The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918O'Brien, Frank Michael
History
The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918
O'Brien, Frank Michael
Sun (New York, N.Y. : 1833)
It is evident that Day soon regretted the sale of the _Sun_, for in
1840 he established a penny paper called the _True Sun_. This he
presently sold for a fair price, but his itch for journalism did not
disappear. He started the _Tatler_, but it was not a success. In 1842,
in conjunction with James Wilson, he founded the monthly magazine,
_Brother Jonathan_, which reprinted English double-decker novels
complete in one issue. This later became a weekly, and Day brought out
illustrated editions semi-annually.
This was a new thing, at least in America, and Day may be called the
originator of our illustrated periodicals as well as of our penny
papers. His right-hand men in the editing of _Brother Jonathan_ were
Nathaniel P. Willis, the poet, and Horatio H. Weld, who was first a
printer, next an editor, and at last a minister.
Day sold _Brother Jonathan_ for a dollar a year. When the paper famine
hit the publishing business in 1862, he suspended his publication and
retired from business. He was well off, and he spent the remaining
twenty-seven years of his life in ease at his New York home. He died
on December 21, 1889. His son Benjamin was the inventor of the Ben Day
process used in making engravings.
Day always watched the fortunes of the _Sun_ with interest, but he
did not believe that his immediate successors ran it just the right
way. When the paper passed into the hands of Charles A. Dana, in 1868,
Day--then not yet threescore--said:
“He’ll make a newspaper of it!”
And it was then he added that the silliest thing he himself ever did
was to sell the _Sun_.
CHAPTER VI
MOSES Y. BEACH’S ERA OF HUSTLE
_“The Sun” Uses Albany Steamboats, Horse Expresses, Trotting Teams,
Pigeons, and the Telegraph to Get News.--Poe’s Famous Balloon
Hoax and the Case of Mary Rogers._
The second owner of the _Sun_, Moses Yale Beach, was, like Ben Day,
a Yankee. He was born in the old Connecticut town of Wallingford on
January 7, 1800. He had a little education in the common schools, but
showed more interest in mechanics than in books. When he was fourteen
he was bound out to a cabinet-maker in Hartford. His skill was so fine
that he saw the needlessness of serving the customary seven years, and
his industry so great that he was able, by doing extra work in odd
times, to get together enough money to buy his freedom from his master.
He set up a cabinet-shop of his own at Northampton, Massachusetts.
When Beach was twenty, he made the acquaintance of Miss Nancy Day,
of Springfield, the sister of Benjamin was the inventor of the Ben
Day process used in Day were married in 1821, and as the business at
Northampton was not prospering, they settled down in Springfield.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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