An undated drawing of the Victor Printing Company building at what is currently 37 South Market Street, Elizabethville, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. The company was founded in 1878 by Harry H. Weaver in the same building that was the town’s first railroad depot, then known as Cross Roads Station. But the station was located in Washington Square, then the name of what became after 1892, the Borough of Elizabethville.
Shortly after the founding of the printing company, Weaver decided to publish a newspaper, a monthly, which he called The Owl. The paper was small, only 5 1/2 inches by 7 1/2 inches. An owl was pictured on the first page. It is not known how many editions were published nor if any of those editions have survived.
In September, 1979, Weaver joined forces with J. A. Ettinger to publish a weekly called the Washington Square Independent. Two brief stories appeared in the Harrisburg newspapers regarding the new newspaper and the complex political divisions that were later merged into a single borough.
From the Harrisburg Daily Independent, September 29, 1879:
WANT THEIR NAME CHANGED
The citizens of Elizabethville in the upper end of this county, recently held a meeting for the purpose of adopting a new name to include both the town of Washington Square and Elizabethville, the post office and railroad station in one name. The people allege that the existing situation is of a provokingly complicated nature. They have a town called Washington Square, and probably about four hundred yards west of it, another town called Elizabethville, while situated in the former town they have the railroad depot called Cross Roads Station. The post office, called Elizabethville Post Office in right in the center of Washington Square, and letter-writers very frequently get things mixed in their addresses, causing a peck of trouble. We opine that the proposed consolidated towns will be call[ed] Newton, as that is the name selected by the new newspaper published in Washington Square.
From the Harrisburg Telegraph, also September 29, 1879:
A new weekly newspaper will appear this week at Washington Square, this county. Its name will be the Newton Democrat, and it will be Democratic in politics. J. A. Ettinger is proprietor.
It was not clear from the news reports that the newspaper ended up being called The Independent. It is not believed that the paper was ever published under the proposed town name “Newton.”
Very few issues of this paper have survived and, for the most part, we are left to rely on information published in other newspapers about it. When it ceased publication is not known. However, the Harrisburg Telegraph, on April 6, 1883, reported the death of John A. Ettinger, and referred to the “late” Elizabethville Independent:
The death of Mr. John A. Ettinger, editor of the late Elizabethville Independent, which occurred at his residence last Thursday, although sorely regretted by his many friends, came none too soon to relieve the unfortunate sufferer from his intense bodily pains and mental anguish.
Very little information from The Independent has survived. It is not in the Library of Congress database, U. S. Newspaper Directory, 1690 to the Present. What has survived are a few articles that found their way into other publications. As discovered, they will be reproduced here on this blog. One already has been published here. See:
After Ettinger’s death, there was no known newspaper in Elizabethville until Alfred M. Smith published the first issue of the Elizabethville Echo, August 24, 1893. The Echo continually published under a succession of owners until January 7, 1972, when it merged with the Millersburg Sentinel and the Williamstown Times to form the Upper Dauphin Sentinel.
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News articles from Newspapers.com. Some information about the early newspapers of Elizabethville and the Victor Printing Company drawing appeared in the Souvenir Book for the Elizabethville Sesquicentennial, 1817-1967.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.