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Newspaper New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture (Manchester, N.H.) 1858-1863

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About New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture (Manchester, N.H.) 1858-1863

The Dollar Weekly Mirror, later retitled the Mirror and Farmer, was a Manchester-based agricultural newspaper that ran from 1851 to 1918. The paper, considered by many contemporaries to be the most important newspaper in Manchester by the end of the nineteenth century, could trace its roots to the merger of seven different Manchester weeklies. The Mirror also had a long-running daily counterpart, the Daily Mirror and American, itself a merger of two dailies. At their height, the weekly and daily Mirror boasted the widest readership of any agricultural newspaper in New England outside of Boston, with a combined circulation of 65,000 copies.

While Manchester would grow into a major industrial hub by 1900, its agrarian roots meant a broad demand for agricultural publications in the mid 1800s. Thomas R. Crosby, a practicing Manchester physician, issued the first number of his new agricultural paper, the Manchester Granite Farmer, on February 26, 1850. In his first editorial, Crosby wrote: “We have looked to other places for our markets… and depended upon the journals of other sections of the country for our information. All this is now to be changed.” In January 1852, the Concord Farmer’s Monthly Visitor, a monthly agricultural journal put out by the late publisher and political figure Isaac Hill, resumed publication in Manchester with editor Chandler E. Potter. By 1854, the two papers had merged into the Granite Farmer and Visitor, later becoming the Granite State Farmer. In 1859, William H. Gilmore and Warren Martin purchased the Farmer, and retitled it the New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture. This weekly would eventually be merged with other titles to become the Mirror and Farmer.

The first significant daily newspaper in Manchester, the Daily Mirror, was founded by Joseph C. Emerson in 1850. A year later Emerson founded a weekly edition, the Dollar Weekly Mirror. John Badger Clarke (1820-1891), a farmer, lawyer, and gold prospector, came on as editor of both papers in 1852, and soon afterwards Clarke bought out Emerson when the latter’s fireworks manufactory went up in smoke, financially ruining him. Abbot, Jenks & Co., publishers of the Manchester American & Messenger, one of Manchester’s oldest weeklies, began to issue a daily edition of their paper, the Daily American, in 1852. This would later become the Daily Manchester American. Abbot, Jenks & Co. eventually sold both their daily and weekly papers to John Goodale, then owner of the Manchester Democrat. Goodale, all but exiled from the Democratic Party at that time for his abolitionist beliefs, retitled the merged weekly the Democrat and American.

In 1863 Clarke, then owner of the daily and weekly Mirror, sensed an opportunity to consolidate various prominent Manchester papers under one family. He purchased the Daily American, the weekly Democrat and American, and the New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture, combining the two weeklies with his Dollar Weekly Mirror to form the Dollar Weekly Mirror and New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture, and the daily with his Daily Mirror to create the Daily Mirror and American. In 1865, the weekly’s title was simplified to the Mirror and Farmer.

By 1885, Clarke’s Mirror and Farmer had grown into the second largest agricultural and family journal in New England. The daily Mirror and American was the city’s pre-eminent paper, and enjoyed a circulation of 26,000 copies, outstripping its Democratic rival the Daily Union. In the lead-up to the Civil War, the Mirror had been politically non-partisan, but at the outset of the fighting, the paper came out on the side of the Lincoln administration. Under Clarke’s editorial hand, the papers remained aligned with Republicans afterwards.

John Clarke was immensely successful as a publisher, and by the 1880s, he was the wealthiest person in Manchester. When he purchased the weekly Mirror from Joseph Emerson in 1852, it had a small circulation of only 900 copies. By the turn of the century, the Mirror boasted nearly 40,000 circulating copies. After his death in 1891, Clarke was succeeded by his sons, Arthur (1854-1921) and William Clarke (1856-1933). Arthur maintained control of the paper and editor’s chair for nearly thirty years, with William serving as Manchester’s mayor from 1894 to 1902. By the early 1910s, as the milling industry continued to expand in Manchester, the Mirror and Farmer was increasingly eclipsed by other weekly and daily competitors. In 1917, the daily Mirror circulated only 4,500 daily copies, while its rival dailies the Union and Manchester Leader circulated over 22,000 copies combined. Both the daily and weekly Mirror ended their runs in 1918.

Provided By: Dartmouth College

About this Newspaper

Title

  • New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture (Manchester, N.H.) 1858-1863

Dates of Publication

  • 1858-1863

Created / Published

  • Manchester, N.H. : Gilmore & Martin.

Headings

  • -  Agriculture--Newspapers
  • -  Manchester (N.H.)--Newspapers
  • -  Agriculture
  • -  New Hampshire--Manchester
  • -  United States--New Hampshire--Hillsborough--Manchester

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Dec. 11, 1858)-v. 5, no. 7 (Jan. 12, 1863).
  • -  Dollar weekly mirror (DLC)sn 84023818 (OCoLC)11042013
  • -  Dollar weekly mirror and New Hampshire journal of agriculture (DLC)sn 84023819 (OCoLC)11042074

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • S1

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn90062042

OCLC Number

  • 21682171

Preceding Titles

Succeeding Titles

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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:

New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture Manchester, N.H. -1863. (Manchester, NH), Jan. 1 1858. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn90062042/.

APA citation style:

(1858, January 1) New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture Manchester, N.H. -1863. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn90062042/.

MLA citation style:

New Hampshire Journal of Agriculture Manchester, N.H. -1863. (Manchester, NH) 1 Jan. 1858. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn90062042/.