Читать книгу The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier - Charles E. Flandrau - Страница 25

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Although the first message of the governor went a great way in introducing Minnesota to the world, she was particularly fortunate in the establishment of her first newspapers. The Stillwater convention of 1848, of which I have spoken, first suggested to Dr. A. Randall, who was an attache of Dr. Owen's geological corps, then engaged in a survey of this region by order of the government, the necessity of a newspaper for the new territory. He was possessed of the means and enterprise to accomplish the then rather difficult undertaking, and was promised ample support by leading men of the territory. He returned to his home in Cincinnati in the fall of 1848, intending to purchase the plant and start the paper that year, but the navigation of the rivers closed earlier than usual, and he was foiled in his attempt. He, however, set up his press in Cincinnati, and got out a number or two of his paper there. It was then called the "Minnesota Register," and appeared as of the date of April 27, 1849, and as printed in St. Paul. It was in fact printed in Cincinnati about two weeks earlier. It contained valuable articles from the pens of H. H. Sibley and Henry M. Rice. These articles, added to Mr. Randall's extensive knowledge of the country, made the first issue a great local success. It was the first Minnesota paper ever published, and bears date just one day ahead of the Pioneer, subsequently published by James M. Goodhue, which was actually printed in the territory. Dr. Randall did not carry out his intention, but was caught in the California vortex, and did not return to Minnesota.

James M. Goodhue of Lancaster, Wis., who was editing the Wisconsin Herald, when he heard of the organization of the new territory, immediately decided to start a paper in St. Paul, and as soon as navigation opened in the spring of 1849, he came up with his press and type. He met with many difficulties and obstructions, necessarily incident to a new place in a venture such as was his, but he succeeded in issuing the first number of his paper on the twenty-eighth day of April, 1849. His first inclination was to call his paper the "Epistle of St. Paul," but on sober reflection he was convinced that the name might shock the religious sensibilities of the community, especially as he did not possess many of the attributes of our patron saint, and he decided to call his paper "The Minnesota Pioneer."

In his first issue he speaks of his establishment of that day, as follows:

"We print and issue this number of the Pioneer in a building through which out-of-doors is visible by more than five hundred apertures; and as for our type, it is not safe from being pied on the galleys by the wind." The rest can be imagined.

Mr. Goodhue was just the man to be the editor of the first paper of a frontier territory. He was energetic, enterprising, brilliant, bold and belligerent. He conducted the Pioneer with great success and advantage to the territory until the year 1851, when he published an article on Judge Cooper, censuring him for absenteeism, which is a very good specimen of the editorial style of that day. He called the judge "a sot," "a brute," "an ass," "a profligate vagabond," and closed his article in the following language:

"Feeling some resentment for the wrongs our territory has so long suffered by these men, pressing upon us like a dispensation of wrath—a judgment—a curse—a plague, unequalled since Egypt went lousy—we sat down to write this article with some bitterness, but our very gall is honey to what they deserve."

In those fighting days, such an article could not fail to produce a personal collision. A brother of Judge Cooper resented the attack, and in the encounter between them, Goodhue was badly stabbed and Cooper was shot. Neither wound proved fatal at the time, but it was always asserted by the friends of each combatant, and generally believed, that they both died from the effects of these wounds.

The original Minnesota Pioneer still lives in the Pioneer Press of to-day, which is published in St. Paul. It has been continued under several names and edited by different men, but has never been extinguished or lost its relation of lineal descendant from the original Pioneer.

Nothing tends to show the phenomenal growth of Minnesota more than the fact that this first newspaper, issued in 1849, has been followed by the publication of 579 papers, which is the number now issued in the state according to the last official list obtainable. They appear daily, weekly and monthly, in nearly all written languages, English, French, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Bohemian, and one in Icelandic, published in Lyon county.

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