Sunbury American (Sunbury, Pa.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,127 issues from 1848 to 1876, published in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal was born in response to a political emergency but lived on to become the oldest 19th-century newspaper in Sunbury, the seat of Northumberland County. What became Sunbury was once Shamokin, a cluster of three villages and the Indian capital of central Pennsylvania under Shikellemy, chief of the Six Nations. The area was the westernmost settlement in Pennsylvania in 1724 and the site of Fort Augusta in 1756. Sunbury was the seventh and last proprietary town in Pennsylvania, laid out in 1772 for the heirs of William Penn, who owned the property and sold the original lots. Located near the confluence of the north and west branches of the Susquehanna River, Sunbury became a port on the Pennsylvania Canal and a major railroad center. The area boomed with the development of local anthracite coal mines and various industries such as textile mills. Thomas Edison installed the first successful three-wire electrical lighting system in the United States in Sunbury, illuminating the City Hotel on July 4, 1883.
Northumberland County in the 1830s was overwhelmingly Democratic, and receiving a nomination from the party was tantamount to winning the election. This meant that any campaign battles took place at the nominating convention. Twice-elected state legislator Charles W. Hegins, taking re-nomination for granted, was surprised to be preempted by a rival candidate from Milton at the 1840 county Democratic convention. The upstart was supported…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Sunbury, Pennsylvania, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress