The Rensselaer Gazette

A few weeks ago I mentioned that old Rensselaer newspapers on microfilm at the Rensselaer Library had been digitized and were now available on the Hoosier State Chronicles. At that time not all of the issues had made it to the Internet, but now they  have. The oldest issues are from the Jasper Banner in 1853 and the second oldest are from The Rensselaer Gazette in 1858. The Gazette began publishing in 1857 but the first year of the paper seems not to have survived. The preserved issues end in 1860.

The editor of the Gazette was D. F. Davies. I searched for him on findagrave.com and found two of his very young children buried in Weston Cemetery, but he, who died in 1865, is buried in Granville, Ohio.

The history of early newspapers in Rensselaer can be found in A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties (1916). Below are a couple of excerpts.

The very old newspapers were all weeklies and they contain very little local news. The Gazette (and others) had some state, national, and foreign news, but also short stories, poetry, and agricultural advice. I suspect Rensselaer and Jasper County in the 1850s were small enough so the local news was widely shared orally, so it may not have been as interesting to the locals as news from the wider world. Most of what can be considered local news was in the form of ads. (The population of Rensselaer was 241 in 1850 and in 1860 535.)

On the front page (each issue of the paper had four pages) there was a column on the left side that was called "Business Cards" Some of them were from Lafayette, Indianapolis, and New Bradford. (Recognize New Bradford? It was the community that adopted the name Monon when it was incorporated.) Below are some of the Rensselaer cards.

Hopkins died young. I think Spitler was George W Spitler, an interesting character who was featured on the first Weston Cemetery Walk. Everyone from Rensselaer should recognize the name Milroy.

The McCoy bank was already in business in 1858. The Thomas McCoy involved in the bankrupcy of this bank in 1904 was the grandson of the McCoy listed here.

Page three and four were mostly a mix of legal notices with local, area, state, and national ads.

John M Austin died in 1877. His son was a prominent lawyer in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Isaac Stackhouse left Rensselaer for greener fields in Lafayette and then near Indianapolis. His daughter, Eleanor, was a prominent author featured  in the 2021 Weston Cemetery Walk.

Ambrotype and melainotype were early photography technologies.

I am not sure which Thompson is mentioned here. 

The Gazette rarely published obituaries, but made an exception for Benjamin Henkle. He served in the State Legislature from Lafayette; I wonder what prompted him to leave and move to the little village of Rensselaer.

I was intrigued by the typeface in the masthead.

 I searched for a digitized version but could not find one, so I decided, based on a very limited sample of characters, to create what the typeface may have looked like. (Typography is a hobby of mine, the subject of a different blog.) I have replaced the picture at the top of the blog with a new version showing this typeface.