Do you have ancestors from Sumter, South Carolina, or an interest in the history of South Carolina? We’re happy to announce that we’ve added The Sumter Item and The Watchman and Southron to our archives, with issues dating back to 1881. The Watchman and Southron was a weekly (later a semiweekly) paper that was published through 1930 when it was absorbed by the Sumter Daily Item, which in turn became The Sumter Item.

The city and county of Sumter are named after Gen. Thomas Sumter, a Revolutionary War hero. South Carolina history is also closely tied to Civil War history. It was the first state to secede from the Union in 1860 and the state where the first shots of the Civil War were fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor in April 1861. It’s also the place where some of the last shots of the Civil War took place. The Battle of Dingle’s Mill was a Civil War skirmish that took place when Potter’s raiders confronted Confederate forces on April 9, 1865, in Sumter County. This fighting is especially noteworthy because the Civil War officially ended the same day, but the word of the Confederate surrender had not yet reached Sumter where fighting continued until April 25^th.

The Sumter Item is the oldest continuously family-owned paper in South Carolina, and one of the oldest in the country. It has been run by the Osteen family for five generations and was started by patriarch Hubert Graham Osteen. The Osteen family has chronicled the changing news in Sumter over the decades.

When the first automobiles arrived in Sumter in the early 1900s, The Sumter Item reported on several attempts by residents to climb the courthouse steps in their new automobiles. After several accidents, city leaders realized that they needed to enact safety measures and speed limits.

Prohibition took effect in Sumter in 1916 (four years before Congress mandated Prohibition nationally). Despite impassioned arguments against the use of alcohol, some Sumter residents operated underground, producing liquor despite the constant threat of police raids.

In April 1924, a tornado with a path 135 miles long struck Sumter causing multiple casualties. The tornado destroyed buildings, burying people in rubble and carving a path that resembled “a forest after an artillery barrage.” 

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, The Sumter Item published a special edition announcing the attack. In the following days, Sumter was on a high state of alert. Soldiers stood guard over public buildings and a Sumter bridge. The Item kept residents informed about local soldiers serving in the war.

If you have ancestors from Sumter, search the pages of this archive for things like death notices or wedding announcements. The society columns are another place to search for colorful details about your family. Start searching the pages of The Watchman and Southron and The Sumter Item today on Newspapers.com!

If you have ancestors from Maine or an interest in the history of Maine, we are pleased to announce that we’ve added The Bangor Daily News, the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, and The Weekly to our archives! In 1900, the Bangor Daily News merged with the Bangor Whig and Courier and we have both archives with papers dating back to 1832!

Maine is the “Pine Tree State” and these newspapers chronicle how the lumber industry played a part in the growth and prosperity of the city. Bangor lies along the Penobscot River and logs harvested from the Maine North Woods could be floated downstream to the city’s sawmills. By the 1860s, Bangor was home to the world’s largest lumber port. All that lumber also provided materials for the growing shipbuilding industry, which thrived in Bangor. 

During the Civil War, the 2^nd Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first to march out of Maine in 1861. They fought in the First Battle of Bull Run. Bangor residents felt the acute impact of war. The 1^st Maine Heavy Artillery Regiment that mustered out of Bangor lost more men than any other Union regiment in the War with 683 deaths.

The war left some children orphaned and the Bangor Children’s Home was established. The orphanage started in 1839 as the Bangor Females Orphan Asylum, but after the war, it was re-purposed to admit boys with a new and larger building dedicated in 1869.

On April 30, 1911, a fire started in a hay shed and spread throughout Bangor. The Great Fire of 1911 claimed the high school, banks, the post office, Custom House, churches, nearly a hundred businesses, and close to 300 homes.

The library, which was also destroyed, held books that contained historical records and genealogies of early Bangor residents. The press that produced the Bangor Daily News did not burn, but the building was without electricity. Nonetheless, the editors printed a paper just hours after the fire, setting it all by hand.

In December 1962, Bangor was hit with a huge snowstorm that dumped 37 inches. Howling winds caused snowdrifts 20 feet tall! For the first time in its 130-year history, the Bangor Daily News was unable to deliver a paper on December 31, 1962.

If you are searching for ancestors from Bangor, search for obituaries and marriage or birth announcements. Family reunion notices also provide a wealth of genealogical information. Start searching The Bangor Daily News, the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, and The Weekly today on Newspapers.com. 

Our archives are expanding again! We’ve added new newspapers from Miami, Florida, and Raleigh, North Carolina, bringing wonderful new content from the Southern United States.

The Miami Herald: In 1891, a woman named Julia Tuttle left Cleveland after the death of her husband. She purchased 640 acres in what is present-day downtown Miami and persuaded a railroad magnate to extend the rail lines south to Miami. Miami was incorporated in 1896, with a population of just over 300, and The Miami Herald began publication in 1910. Initially published six times a week, it became a daily in 1913. Our digital archives date back to 1911 and chronicle the growth of southern Florida.  

In 1926, an intense hurricane brought death and destruction to Miami. For days leading up to the Miami Hurricane, meteorologists warned that a storm was brewing, but didn’t think it would make landfall. The first storm warnings were issued on September 18, 1926. The Miami Herald was unable to publish a paper on the 19^th, but on September 20^th, the Palm Beach Post allowed the Miami Herald use of its publishing facilities and the paper reported that Miami suffered “the worst disaster in its history” with more than 10,000 homes damaged or destroyed. The famous Art Deco District sprung up during the era of post-hurricane re-development.

In 1959 Fidel Castro rose to power and hundreds of thousands of Cubans emigrated to Miami. The Spanish-speaking population burgeoned and in 1975, the Herald created a Spanish insert called El Miami Herald. It featured Spanish translations of the stories in the Herald. Pleased with the success, the paper decided to launch a separate Spanish newspaper and in 1987, El Nuevo Herald began publication.

Search the pages of Herald for news on Miami residents, obituaries, marriage and divorce news, birth announcements, and more. Stories like anniversary announcements can also contain a wealth of genealogical information.

The News and Observer: Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina and the progressive, Pulitzer Prize-winning News and Observer has played an influential role in the history of the city and state, particularly in terms of political issues. Our archives date back to 1880, about the time that then-Governor Thomas J. Jarvis used the pages of the paper to advocate for the building of a proper Governor’s Mansion to conduct state business. The public agreed and construction began. Jarvis’s predecessor, Governor Daniel G. Fowle, was the first to occupy the mansion, though it was short-lived when he died unexpectedly just months later.

In 1884, a group of young men, all under the age of 30, established a group called the Watauga Club. They promoted educational, agricultural, and industrial development in the state. In 1887, the club was the driving force behind a new college in Raleigh. Construction got underway, and in October 1889, North Carolina State University opened as the College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. The college aimed to provide an education for the children of farmers, mechanics, and other workers.

The Observer supported women suffrage and reported on the efforts of the suffrage movement under leader Cornelia Petty Jerman. Jerman was at the forefront of the movement in North Carolina and was the first woman to serve as a delegate to the Democratic State Convention. At the time of her death in 1946, the News and Observer called her the “State’s First Woman.”

The News and Observer is a wonderful resource if you have ancestors from North Carolina. Search for your family in articles like family reunion notices, society pages, and marriage announcements. Start searching the pages of The Miami Herald and The News and Observer today on Newspapers.com.

If you have ancestors from Texas or an interest in the Old West, we are pleased to announce that we’ve once again partnered with McClatchy, the second-largest local news company in the U.S., to add the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to our archives. Included in this collection are other historic Fort Worth papers including the Fort Worth Record-Telegram 1912-1931; the Fort Worth Record and Register 1897-1912; and the Daily Fort Worth Standard 1876-1877.  The Fort Worth Star-Telegram was founded in 1909 when the Fort Worth Star merged with the Fort Worth Telegram. This archive has chronicled the growth of Fort Worth for nearly 150 years!

At a time when the American frontier expanded westward, settlers moved into the Fort Worth area in the 1840s. They met with local Native American chiefs and established a treaty where Native Americans would remain west of a line drawn through present-day Fort Worth. The line would mark, “Where the West Begins” – Fort Worth’s famous slogan that is still found on the masthead of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram today.

In 1849, construction began on a fort, one in a line of military outposts meant to establish control over North Texas and protect settlers from Native American attacks. The fort was named after Maj. Gen. Williams Jenkins Worth and soon a small community of civilians sprang up in the area.

Ranching has long played a part in the history of Fort Worth and ranchers herded millions of cattle along the Chisholm Trail. Our newspaper archive dates back to 1876, the year the first railroad came to town and helped establish Fort Worth as a center of the cattle trade.  

With all the cattle being driven through Fort Worth, the meatpacking industry developed in the late 1800s, bringing jobs in packing houses. The Texas oil boom brought additional growth to Fort Worth. In 1917, workers drilling for oil in Ranger, Texas, hit a gusher. More oil nearby discoveries followed, and Fort Worth’s strategic location meant that speculators, promoters, and interested parties set up offices in the Westbrook Hotel lobby bringing throngs of people to the city. Advertisements selling oil leases filled the pages of the Star-Telegram as many sought their fortune.

In the early days of radio, the Star-Telegram’s founding publisher, Amon G. Carter, started an experimental radio station WBAP. A ringing cowbell signaled listeners that their program was about to start. That cowbell was the first audible logo broadcast over the radio. The station broadcast livestock reports, rodeos, and even church services. In 1948, the Star-Telegram expanded its reach again and established the first television station in the southern half of the United States.  

In 1982, in a time before readers consumed information online, the Star-Telegram pioneered another way to deliver news when they began StarText. StarText was a subscription service that delivered the latest news, stock quotes, and classified ads 24 hours a day via home computer and modem.

If you are researching your ancestors from Fort Worth, there are countless stories about challenges faced by early settlers in Texas. Severe weather, snake bites, heat and humidity, and life in the wild west where six-shooters ruled were just a few. Be sure to search for birth announcements, wedding announcements, death notices, news about family reunions, and more. Start searching the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Newspapers.com today!

Sacramento is the capital city of California and we’re happy to announce that we’re adding The Sacramento Bee to our archives. The Bee is the longest-running newspaper in Sacramento’s history and the flagship paper of McClatchy, the second-largest local news company in the U.S. James McClatchy was an Irish immigrant and young journalist when the lure of the California Gold Rush brought him West. He became the second editor of The Bee, taking over just days after the paper began publication in 1857.

California was part of Mexican territory until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo annexed California as part of the United States. In 1848, when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, about 45 miles outside of Sacramento, thousands converged in the area. Many of them passed through Sacramento and the city experienced tremendous growth.

When The Bee began publishing in 1857, McClatchy aimed to provide an independent newspaper that championed the interests of the people. The paper recorded the growth of this area, including celebrating the starting point for the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1863.

When a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit San Francisco in 1906, residents of Sacramento felt the shaking and observed the dome of the Capitol building sway back and forth. The front page of The Bee contained numerous updates throughout the morning as the extent of the damage became more clear.

During the Great Depression, high unemployment rates resulted in a rising rate of homelessness in the city. Some destitute families banded together and formed tent cities called Hoovervilles, named after President Hoover, whom they blamed for their economic situation. Although not officially recognized, these shantytowns located along the Sacramento River were overseen by elected officials and city charters. The cities, however, lacked systems for waste removal and officials found residents living in squalor and ordered them closed. Though evicted, some continued to camp out along the river throughout the 1930s.

The Sacramento Valley’s fertile soil brought many farm workers to the area. In 1965, Filipino American grape workers organized a strike to protest poor pay and working conditions. The protestors joined forces with Latino farm workers led by Cesar Chavez. Together they walked 300 miles to Sacramento to raise awareness and pressure growers into changes. The two groups formed the United Farm Workers. Their strike lasted five years but eventually led to growers agreeing to better pay and working conditions for all farm workers.

If you have ancestors from the Sacramento area, The Bee is a great place to search for things like obituaries, birth announcements, wedding announcements, and death notices. The social pages also tracked news from communities like Napa and Chico. Start searching The Sacramento Bee archives today on Newspapers.com!

We are pleased to announce that we’ve added the Breese Journal to our archives! Breese, Illinois, is located in Clinton County in South Central Illinois. We have issues dating back to 1923 when Breese had a population of around 2,000. The headlines back then announced the installation of the town’s first stop signs and plans to build a sewer system (although according to this clipping outhouses were still around for another 35 years!)

The city of Breese was founded in 1855 and settled in part by German immigrants who were drawn to the area’s fertile farmland. It was named after Sidney Breese, a senator and contemporary to Abraham Lincoln. The city is located about 40 miles from downtown St. Louis, so if you have ancestors from Eastern Missouri you might find them mentioned in this paper.

During the Depression, Breese established a Mayor’s Relief Committee to provide food and clothing for the town’s unemployed. Several years later, in 1940, as the world became embroiled in war, Clinton County resident William August Klasing enlisted in the US Navy. He was serving on the USS Oklahoma when Pearl Harbor was bombed, becoming Clinton County’s first casualty of war. Using DNA, last year his remains were identified and returned home after 78 years.  

The Breese Journal is a wonderful resource for researching ancestors that lived in the area. This clipping shows all the births and deaths in Breese during 1930! The paper reported when residents spent time in the hospital or made a visit to grandma, and notable events like when the Westermann family purchased a new Studebaker. Each page provides a historical snapshot of the time.

Many of the area’s residents worked in the railroad and mining industry. You can learn about Breese’s first coal mine that opened in the 1800s, and mining tragedies such as the East Mine accident in 1906.

The Breese Journal includes news from nearby communities including Staunton, Trenton, Aviston, Germantown, Beckemeyer, Carlyle, and others.

Start searching the pages of the Breese Journal today on Newspapers.com!

Do you have ancestors from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania? You can now search the LNP Always Lancaster along with 18 other related Lancaster titles! The daily paper just celebrated its 225^th anniversary and is one of the oldest newspapers still publishing in the United States! We have issues that date back to 1796 when the paper was known as the Lancaster Journal.

Lancaster is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States. It was originally called ‘Hickory Town’ but later renamed ‘Lancaster’ after a prominent citizen suggested naming the town after his former home in England. Though first inhabited by Native American tribes, white immigrants including Germans, Swiss, English, and Ulster-Scots moved into the area beginning in 1709.

At that time, Western Pennsylvania was wilderness inhabited by Native American tribes that often skirmished with the encroaching white settlers. Panther, bear and wolf attacks were common threats. As more settlers arrived, a road was needed to transport people and products to and from Philadelphia. The Great Conestoga Road opened linking the two cities but fell into disrepair during the decades around the Revolution. In the 1790s, the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Company sold shares to raise money to construct a new road. When the turnpike opened, it was the first long-distance paved road in the country. The first issue in our Lancaster collection is dated June 17, 1796, and includes a notice from the Philadelphia & Lancaster Turnpike Company announcing shares were available to purchase.  

The paper covered hostilities between the United States and Great Britain during the War of 1812 where some 800 men from Lancaster County served. You can find some of their personal accounts of battles in this collection. Lancaster also served as an important munitions center during the war.

The fifteenth President of the United States, James Buchanan was a descendant of Ulster-Scots and a Lancaster resident. He started his law career in 1813 in Lancaster and when he was elected president in 1857 became the only person from Pennsylvania to hold that office. His estate known as Wheatland still draws tourists today.  

The railroad arrived in Lancaster in 1834, bringing commerce to the city and in 1879, the first F.W. Woolworth Company, a five-cent store, opened in Lancaster.

This collection of Lancaster newspapers is rich with history, covering more than two centuries of news including the settlement of Lancaster County and the growth of the nation. You can peruse obituaries, birth notices, wedding announcements, and information on the families that settled in this area. Explore the Lancaster collection today on Newspapers.com!

We had an incredible year in 2019 and we owe it all to you – our amazing subscribers! Thank you for your passion and dedication to preserving historical newspapers. Our loyal customers have created more than 14.3 million clippings this year alone.

Thanks to your support we’ve reached the following milestones in 2019:

• Added 100+ million new pages of content for a total of 555 million pages of content
• 14.3 million clippings created in 2019
• Added 5,000+ new newspapers to our archives
• Updated nearly 7,000 existing titles with new content
• We have newspapers from all 50 states and 10 countries, territories, or districts

We also teamed up with Ancestry® to develop a technology to scour every page in our archive looking for death notices. You have already clipped more than 1.5 million obituaries using this amazing technology.

The best is yet to come. What will you discover in 2020? We promise to keep working hard with our publisher partners, historical societies, and institutions to find new content so your subscription will continue to increase in value year after year. What did you discover using Newspapers.com in 2019? Share your discoveries in the comments below. Thank you! Together we will accomplish amazing things in 2020.

The award-winning Rutland Herald in Rutland, Vermont, has reached a milestone that few papers in America can claim – they are celebrating their 225^th anniversary! We are pleased to announce that we’ve added this collection of papers dating back to 1794.

The Rutland Herald launched as a weekly in December 1794 when George Washington was president and just 11 years after the end of the Revolutionary War. The paper had the goal of providing a “useful and entertaining paper.” When searching early editions of the Herald, keep in mind that during this era printers often used Old English text and a letter called the ‘medial S’. The letter looks like an ‘f’ and is found throughout early editions. For example, this clipping from 1798 is an advertisement for the return of two apprentice boys that ran away from their keepers or subscribers. The text, however, appears to read “fubfcribers”.

In the mid-1790s, a yellow fever epidemic plagued the eastern United States. The Herald reported that scores of people were evacuating Manhattan and Philadelphia to avoid the disease. Cities along the eastern seaboard took measures to prevent the fever from spreading. About a hundred years later, in 1894, Rutland became ground zero for the first outbreak of polio in the United States. Dr. C. S. Caverly of Rutland carefully tracked the disease’s progression and published a paper to educate others.

Vermont’s marble industry dates back to 1784 and workers from countries including England and Ireland arrived in Rutland to work in the quarries. Master carvers and stone cutters came from Italy where Carrara was known as the center of the marble industry. Those immigrant communities brought their customs and traditions to Rutland and helped shape the community.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the Rutland Herald published a letter asking the women of Vermont to sew white linen cap covers meant to reflect harsh sun and heat and keep soldiers from the Vermont 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Regiments cool. The paper also reported on 11-year-old Willie Johnston. He enlisted as a drummer boy in the 3^rd Vermont Infantry. In 1863, the Rutland Herald reported that Johnston had become the youngest recipient of the Medal of Honor for heroic actions taken during the Seven Days Battles.

In November 1927, the worst natural disaster in Vermont history occurred when devastating floods claimed 84 lives including that of Vermont’s Lt. Governor. More than eight inches of rain fell between November 2-3, creating raging torrents that washed out roads, bridges, and destroyed buildings.

Do you have ancestors from Rutland? The Rutland Herald contains birth announcements, wedding news, and obituaries. You can search for news from other cities in Vermont, New York, and even Canada. Start searching the Rutland Herald today on Newspapers.com!

If you have ancestors from Wisconsin or an interest in Wisconsin history, we are excited about the addition of new papers from the cities of Kenosha, Lake Geneva and Viroqua, Wisconsin!

Kenosha is in southeastern Wisconsin, on the shore of Lake Michigan, and just north of the Illinois state line. We have issues from the Kenosha News, the Kenosha News Courier and the Sunday News that date back to 1895. Originally a Native American settlement, Kenosha’s access to transportation lines brought white settlers in the 1830s. Later immigrants from Italy, Denmark, Germany, Poland, and Ireland came to the area.  

In the early 1900s, silent movies were a favorite form of entertainment. In 1914, the Burke Theatre opened on Market Street. When the film The Silver Horde opened in 1920, managers launched a treasure hunt to publicize the film. They hid 10 boxes of silver around Kenosha. The promotion created a stir as residents hunted the treasure. Four years later, the Burke was the scene of another kind when a skunk decided to visit the theater causing pandemonium with the audience.

About 30 miles away from Kenosha is Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and home of the Lake Geneva Herald and the Lake Geneva Regional News. Today Lake Geneva is a vacation destination, but when the Lake Geneva Herald began publishing in 1872, the population was just over 2,000 and the town had one school, a few churches and a smattering of small-town businesses. After the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Lake Geneva attracted wealthy business moguls who moved to the area while Chicago rebuilt. Beautiful mansions like Stone Manor, Glanworth Gardens and the Wrigley estate line the shore and helped the area earn the nickname “Newport of the West”.

Residents living around the lake receive their mail by boat, a tradition that began in 1916 when roads were very primitive. The boat travels at a steady 5 mph, while a “mail jumper” jumps from the boat, races up the dock and swaps the incoming mail with the outgoing mail before the boat has traveled out of reach.

The Vernon County Censor is based in Viroqua and we have issues dating back to 1856. The paper was published weekly, however, on June 28, 1865, a deadly tornado swept through town destroying the printing office and leaving the town devastated. Two weeks later, the paper published an account of the damage. “Large houses were sucked into the air like a feather and tossed about like a wisp of hay in the air.” If you had ancestors from nearby communities like Harmony, Chaseburg, Newton or Westby, search the Vernon County Censor for updates from those towns.

Start searching our new Wisconsin papers today on Newspapers.com!