Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, Tenn.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,375 issues from 1850 to 1880, published in Fayetteville, Tennessee, digitised for Chronicling America.
Alfred H. Berry established the weekly Fayetteville Observer in December 1850. Berry was an experienced newspaperman, having worked as editor and proprietor of the Lincoln Journal for several years,with his father William L. Berry (known as the “the oldest printer in Nashville”). Addressing the people of Lincoln County in the Observer’s inaugural issue, Berry declared the paper to be “unchanged, and unchangeable Democrat; and [maintained] that we shall, in our humble way, continue to advocate the Union of these federated States, just so long as forbearance continues to be a virtue – and no longer.”
On May 6, 1851, Alfred Berry announced that Nathaniel Odell “N.O.” Wallace would join the paper. Wallace, too, was experienced in newspapering; his previous employers included Democratic papers, the Nashville Union and the Shelbyville Free Press. Wallace was the first of three generations of his family at the Fayetteville Observer, the last one leaving the paper in 1966.
Berry departed in 1853, leaving N.O. Wallace as sole proprietor and editor until 1890 when Wallace’s sons–N.O., Jr. and Robert M.–took over. In 1937, Robert M., Sr.’s sons–Clinton R. and Robert M. Wallace, Jr.–became the publishers, until 1962 when R.M., Jr. partnered with Herbert Gatlin, and then briefly with Knox Stewart in 1965-66.
Representative of Southern Democrats of the time, the Fayetteville Observer was pro-slavery. It ran many editorials and stories from other papers discussing the “slavery…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Fayetteville, Tennessee, 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