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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper Martinsburg Gazette (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1886-1887

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About Martinsburg Gazette (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1886-1887

Sharing the name of, but otherwise lacking continuity with, several earlier nineteenth-century papers, the Martinsburg Gazette began in its titular city, the seat of Berkeley County, West Virginia, in 1886. The Gazette was a weekly published and edited by Frank Vernon Aler, who had apprenticed for the Martinsburg Independent as a teenager several years prior. The Gazette‘s first nine issues were released in the Fall, usually on Saturdays. By issue 10, published January 14, 1887, however, the Gazette had achieved a consistent schedule, coming out every Friday. In the Gazette‘s third issue, released October 30, 1886, Aler announced that he had purchased the paper from local grocer A.L. Martin, whom the Independent had namechecked as its owner back in June.

The Gazette‘s motto was “Justice and Honor” and claimed to be: “An Independent Semi-Monthly Newspaper devoted to the interests of the people of Martinsburg and its vicinity.” But given Aler’s warm reception by the editors of nearby Charles Town’s Democratic newspaper Spirit of Jefferson, this claim might be called into question. Extant issues of the Gazette are all at least eight pages, and by early 1887, its price was set to $1.00 per year. By that time, Aler had incorporated under “F. Vernon Aler & Co.” to publish it, while also listing “Geo. R. Wisong” on the masthead.

On March 21, 1887, Aler’s company began publishing the four-page Martinsburg Daily Gazette. A few days later, on March 25, the Shepherdstown Register commented that Martinsburg ought to be able to “support” at least one daily. Just over a week afterwards, on April 4, the Daily Gazette reprinted a notice from the Grafton Sentinel clarifying that the weekly edition of the Gazette had been “merged” into the daily.

The Daily Gazette ran for 113 issues, its last being published on July 30, 1887. That same day, the Independent reported that Aler had been arrested following a physical altercation. The final issue of the Daily Gazette clarified that Aler’s company would still be printing an eight-page weekly called the News-Letter (seemingly begun in late June/early July), plus a journal for a local AME church, and the Association News for the Martinsburg YMCA. The August 9 issue of Spirit even ” … welcome[d] to [its] exchange list the Martinsburg News Letter ….” Yet on August 20th, the Independent reported that Aler’s publishing company had been dissolved; nevertheless, the Association News appears to have continued until at least 1908.

Despite this turn of events, Aler would go on to have a successful career as a lawyer, and he wrote a history of Berkeley County. He briefly reentered the publishing business in Martinsburg in 1891 with the World, the daily and weekly editions of which he would control until his exit from printing altogether in 1893. James Morton Callahan’s biography of Aler in the 1923 edition of History of West Virginia, Old and New, fails to even mention Aler’s time at the papers, apart from his boyhood apprenticeship.

Provided By: West Virginia University

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Martinsburg Gazette (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1886-1887

Dates of Publication

  • 1886-1887

Created / Published

  • Martinsburg, W. Va. : F. Vernon Aler, -1887.

Headings

  • -  Martinsburg (W. Va.)--Newspapers
  • -  Berkeley County (W. Va.)--Newspapers
  • -  West Virginia--Berkeley County
  • -  West Virginia--Martinsburg
  • -  United States--West Virginia--Berkeley--Martinsburg

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly, Jan. 1887-
  • -  Began in 1886.
  • -  -v. 1, no. 17 (Mar. 4, 1887).
  • -  Available on microfilm from West Virginia University Library and Bell & Howell Micro Photo Div.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Martinsburg daily gazette (Martinsburg, W. Va. : 1887) 2832-3084 (DLC)sn 85059532 (OCoLC)12659958

Medium

  • v. : ill.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn97066538

OCLC Number

  • 37302952

ISSN Number

  • 2832-3106

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

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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:

Martinsburg Gazette Martinsburg, W. Va. -1887. (Martinsburg, WV), Jan. 1 1886. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn97066538/.

APA citation style:

(1886, January 1) Martinsburg Gazette Martinsburg, W. Va. -1887. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn97066538/.

MLA citation style:

Martinsburg Gazette Martinsburg, W. Va. -1887. (Martinsburg, WV) 1 Jan. 1886. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn97066538/.