Yorkville Enquirer (Yorkville, S.C.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
4,910 issues from 1855 to 1926, published in York, South Carolina, digitised for Chronicling America.
For over 150 years, the Yorkville Enquirer served the communities of Hickory Grove, McConnells, Sharon, Smyrna, and Yorkville (present-day York), located in York County, South Carolina. Through much of its existence, the Enquirer was edited and published by the Grist family, so much so that the family and the newspaper were nearly synonymous in the minds of Yorkville residents. John E. Grist, the family patriarch, had previously worked for the Pendleton Messenger before relocating to Yorkville. In the 1840s, he started a number of short-lived newspapers, including the Yorkville Journal of the Times, Yorkville Compiler, and Farmers’ Miscellany. In 1851, John Grist sold the Farmers’ Miscellany to his son, Lewis Mason Grist, who renamed it the Yorkville Miscellany.
On January 4, 1855, Lewis Grist launched an entirely new paper, the Yorkville Enquirer, “an independent journal for the promotion of the political, social, agricultural, and commercial interests of the South.” John L. Miller and Samuel Wickliffe Melton served as editors and proprietors. The accolades came quickly flowing. On May 9, 1855, the editor of the Edgefield Advertiser wrote, “The pains you bestow upon your admirable sheet, brother editors, should not only command commendation, but should draw into your fold a host of paying subscribers.”
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Lewis Grist turned over the management of the Enquirer to his father John Grist and enlisted in the Confederate States Army. During the…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- York, South Carolina, 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