Page:History of the newspapers of Beaver County, Pennsylvania.djvu/21

 THE EARLY PAPERS OF BEAVER. ravages of time, the first of the papers yet in existence being in a good state of preservation. The papers of this period are believed to be the same in mechanical equipment, and each the regular successor of the preceding one ; being the same in size and general make up, type the same generally, but changed in name of paper and editor, combining in the course of eleven years in making the "Western Argus." The latter is the legitimate successor of the "Minerva" through the ups and downs of the enterprising gentlemen who attempted to fill the journalistic want of the day, and all' failed except the Logans, who passed the "Argus" on its way to the Henrys, who kept the name given the paper in 1818. ilr. Berry named his paper the "Minerva;" Mr. White who followed him changed it to the "Western Cabinet:" and when he laid down the burden, the Logans took it up but dropped the name and called it the "Crisis;" and after five years of hard work, disappointment and partial success only, they changed the name to the "Western Argus," the name never lost except for a few weeks, in the eighty-seven years that have followed ; and when they tired of the responsibility, James Logan in 1825 trans- ferred the paper to Thomas Henry, who kept the name intact. The modern journalist would hardy submit to such conditions, and none but the newspaper pioneers of the ever receding west, during the century that has just closed, have known the real hardships, genuine priva- tions, and depths of discouragement, that the early news- paper men of the county experienced. And these men who started papers were not ig-norant upstarts, who led by the hope of political reward ventured beyond their literary depths, but in every case were men of intellectual strength and culture, whose virile ^vritings compare favorably with the best of the present day, with all our