Information derived from newspapers was measurably lost--the inefficient postal service prevented the circulation of metropolitan papers; and those published in Ohio for half a century were under the ban of slavery. And with the censorship of Kentucky and the cotton states it is not surprising they were short-lived and unattended with prosperity. The first paper published in the North-west was printed in Cincinnati, November 9, 1793, under the name of “The Sentinel of the North-western Territory.” The journal was owned and edited by William Maxwell. Newspapers in those days were comparatively small and poorly executed in presswork; and changed names, ownership or ceased to exist so frequently that not a few attempts at journalism became lost to history. During the territorial days, and while the seat of government tarried at Chillicothe, Mr. Willis, the father of N. P., the poet, author and artist, published a literary paper for a short time. After the capital became permanently located at Columbus, Philo H. Olmstead, from 1813 to 1818, published “The Western Intelligencer”--then changed the name to “Columbus Gazette” and in due time to “Columbus Journal.” Small as these and other beginnings were over the settled portions of the state, the press and its influence became of more and more importance, and kept pace if not in advance of many other leading departments connected with an advanced civilization. As ideas beget ideas, so inventions beget inventions, until time and space are no more, and the wild elements meekly bow in submission to the will and works of man. If John Gutenberg, Fust, Mentel or Koster, with their little inventions, could see the automatic working of one of those mammoth printing machines, which noiselessly move with such rapidity, exactness and intelligence--even putting human volition and precision to shame--any one or all of the once contesting discoverers would stop disputing in astonished wonderment long enough to set up and strike off on their own inventions a single line, in quotations, “Large trees from small acorns grow,” and abandon further contention. Newspaper educators at an early day, like the schoolmaster, had a limited showing in a country so financially short. Editors and publishers could not conduct the business without a given amount of support. But this needful requirement was too manifestly uncertain to justify an expensive venture; for there was little or no money in the country, nor means to procure it by exchanges. Still, the experiment was occasionally made, but most generally failed even in the hands of the most economical management and moderate expectations. The following is a brief of a four-paged paper, ten by fifteen inches in size--“No. 33, Vol. I.”--dated June 5, 1818. This paper was started at the county seat of one of the early settled localities, and in agriculture one of the leading counties in the state. This number treats of the following subjects: