Since 1826, Jamestown has had at least one newspaper produced in town. In June 1826, the Jamestown Journal was first published by Adolphus Fletcher. He continued until 1846 when his son, John W. Fletcher, became the proprietor for two years. After that it was in the hands of a number of partners, had a few name changes, went from a weekly to a twice weekly, to a daily and a weekly and other combinations of issues, and merged in 1941 with the Morning Post to become the Jamestown Post-Journal now The Post-Journal. For the complete history, see Helen Ebersole’s book, “An Impressive Record,” available for sale at the Fenton History Center’s gift shop.

During the first four decades of the Jamestown Journal, Jamestown saw a number of newspapers come and go. The first newspaper in the county, The Chautauqua Gazette, was published in Fredonia beginning in 1817. A second newspaper in Jamestown was The Chautauqua Republican, started in 1828 by Morgan Bates.

It continued under other leadership until 1833 when it passed to S. S. C. Hamilton and moved to Mayville where it was named The Republican Banner but was discontinued after a few months. As a result of the Liberty Party (an abolition political party) starting in the late 1840s, The Liberty Star began publication in Jamestown by Harvey A. Smith in 1847 and supported the abolition cause. In 1849, it passed to Adolphus Fletcher and the name was changed to The Northern Citizen and soon became The Chautauqua Democrat, which continued until the 1890s.

Through the years, there have been many other newspapers in the county, some of which were located in Jamestown. Many were short lived or changed names as ownership changed. The newspaper information for Chautauqua County and all the others counties up to 1860 is found in the Gazetteer of the State of New York, by J. H. French, published in 1860. After that that it is harder to find what newspapers were published where and what happened to each.

After the Civil War, Jamestown saw a number of newspapers come and go. There was the Jamestown Call, and the Jamestown Daily All and the All, just to confuse things. We had the Jamestown Sun in the 1880s along with the Jamestown Sun and Standard and then in the 1950s, we had the Jamestown Sun again. There were a number of others.

In the Special Collection at the Fenton History Center’s Research Center, we have a number of these newspapers represented by a few issues of many of the different ones. Unfortunately, we do not have entire runs of any of them. Through the Library of Congress an effort was made a number of years ago to identify who had what papers in their collections and a bibliography was assembled. Because in the old days news traveled by newspaper, it is possible to find newspapers in collections far from the point of origin.

News was copied from one newspaper to another. Often, especially with death notices, there was included a line such as “Connecticut papers please copy.” That way, that death or other news that would be of interest to people somewhere in Connecticut would reach a newspaper or other places there.

Because of the poor quality of paper used for newspapers after the Civil War, preservation and storage and later, accessibility of newspapers became difficult. Thankfully some were kept and were eventually microfilmed as that technology advanced. Today many microfilms as well as actual newspapers are being digitized and many are available on the Internet some on free sites and some on paid subscription sites.

The item in the collection at the Fenton History Center that spurred this article was the front page of the Jamestown Morning Star, published on Sept. 10, 1962. This was Volume 1, No. 1 of the new newspaper in Jamestown. Earlier that year the Jamestown Sun ceased publication after more than a decade of being the morning newspaper in Jamestown. The Jamestown Morning Star survived about two years as an independent newspaper.