Its publishers were "Baker, French, Harmon & Co." The full list of proprietors was Albert Baker, John A. French, George W. Harmon, George H. Campbell, Amos C. Clapp, J.W. Monroe, Justin Andrews, Augustus A. Wallace, and James D. Stowers, and W.H. Waldron was subsequently associated with them. The Eagle was successful at the outset, but its fortunes declined with those of the party of which it was the exponent, and in the summer of 1846 it was found to be moribund. The proprietors had lost money and labor in the failing enterprise, and now lost interest. After many protracted discussions they resolved to establish an evening edition under another name, which should be neutral in politics, and, if it proved successful, to let the Eagle die. The Herald, therefore, came into existence on August 31, 1846, and an edition of two thousand was printed of its first number. The editor of the new sheet was William O. Eaton, a Bostonian, then but twenty-two years of age, of little previous experience in journalism. The Herald, it must be admitted, was not a handsome sheet at the outset. Its four pages contained but five columns each, and measured only nine by fourteen inches. But, unpromising as was its appearance, it was really the liveliest of the Boston dailies from the hour of its birth, and received praise on all hands for the quality of its matter. The total force of brain-workers consisted of but two men, Mr. Eaton having the assistance, after the middle of September, of Thomas W. Tucker. David Leavitt joined the "staff" later on, in 1847, and made a specialty of local news. The editorial, composing, and press rooms were the same as those of the Eagle, in Wilson's Lane, now Devonshire Street. "Running a newspaper" in Boston in 1846 was a different thing altogether from journalism at the present day. The telegraph was in operation between Boston and New York, but the tolls were high and the dailies could not afford to use it except upon the most important occasions. Moreover, readers had not been educated up to the point of expecting to see reports of events in all parts of the world printed on the same day of their occurrence or, at the latest, the day following.