  The Weekly Arizonian (The Weekly Arizonian) [Click on image for larger view.] Printing began in Arizona with the establishment of The Weekly Arizonian, at the mining town of Tubac, on March 3, 1859. The Santa Rita Mining Company, which owned this newspaper, had imported the first press from Cincinnati, and the first printers are said to have been employees of the company named Jack Sims and George Smithson. The Library of Congress file of the Arizonian starts with the issue of August 18, 1859, the earliest example of Arizona printing now held by the Library. The paper had removed from Tubac to Tucson shortly before that date under rather dramatic circumstances. Edward E. Cross, its first editor, vigorously opposed a movement in favor of separating Arizona from New Mexico and organizing it as an independent territory. In attacking population statistics put forward by Sylvester Mowry, the leader of that movement, Cross impugned Mowry's character, whereupon Mowry challenged him to a duel, which was fought with rifles on July 8 without injury to either party. Mowry subsequently purchased the printing press and moved it to Tucson. Under a new editor, J. Howard Wells, the Arizonian's positions were completely reversed. The issue of August 18 supports the candidacy of Sylvester Mowry for delegate to Congress, in an election scheduled for September 1. In view of past events it was understandable that the paper should encourage a heavy vote, not only to demonstrate the unity of Arizonians desiring Territorial status, but also to indicate the extent of the population. The following short article relates to the recurrent topic of numbers: A SLIGHT MISTAKE We understand Col. Bonneville says he has taken the names of all the Americans, between the Rio Grande and the Santa Cruz, and they number only one hundred and eighty. Come and pay us a longer visit, Colonel, and count again. There are nearly that number in and around Tucson alone, and there are a good many of us that dislike to be denationalized in so summary a manner. The Overland Mail Company alone, employs some seventy five Americans, between here and the Rio Grande, and they justly think, they have a right to be included, as well as the farmers living on the San Pedro and the Miembres rivers, it is hardly fair to leave them out. It is In the same issue is a notice illustrating the production difficulties characteristic of a frontier press: We have to apologize to the readers of the Arizonian, for the delay in issuing this our regular number; the detention has been unavoidably caused, by the indisposition of our printer. We hope it may not occur again, and will not as far as lays in our power to prevent it. When examined as recently as 1932, a Library of Congress binding contained 10 issues of the Arizonian from the year 1859, beginning July 14; however, that early issue has been missing from the binding at least since 1948. One mark of provenance occurs among the remaining issues: an inscription on the issue of August 18, the upper half of which has been cut away but which unquestionably reads, "Gov Rencher." The recipient was Abraham Rencher (1798-1883), a distinguished North Carolinian who was serving as Governor of the Territory of New Mexico in 1859. By whatever route, these issues reached the Library early enough to be recorded in A Check List of American Newspapers in the Library of Congress (1901). Column from Arizonian (Column from Arizonian) |
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