28 
INTRODUCTION. 
to reject invective, and to choose always facts and arguments in preference to 
scandal and recrimination. One or more newspapers were then published in the 
capital of each county, and their names will recal quite vivid recollections of 
the civil and political divisions of the state, as they then existed. 
In the city of New-York there were seven daily newspapers: The New-York 
Gazette and General Advertiser by Lang & Turner, the New-York Evening 
Post by William Coleman, the Commercial Advertiser by Zachariah Lewis, all 
of which supported the federalist party; the Public Advertiser and the Colum¬ 
bian edited by Charles Holt, devoted to the republican party ; and the American 
Citizen by James Cheetham, and the Mercantile Advertiser, which were neutral 
as to politics. There were also published in the city one semi-weekly and five 
weekly papers; these were the New-York Herald, the Spectator, the Republi¬ 
can Watchtower, the New-York Journal, the Columbian for the country, and 
the Price Current. In the city of Albany there were three semi-weekly news¬ 
papers: The Albany Gazette by Websters & Skinners, the Balance and New- 
York State Journal by Croswell & Frary, engaged in defending the policy of 
the federalists; and the Albany Register by Solomon South wick, maintaining the 
republican cause. All the other newspapers in the state were published weekly, 
and were as follows: At Sag-Harbor, the Suffolk Gazette, a republican paper by 
Alden Spooner ; at Brooklyn, the Long-Island Star, of the same politics, by 
Thomas Kirk ; at Saratoga, the Saratoga Gazette ; at. Watertown, the American 
Eagle, by Henry Coffeen; at Peekskill, the Westchester Gazette, a republican 
paper by Robert Cromble ; at Somers, the Somers Museum, a federal journal by 
Milton F. Cushing; at Goshen, the Orange County Gazette, a republican paper 
by Hopkins & Heron, and the Spirit of Seventy-six and Patriot, by Timothy B. 
Crowell; at Newburgh, the Political Index, a republican paper by Ward M. Gas- 
lay ; at Kingston, the Ulster Gazette, a federal paper by Samuel S. Freer, and 
the Plebeian, a republican journal by Jesse Buel; at Poughkeepsie, the Political 
Barometer, republican, by Joseph Nelson, and the Poughkeepsie Journal, federal, 
by Paraclete Potter ; at Hudson, the Northern Whig, federal, by Francis Steb- 
