NEWS

​Many of us grew up in a time when a daily newspaper appeared regularly on our front doorsteps. Since then, due to the proliferation of online news, many of these venerable papers have ceased to exist; in addition, most traditional newspapers now have an online presence. Add in television and the internet, and we’re literally drowning in news.

Such was not the case in the early days of North Carolina. The Colony of Carolina, made up of present-day North and South Carolina, was chartered in 1629 and became an official province in 1663. In 1712, it was split, and the province of North Carolina came into being.

It wasn’t until 1751, much later than in other British Colonies, that North Carolina would have its first newspaper; it was decades later that papers began to appear in the interior of the state.

The first newspaper was James Davis’ North-Carolina Gazette, first published in New Bern on August 9, 1751. In the next 27 years, a variety of newspapers appeared in the coastal region, but at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, only five were still circulating, and from 1778-1783 there were none published in the state.

This meant that information about the ongoing war was available only through papers like the Virginia Gazette and newspapers from farther afield, including New York and Philadelphia. Due to the exigencies of travel, the “news” was often weeks old.

After the war, newspapers began to appear in the interior of the state. Among these were Hillsborough’s North Carolina Gazette (1785) and Salisbury’s North Carolina Mercury and Salisbury Advertiser (1797). By 1799 Raleigh boasted two papers, the Register and the Minerva.

Regional news was scarce in these early publications, and sometimes they came out at will instead of daily or weekly. The Gazette, for instance, was intended to be weekly but came out sporadically at first. Its October 6, 1785, edition gives an idea of what was covered. Only four pages long, it was filled mostly with a long letter (dated in June) about the profitability of indigo and a long reprint from a May edition of the London General Advertiser.

One page consisted of ads about lands and goods for sale. On page 3, the publisher included a disclaimer that shows the difficult circumstances of the newspaper business. Apologizing for the small size of the paper, he noted unforeseen circumstances, “A wagon in which a fresh supply of paper was expected has been flopped by the late heavy rains; and other unavoidable accidents have delayed it.”

The Salisbury paper was also weekly and was available for $2 per year. Most papers were picked up by subscribers at the printing shop, but if you lived at a distance from town, you were charged $1.75 per year and had to pay the postage; you were assured that papers would be delivered “with the utmost punctuality.”

As for payment, “Country produce…at Market Price” would be accepted as payment for both subscriptions and advertisements. The Mercury’s two-page December 5, 1799, edition included a front page entirely made up of reprints from the British Review and the Gazette of the United States. The British Review article continued onto the second page. The next week, December 12, it was longer, with four pages. It included reprints from Bombay, Stuttgart, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Savannah, and Augusta. There were also a few ads and public notices, and an obituary appeared for David Polk McRee of Mecklenburg County.

As early as 1780, during the debate over the U.S. Constitution, newspapers had begun to support political parties or social causes. The Salisbury Advertiser first supported the Republican Party, and then the Whig Party. On the Democratic side were the Raleigh Standard and Winston Salem’s Western Sentinel. Raleigh’s Spirit of the Age, published from1849-1871, supported the temperance movement. Other papers espoused building railroads in North Carolina or establishing public education

The first newspaper in Charlotte appeared in the nineteenth-century.

This paper, the Catawba Journal, was published between 1824 and 1828. Like other local newspapers, its March 14, 1826, issue consisted mostly of reprints from other newspapers, public notices, and ads.

Next to appear was the Miners’ and Farmers’ Journal (1830-34), which was renamed the Charlotte Journal around 1835. It was openly Whig, clearly indicated by its slogan “A Union of the Whigs For the State of the Union.” The Journal’s name was changed to the North Carolina Whig in 1851; it ceased publication in 1863.

Other Charlotte papers were the Mecklenburg Jeffersonian (1841-1849), and the Hornet’s Nest and True Southron (1850-51). The Western Democrat, a Democratic paper, was founded in 1852, and below the masthead was printed “A Family Paper—Devoted to Politics, Literature, Agriculture, Manufactures, Mining, and News.”

The first issue, published on January 28, 1853, was four pages long and included, along with many advertisements, news of Charlotte and the region, an obituary, and poetry. It became the Charlotte Democrat in 1871; between 1881 and 1887, it was the Charlotte Home and Democrat, reverting to the Charlotte Democrat in1887. With its local and regional news, it increasingly resembled the newspapers of today.

The only nineteenth-century Charlotte newspaper still in existence today is the Charlotte Observer. It was founded in 1886 as the Charlotte Chronicle and was renamed the Charlotte Daily Observer in 1892. As for Davidson, there was no regular newspaper until the appearance of the weekly Mecklenburg Gazette in 1948. Alas, the Gazette has disappeared, and the Observer is but a shadow of its former self.

For more information, see the article on newspapers in the North Carolina Encyclopedia: “Newspapers.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press.  Accessed on May 8th, 2025.