4 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



opposition in The Chronicle, a Whig paper, edited and pubHshed 

 by Dr. R. H. Thompson, sometime heahh officer of the port. 



The Repubhcan ran for a few years under Mr. Hagadorn's man- 

 agement but was finally consolidated with another paper and lost 

 its identity. The Staten Islander was the next paper to make its 

 appearance here. John J. Adams was its editor and publisher. 



The New York and Richmond County Free Press was started 

 about 1832, by William Hagadorn, formerly of the Republican. 

 Under the editorial head, on June 13, 1835, the following ticket 

 appeared : " For President, Martin Van Buren, of New York ; for 

 Vice-President, Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky." Editorial 

 comment was made concerning the order of President Jackson to 

 the effect that "public officers must pay their debts, or suffer 

 immediate removal." A great deal is said about the tariff. On 

 October 3 this item appeared : " A farmer on Staten Island, whose 

 fertile grounds we were admiring at the time, informed us that 

 when he first came into possession of his farm, there was but 

 one blade of grass within its precincts, and that a famished grass- 

 hopper was perched upon that, making his dying prayer." 



The Free Press was superseded by the Plaindealer, of which the 

 first number was issued on December 3, 1836. Its chief mission 

 seemed to be to attack slavery, and it carried on the work in a 

 very vigorous manner. 



The first newspaper really printed on Staten Island was the 

 Richmond County Mirror, which made its appearance in July 

 1837. Francis L. Hagadorn was its editor and proprietor, and its 

 publication office was located on Richmond Terrace, New Brighton, 

 somewhere between York Avenue and Belmont Hall. It con- 

 tained eight pages of three columns each, was ably edited and 

 neatly printed. The editor was the son of the publisher of the 

 Free Press, and he too had been connected with that paper. I 

 quote from his first editorial : 



" In commencing the arduous duties of a public journalist, we 

 reverently bow to the ' usages ' and time-honored customs so re- 

 ligiously observed in such matters, and herewith essay to make 



