County Has Had Many Newspapers

Lennox and Addington County in its 103-year history has been a hotbed of religion, politics and newspapers, and all of them seem to have been intertwined.

A section of Upper Canada settled early in the opening of the country, Lennox and Addington was the landing place of many United Empire Loyalists fleeing from the United States.

In the early days of Confederation there were newspapers at various times throughout the area, at Napanee, Newburgh, Deseronto and Tamworth.

In Historic Glimpses of Lennox and Addington, published in 1964, Mrs. Norman (Helen) Hutchison writes that two newspapers were published in Napanee in succession and then one in Newburgh in 1853. James A. Eadie head of the History Department at Napanee District Secondary School, says that The Napanee Beaver is the only one of the county’s many papers which did not meet its fate on the shoals of finance. The present Beaver publisher hopes this situation will continue to be the case.

The Napanee Bee began publication in 1850 and seemed to be based on religious and temperance policies. Its publisher, Rev. G. D. Greenleaf, followed the Bee’s short career with another weekly, the Napanee Emporium, which was also short-lived. Apparently readers didn’t take too kindly to his temperance views.

More than 100 years later readers of The Napanee Beaver were also to take offense at their newspaper’s temperance views - but this time it was because they thought it should be more pro-temperance than it was.

The Newburgh Index existed from 1853 to 1863.

The Napanee Standard began in 1854 and was bought out by the Napanee Express in 1905.

The Napanee Casket existed from 1869 to 1883 and was the official mouthpiece of the Sons of Temperance.

The Napanee Reformer began in 1854 in opposition to the Standard and lasted several years and the Napanee Bantling came into existence in 1858 to provide Napanee and area readers with yet another journal. But it lasted only six months.

The Lennox and Addington Ledger started in Napanee in 1864 and it folded a few months later.

The Newburgh British North American began in 1864 and the Addington Reporter in Newburgh in 1875. Later it became the Newburgh Reporter, but only lasted five years.

When Deseronto was still Mill Point it had the Mill Point Echo, starting in 1877. It was moved to Tamworth in 1879 but only lasted three years.

Lennox and Addington County has seen the beginning of many newspapers, political movements, churches and forms of municipal government. thus, it has a long and interesting history, much of it told in the pages of its newspapers. It is also reported to have the finest historical collection of local newspapers of any community in Ontario outside of the provincial archives.