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A Publisher's Ambitious Start

Island's first newspaper dishes a portion of humor, knowledge and . . . news

By Andrew Smith | Staff Writer

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On the afternoon of May 10, 1791, in an unassuming house on Main Street in Sag Harbor, David Frothingham finished setting four pages of type by hand, cranked his hand-operated press and hoped for the best.

The 26-year-old printer, recently arrived from Boston, was Long Island's first newspaper publisher. And its first editor. And its first reporter. And its first ad salesman. And its first paper boy.

For the next 7 1/2 years after that Tuesday afternoon, Frothingham's Long-Island Herald would be Long Island's only newspaper.

In appearance and content, the Herald was typical for the time. It was a single sheet of durable rag paper, folded into four 8-by-17-inch pages. Page one of that first issue contained items on the value of a free press, on happiness, on religion, on how to prevent unhappy marriages: ``1. Let every man who marries a person young enough to be his grand-daughter be deemed an ideot . . . ''

And it featured Frothingham's introduction to his public.

The fledgling editor pledged to make the Herald ``a useful repository of knowledge, humour, and entertainment; while Vice, the bane of society . . . though cloathed with the garb of authority, will be branded with every mark of infamy.''

He chose as his motto a quote from Alexander Pope's ``Essay on Man'': ``Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise.''

The year before Frothingham arrived, President George Washington had named Henry Packer Dering, scion of an East End mercantile family, collector of the new port of Sag Harbor. Like many prominent men of the time, Dering decided to establish a newspaper -- giving himself a voice in the debate over how the nation should evolve and a tool to lobby the infant government.

But before he could have a newspaper, Dering needed someone to run it. His search for a printer led him to Boston, where he tried to convince Frothingham, a journeyman printer, to come to Long Island to publish a newspaper.

Frothingham's goal of providing Long Islanders with ``knowledge, humour, and entertainment'' was an ambitious one, but didn't leave much room for news. Amid the philosophical essays, poems and political treatises, news was confined to pages two and three, and the bulk of it was weeks-old articles reprinted from American and overseas newspapers. News of local events often was rendered tersely -- if at all.

``It is with regret we inform the public, that in almost every town on this end of the Island it is very sickly, insomuch that in many families there are not well enough to take care of the sick,'' a typical grammatically twisted item read in its entirety.

Frothingham soon hired post riders to deliver the Herald to subscribers all over Long Island. It even had readers in New York, where it was shipped by boat. Indeed, it soon boasted advertisements from several city businesses. Other ads promoted ships sailing to New London, Conn., and New York, local dry goods stores and land for sale. Some notices sought the return of runaway slaves.

The Herald soon gained momentum, but financial success clearly eluded Frothingham. He charged the equivalent of one dollar a year for the paper but also accepted produce as payment. Although he didn't lack for readers, subscribers who paid their bills on time were somewhat scarce.

``The Printer earnestly requests all those indebted to him for Newspapers, to make immediate payment, as he is much in want of Money at the present time,'' Frothingham wrote in the June 8, 1795, issue. ``It is impossible for him to wait on his subscribers at their houses, without neglecting other business.''

Further hindering Frothingham was his difficulty in obtaining paper. He regularly asked his readers for old rags, the raw material for cotton paper. During paper shortages, Frothingham would reduce the size of the Herald or not even print it for one or two weeks.

Much of the news that did make The Herald was devoted to events in the nation and Europe. Certainly, with Sag Harbor's reliance on trade, that news was compelling. The revolution in France and war between France and Britain were as important to the port town of Sag Harbor as burglaries in Southampton.

The federal government's attitude toward France and Britain was watched carefully by Frothingham, Dering and the rest of Sag Harbor. When President John Adams and his administration negotiated treaties accommodating the British, the Herald reflected the local anger still remaining toward Britain. The Herald was suspicious, as well, of Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton who resisted sharing political power with citizens.

Coupled with his always precarious finances, however, Frothingham's anti-administration slant soon made publishing the Herald an unacceptable risk for his patron, Dering. The administration of John Adams won passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, making it illegal to publish ``any false, scandalous, and malicious writing . . . against the government of the United States.'' With no fanfare, the last issue of the Herald was issued Dec. 17 that year.