Burlington Weekly Free Press (Burlington, Vt.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
2,545 issues from 1866 to 1920, published in Burlington, Vermont, digitised for Chronicling America.
In 1827, the town of Burlington, Vermont had about 3,000 residents, a thriving village on Lake Champlain, a university, a medical college, and a growing industrial and commercial economy. The town’s single newspaper, the Vermont Centinel, supported the democratic politics of Andrew Jackson. Because many Vermonters favored Jackson’s opponent, President John Quincy Adams, lawyer Luman Foote advertised a new weekly paper that would “provide content entertaining and instructive to every class of reader” and support the Adams administration and its policies. Foote and Seneca Austin published the first issue of the Burlington Free Press in June 1827.
After Foote left to pursue the ministry in 1833, his associate, Henry B. Stacy, ran the paper until 1846, when DeWitt C. Clarke became owner and editor. According to historian Gene A. Sessions, Clarke was a “gifted, combative, and partisan editorial stylist.” Although Clark optimistically began publishing The Daily Free Press in 1848, both papers met significant financial challenges. In 1853, George W. Benedict, a prominent businessperson and former University of Vermont professor, and his son, George G. Benedict, assumed ownership and editorial responsibilities for the Free Press.
The Benedict family’s association with the Free Press lasted into the first decades of the twentieth century. G.W. Benedict served as editor until 1866, when his son succeeded him. G. G. Benedict modernized the facilities and equipment, and he expanded…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Burlington, Vermont, 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