Page:History of Warren County.djvu/290

 made his paper one of the leading Democratic journals of the State and a power in the party. Mr. Harris is a clear and incisive writer, and from his stock of broad information on general matters, gives his paper an unusually interesting character.

H. M. Harris, proprietor of the Republican, was born in Schenectady on the I2th of May, 1833. He began his apprenticeship as a printer in the office of the Granville Telegraph, a weekly published at Granville, Washington county, in 1849; this paper was the especial organ of the Washington County Mutual Insurance Company, then doing the largest business of any insurance company in the world, issuing as many as one thousand policies a week. He remained there two years and in January, 1851, came to Glens Falls and finished his apprenticeship on the Glens Falls Free Press, under Zabina Ellis. The next year Mr. Harris proceeded to New York for the purpose of perfecting himself in the art of job printing, and assisted in the publication of a political campaign paper in Brooklyn in the Scott and Pierce campaign. Returning to Glens Falls after an absence of two years, he became foreman for Messrs. Hall & Little, on the Republican, which he soon after purchased, as above narrated. Under his administration of nearly thirty years the Republican has been remarkably successful; it was enlarged in June, 1873, to its present handsome proportions. The establishment passed through the great fire of 1864, and did not lose an issue. In an editorial in a number succeeding the fire, Mr. Harris wrote as follows:

"Like the Messenger, our material, presses, etc., were nearly all destroyed; but the next day after the fire an extra was issued by the Republican from the Sandy Hill Herald office, and two or three numbers succeeding were issued from the same office." The new material was at once purchased and the paper re-established as previous to the fire.

This was an era of ephemeral journals. In 1853 a single edition of 3,000 copies of a paper called the Glens Falls Advertiser was issued from the office of the Free Press for George C. Mott & Co. It was an advertising sheet containing some original literary and historical matter and an exposition of the business interests and resources of Glens Falls. Jackson & Seymour, under their firm name, issued a similar paper in 1854. In October, 1853, the first number of a literary monthly called The American Standard, was issued from the Republican office. It was edited by Holdridge & Wait, but was not a pecuniary success, and died with the eighth number. In 1855 the Hon. A. N. Cheney purchased a new font of type and a press for James Kelley, who began the publication of the Warren County Whig. The paper soon collapsed.

On January 2d the following year the Rev. A. D. Milne, who for some months had been engaged in the publication of a Baptist monthly called The Star of Destiny, purchased the Whig office and started the Glens Falls Messenger. Mr. Milne was of Scotch descent, and possessed more than ordinary