Old Marietta Papers - Number 6

The Marietta Register, October 30, 1863

"Old Marietta Papers" was a series of columns compiled and published in 1863 and 1864 by Rodney M. Stimson, editor of "The Marietta Register."

The late Caleb Emerson sold out his "Western Spectator," and the paper was continued under a new name - "American Friend" - which name was continued twenty years, from 1813 to 1833. The first number of the Friend belongs to the Register Office, together with scattering subsequent numbers. William S. Ward owns the complete files for the twenty years, bought from the late Royal Prentiss, who became connected with the paper in April, 1814, and remained in it nineteen years. Mr. Ward has kindly loaned us the files and we shall make notes therefrom as may interest our readers. It may here be remarked that Mr. Prentiss worked upon the first paper printed in Marietta - "The Ohio Gazette" - Nov. 30, 1801.

The "American Friend" was first issued April 24, 1813. It was edited by David Everett, Esq. Printed by T. G. Ransom for D. Everett, T. Buell and D. H. Buell. Price, $2.50 a year, payable half in advance. Its motto was that now so trite: "United we stand, Divided we fall."

David Everett was a native of New Hampshire. He read law at Amherst in that state and went to Boston, and there attained no little reputation as an editor. He had devoted himself to literary pursuits from his early years and was a very fine writer - independent and vigorous. He was the author of the lines so famous among school boys:

"You'd scarce expect one of my age

To speak in public on the stage;

If I should chance to fall below

Demosthenes or Cicero,

Don't view me with a critic's eye,

But pass my imperfections by;" &c.

Mr. Everett's health had failed somewhat, and he left Boston for a milder climate in January, 1813, and arrived in Marietta in the following March. He began his editorial labors here in April, but finished his earthly career within eight months. He died in this place, Tuesday, Dec. 21, 1813, of consumption, aged 44. He was buried with Masonic honors. Mrs. Everett died in New Ipswich, N. H., in January, 1859, having survived her husband over 45 years. She was a sister of Hon. Nathan Appleton, a distinguished merchant of Boston and Representative in Congress.

Mr. Everett was a Republican of that day and conducted the paper as a supporter of Madison's Administration; Mr. Emerson had conducted its predecessor, the "Western Spectator," as a Federalist paper. Marietta has never had, connected with its press, two writers of more ability than Caleb Emerson and David Everett; yet the labor of an editor of that time was but trifling compared with what is at present required - so great a variety is now demanded, so many news and local items, a single paragraph of six or ten lines taking half an hour, a whole hour, or even more, to chase down the facts. The old style of editing a paper was to write a single long article, perhaps two, or none at all, and fill up with some public document and a few selections, and in place of local matter there was column after column of foreign news, clipped bodily from Eastern papers - anything else but "home news."

The first number of the "American Friend" contains Mr. Everett's salutatory, a column in length; a leader upon "The War," that of 1812, nearly three columns; an article of two and a half columns on the "American War," from Cobbett's Weekly Political Register; several other articles of no interest at this day; and three advertisements - in all just 33 articles, items, and advertisements, of every description in the entire paper. A single column of the Register some times contains that many items, news or local, while our issue of last week, which had no more than an average, contained 290 separate articles, items, and advertisements.