in 1860 as "centuries ahead of his contemporaries".
Starting in the mid 1870s, John W. Overall (1822-1899) served as literary editor of the paper (until at least 1890). A Southerner, Overall is best known for his pre-Civil War writing supporting the South.
Historian James W. Cook, in a 2005 compilation of writings by P. T. Barnum
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
(of circus fame, who also appeared in the Mercury), notes that in the mid 1860s, the Mercury was "ubiquitous, with a masthead claim of the largest weekly circulation in America," yet today publications such as the Mercury, which contained few illustrations, are difficult to locate in library collections.
Chronology of editors and publishers
- Editors:
- 1855: Krauth, Cauldwell & Southworth
- 1858-61: Cauldwell, Southworth & Whitney
- 1867: Cauldwell & Whitney
- 1876: William Cauldwell
- 1894: James F. Graham
- Publishers:
- 1839: E.G. Paige & J.H. Wilson
- 1839-40: Paige, Wilson & Nichols
- 1840-41: Paige & Nichols
- 1842-48: Paige, Nichols & Krauth
- 1854-55: Krauth & Cauldwell
- 1855: Krauth, Cauldwell & Southworth
- 1858-61: Cauldwell, Southworth & Whitney
- 1862-70: Cauldwell & Whitney
- 1876: William Cauldwell
- 1894: Jason Rogers, grandson of Cauldwell