Prospectus of
The Wizard
So. Danvers, Nov. 24, 1859
The
Subscriber proposes to publish, on the first week of December next, a FAMILY
NEWSPAPER, with the above title, to be issued on Wednesday morning of each
week. It will be printed on fine paper, with new and clear type,
and although less in size, will contain about the same quantity of reading
material as the Salem newspapers.
The publisher has secured the services of Mr. F. Poole, as Editor, who
will spare no efforts to give THE WIZARD a high position as an INDEPENDENT,
LITERARY and FAMILY JOURNAL. He has also the assurance of other aid
from persons of competent ability, whose combined exertions can hardly
fail of making the paper a pleasant companion in the Family, the Office,
and the Workshop.
In its Selections, as well as Editorials, while aiming to a high standard
of taste and morality, THE WIZARD will endeavor to contribute to the cravings
of the healthy mind for Entertainment, in the shape of pleasant Narrative,
kindly Humor and refined Wit; or, if this cannot be safely promised, it
is hoped that it will not always rest under the incubus of absolute dullness.
THE WIZARD
will sometimes invest himself with a personality which will allow him to
become the confidant of Governors and Presidents. As one of the sovereign
people he feels that he has as good a right to become the
? of the White House, as Jack Downing himself. Although he
may exhibit no evidence of Sorcery, he may see visions and dream dreams.
He will aim to present "Variety, that spice of life which gives it all
its flavor." He may sometimes moralise and poetise, and doubtless
his poesy will be sufficiently prosy. He will, as might be expected from
his name, be apt to deviate from the trodden paths of his contemporaries.
He will give the rein to fancy and invoke the aid of parody. He may prove
himself a very odd fellow, albeit not of that respectable Order.
He expects to have good correspondents, but he may sometimes be his own.
He will reprove without bitterness, and there will be no malice in his
satire. His disposition will be as sweet and kindly as Mrs. Partington's,
although he may have some of the mischievousness of Ike. In Politics, he
will assert his independence and be the organ of no party or clique.
While his political sentiments are those of the present majority in our
Commonwealth, and he is prepared to defend them, he will be liberal and
even generous toward his opponents.
The readers of THE WIZARD will not expect to be well posted up in
the news of the day. Few persons will go to a weekly paper for news
which they had read a week before, and which is not half forgotten.
Public events and important intelligence will have their due record, but
it is to the daily and semi-weekly press that they will look for full particulars
of current news. We hope to find pleasanter reading for our columns
than Presidents' Messages and "accompanying Documents'. We shall not "stop
the press" to describe an atrocious murder in San Francisco, or issue a
Postscript to announce the last bloody affray in New York. We shall
not rely on frightful railroad disasters, to give vivacity to our columns.
It is to home interests, tastes and enjoyments that we shall chiefly direct
our attention.
As a local paper, THE WIZARD will be especially devoted to the interests
and welfare of the place of its publication. It will strive to gather
up and place on permanent record events as they transpire which are of
interest to our people. In general and local questions, where the
rights and honor of the inhabitants of South Danvers are concerned, it
will be their faithful organ and defender. It will draw instruction
from her past history, and contain notices of her men of mark who have
rested their labors. It will keep in mind the improvements going
on and contrast her present advancement in business and population with
her day of small things. It will glance backward to her antiquities,
and forward to her probable destiny. It will endeavor always to keep
in view her higher moral interests, the cause of education in her schools,
and in that higher Institution, which is the pride and ornament of two
towns and the occasion of enduring gratitude to its distinguished Patron.
The first number of THE WIZARD will be issued in advance of its day of
publication, as a specimen of its form and type, and with a view of obtaining
a respectable subscription list at the start. This number may be
had at the several Periodical stores at three cents a copy. As it
is to be strictly a subscription paper, future numbers can only be furnished
to subscribers.
The terms of subscription will be TWO DOLLARS per year. For IMMEDIATE
PAYMENT in Advance, a discount of fifty cents will be made.
Subscriptions received at the office of publication, in Allen's Building;
and by Periodical Dealers generally.
CHARLES D. HOWARD
Publisher and Proprietor
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The first edition of the Wizard newspaper was published by CHARLES
D. HOWARD from an office next to the Old South Church in December 1859.
The editor was FITCH POOLE, JR.
The first edition featured the following anecdote that
explains the name of the newspaper.
GINGERBREAD
In starting the new enterprise
of a family journal, it became of some importance to select a name.
There are common-place names enough attached to other newspapers, but it
was deemed best to select one that was at once unique and appropriate to
the locality. Various names were suggested, and a great deal more
thought and anxiety bestowed on the matter than it was worth.
After the selection was finally made,
we had a great deal of advice about an appendage to it. We were strongly
urged to add to the simple name an amplification of the contents of the
paper, after manner of a book-title-page thus: “A Family paper devoted
to the News of the day, Religion, Politics, Morality, Literature, Science,
Military information, Firemen’s Interests and General Information.”
One after another of these particulars
were stricken out until only the simple title remained. In this way
it did follow the example of an elderly widow in South Danvers, who many
years ago, kept a little cent shop where now stands the Danvers Bank.
She was famous for making excellent Gingerbread. Her shop was the
resort for all boys and girls of the neighborhood to procure the sweet
article. It was cut nearly into “cents, worth”. Sometimes the
boys would club their fund and buy a whole pan at a discount from the retail
price. Mrs. Thyng would sometimes set up a pan at a time, in a lottery
for a cent a ticket. This was before lottery gambling was suppressed
by law. The fortunate holder of the lucky ticket would carry off
the whole, but not without a great deal of teasing from his less fortunate
companions who, from their importunity, would sometimes obtain a share.
Widow Thyng’s ginger-bread became so
celebrated that the fame of it, together with that of her molasses candy,
was widely extending. She then bethought herself that she ought to
have a sign in imitation of her more prosperous neighbors. After
taking advice from everybody, she hit upon the following inscription.
“The Best Gingerbread Made and Sold Here By Dorothy Thyng.”
Further reflection, as she looked at
it proudly through her spectacles, satisfied her that the word “here” was
superfluous, as nobody would look anywhere else for it. She therefore
drew a line of white chalk over the word. She looked at it again,
as amended, and determined to strike out the words “and sold”, as the mere
announcement of the Gingerbread implied that it was to be sold. A
further scrutiny convinced her that the word “made” was superfluous as
“and sold” and drew her chalk across that word. She now liked it
better.
It stated “The Best of Gingerbread
by Dorothy Thyng”. The widow was gazing upon it with satisfaction
and pride when the thought occurred to her that without the presence of
the words stricken out it gave more prominence to the commendation of her
Gingerbread, and that it looked presumptuous of her to claim to be
the maker of the “best of” Gingerbread. Those words were accordingly
obliterate, and the sign stood:
Gingerbread by Dorothy Thyng.
She now became nervous about having
her own name on the sign gazed at by everybody, and called out by name,
and so, with commendable modesty, she struck them out, too, and the sign
that stood over her little door had a single word,
Gingerbread
In December 1860, the newspaper’s format was enlarged and
the Wizard office began to offer job printing.
Editor Fitch Poole visited Washington D.C. as a correspondent
for the Wizard in July 1861. He reported on "the exciting
debates in the House and Senate” and his trip to Maryland, where
"we began to see the traces of military surveillance."..."We could also
view the valley, this side of the Blue Ridge, where is Bull's
Run and Manassas Railroad....In going to camp yesterday, we had a good
view of the Rebel marked batteries and obstructions on the
road, and their earthenworks."
On July 19, he visited the battlefield of Bull Run "where
our Army was encamped, or rather bivouacked, for they had not tents, but
lay at night on the ground in their blankets.".His report included a description
of a visit to the wounded of South Danvers in hospital.
The first edition of the Wizard in 1862 was postponed
when the Wizard office was equipped with a new Power Press that
enabled the paper to be enlarged once again. The seven-column-wide newssheet
was described as having “grown to the dimensions of a first class county
Journal.”
Later that month, the paper received news of its wide
circulation. Local soldier John Upton sent the following report from Camp
Andrew, Annapolis, Maryland: “Coming from the old Bay State as they
did, it seems more like home, because there is a good number of South Danvers
boys there. We expect to leave here in about two weeks for the ‘Sunny
South’, where we shall see some hard fighting. Your paper comes to us about
two weeks after its publication and we hail it with pleasure. I, in company
with two others, took a walk out to the country. We went into a house where
there were twenty-five slaves and I was much astonished to see in an old
basket, under an old table in the corner, a South Danvers Wizard.
So Mr. Editor, I do not see but the paper finds its way into the remotest
regions."
In June 1862, Charles D. Howard advertised that the Wizard
printing
office was for sale. “In ordinary times it has a large Job Business, and
the paper had a good circulation. It is well stocked with book and
job type (all modern), and has four presses, viz: a Tufts Hand Press, Adams
Power Press , Ruggles Engine Press, and Gordan Billhead Press, all in good
working order, together with a variety of other material usually found
in a first-rate printing office. Terms cash.”
The war took its toll on the Wizard office in other
ways too. “Our office has a good share of representatives in the army.
WM. B. HAMMOND was the first of our typos who entered the service, and
he is now at Newbern, N.C., employed in the office of the “Newbern Progress”.
GUSTAVAS LARRABEE, one of our carriers, was severely wounded in the head
in one of the late battles before Richmond. GEORGE L. SKERRY
is at New Orleans with Captain Manning's Battery. WM. B. BROWN, a
journeyman printer employed at the office, was reported killed or "missing"
at Ball's Bluff. EDW. B. PUTNAM, an intelligent and promising apprentice,
is now at Newbern, N.C. Mr. J. L. DAMON, formerly foreman in the
office, is serving at Fort Warren; and the seventh is WM. R. ARMSTRONG,
who is now at Camp Cameron as a recruit for the 14th Massachusetts Regiment
of Heavy Artillery.- Armstrong has long had an earnest desire to
enlist, which is now happily gratified, and we think he will raise a strong
arm for this country. The editor is too OLD (?), and the remaining
apprentice too young, while the publisher is exempt on account of his former
services as staff officer in the celebrated campaign to Lynnfield, where
he greatly distinguished himself.”
In January 1863, the price of the
Wizard
was raised to two dollars per year. The announcement coincided with
the publication of a poem entitled "Carrier Address to the Patrons of the
South
Danvers Wizard".
Editor Fitch Poole resigned in June 1863 to
accept an appointment as Postmaster General by President Abraham Lincoln.
He was replaced by Assisstant Editor Arthur A. Putnam, who enlisted five
months later. Henry L. Hadley was selected to fill the office and
continued in the position during the first six months of 1864.
Publisher
Charles D. Howard was born to James and Harriet (Shaw-Nowell)
Howard on October 20, 1829 in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He attended
grammar school in Salem.
In 1846, he began work at the office of the
Salem Advertiser.
Two years later, he worked at the Essex County Freeman, a “free
soil” paper. Later, he worked at a job printing for H. J. Butterfield
and for several years in the office of Gleason’s Pictorial in Boston.
He then served as a foreman in the Lynn Bay State office.
He married SARAH C. BLANEY of Lynn on February 8, 1854.
Four years later, he started a printing office in South Danvers.
In 1860, he issued the first edition of the weekly South Danvers Wizard,
which was changed to The Peabody Press in 1869. He later sold the
Peabody Press in 1882. That same year, he began publishing the Salem
Evening Post, a penny daily. He sold that paper to the Evening Telegram
in 1885 and went to Natick to publish the Citizen, Wellesley Courant, College
Courant and Sherburne Tribune.
Howard served as Surveyor in the Port of Salem during
the first term of President Ulysses Grant. He also served one term
as a Peabody Institute Trustee. He died in Natick, Massachusetts on January
16, 1892.
Editor
Fitch Poole, Jr. served as editor from 1859 when the paper
was created through June 1863. The town’s civic-minded, custodian
of learning, Poole was a friend of GEORGE PEABODY and the designing force
behind the Peabody Institute which was funded by Peabody in 1852.
Revered as a friend of the men who worked in his
family’s leather factory and of the newsboys who distributed the local
newspapers, Poole was also a friend of many of the leading minds
of the day – celebrated writers, statesmen and artists who came to participate
in the Lyceum he organized for the Mechanics Fair and later at the Peabody
Institute.
His keen intellect and civic minded nature involved
him in most every patriotic and educational endeavor in the community,
including the establishment of the Lexington Monument, the Danvers Centennial
1852 and the glorious celebrations surrounding the visits of George Peabody
to his home town.
Fig. 2. Fitch Poole, courtesy of the Peabody Historical
Society.
Poole was often asked to provide appropriate
sentiments and toasts on special occasions. He wrote addresses for
the carriers of newspapers, anniversary hymns, reminiscences of passing
statesmen, and articles in defense of Whig politicians.
His humor appears in “witty rhyme or pungent
prose and flowed gaily from his fluent pen on every occasion where humor
could aid the cause of justice”.
As an editor of the Danvers Courier (1845-1848)
and of the South Danvers Wizard
(1859-1868), he contributed largely
to the newspaper culture of the community.
Poole’s graceful writing celebrates the early history
of the area through vivid descriptions of local landmarks such as: the
Bell Tavern, the South Congregational Church, Devil’s Dishfull and Ships’
Rock.
He was “never weary with investigations into the strange
and weird events which mark the history of Essex County”. He explored
the depths of Puritan theology and superstition alike. His fugitive
works published in local newspapers were a rare treat, often combining
the old and the new with a “back to the future” perspective that made his
works shine.
Poole wrote fanciful tales founded on local traditions,
such as poems speculating what witch hysteria victims Martha and Giles
Corey would encounter if they returned to Salem Village one hundred and
fifty years after their demise.
His “Epistle from Present to Future Generations” was meant
to be read by citizens of the future when it was buried in the cornerstone
of the Peabody Institute in 1853. He is also credited with assisting
local historians with their research, including CHARLES W. UPHAM in his
preparation of “Witchcraft and Salem Village”.
Poole was also endeared in the hearts of local residents
for the superb job he did as Librarian of the Peabody Institute, not only
assembling a sizable collection, but also booking the Institute’s Lyceum
series speakers and events. His personal interests were great and varied.
He was an amateur sculptor who created a mold for the Peabody Medal, as
well as an inventor of children’s board games and a supreme practical joker.
He served in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1841-42
and, more than twenty-years later, was appointed postmaster of South Danvers
by President Abraham Lincoln.
Poole died August 19, 1873. |
