Catoctin Clarion (Mechanicstown, Md.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
2,587 issues from 1871 to 1923, published in Thurmont, Maryland, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Catoctin Clarion, published weekly, took its name from the Catoctin Mountain ridge located west of Mechanicstown in Frederick County, Maryland. Mechanicstown had a strong industrial influence at the time of the newspaper’s founding in 1871. The nearby Catoctin Iron Works had a long history dating to the 18th century, and the town’s first resident, Jacob Weller, established iron tool manufacturing and a friction match works that employed large numbers of skilled laborers or mechanics. Tanneries and woolen mills also flourished in Mechanicstown.
William Need founded the Clarion and stated in the inaugural issue of March 4, 1871, his intent to establish an independent newspaper that would serve the interests of citizens in the northern part of Frederick County. His new enterprise coincided with the arrival of the Western Maryland Rail Road, which helped connect goods manufactured in Mechanicstown to larger markets. Although politically unaffiliated, the paper supported Horace Greeley’s candidacy in the 1872 presidential election. Ill health forced Need to sell the Clarion in 1875 to Alexander P. Beatty, a young printer from Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Ownership passed to Edgar L. Root and Charles E. Cassell in 1879. Cassel, who served as editor, was a native of nearby Carroll County, Maryland, and a Dickinson College graduate. He assumed sole proprietorship of the newspaper in 1882 and continued in that capacity until 1905.
As editor of the Catoctin Clarion, Cassell became…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Thurmont, Maryland, 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