The printing history of Kentucky begins with the August 11, 1787,
issue of a Lexington newspaper, _The Kentucke Gazette_. John Bradford
of Fauquier County, Va., established this paper in partnership
with his younger brother, Fielding. They purchased their press at
Philadelphia in the spring of 1787 and transported it to Lexington by
way of Pittsburgh, where the first press to cross the Alleghenies had
been active since the preceding summer.[38]
The earliest Kentucky imprint in the Library of Congress is _The
Kentucke Gazette_ for March 1, 1788. Like five other issues of the
paper, available at the Library in facsimile, this original issue
opens with "Extracts from the journals of a convention begun and held
for the district of Kentucky at Danville in the county of Mercer on
the 17th day of September 1787." The extracts are resolutions looking
towards the separation of Kentucky from Virginia, and the following
one accounts for their publication in this paper:
[Resolved][39] That full opportunity may be given to the
good people of exercising their right of suffrage on an
occasion so interesting to them, each of the officers so
holding elections, shall continue the same from day to day,
for five days including the first day, and shall cause
these resolutions to be read immediately preceeding the
opening of the election at the door of the courthouse, or
other convenient place; and that Mr. Bradford be requested
to publish the same in his Kentucky Gazette, six weeks
successively, immediately preceeding the time of holding
said elections.
At a time for important decisions _The Kentucke Gazette_ served as a
means of airing different opinions on statehood, independence, and
constitutional questions. A long second portion of this March 1 issue
is an essay on liberty and equality signed by "Republicus." Critical
of certain sections of the proposed Federal Constitution, he opposes
a bicameral legislature, fears undue influence of the Congress over
State elections, and denounces any condoning of slavery. The remainder
of the issue includes an announcement of the ice breaking up on the
Ohio River, a report of an Indian raid, and an advertisement in this
vein: "I have been told that a certain Jordan Harris asserted in a
public and very positive manner, that I had acknowledged myself a liar
and a scoundrel in a letter to maj. Crittenden." The writer, Humphrey
Marshall, concludes that if said letter is published, "the public will
then see who is the liar and the scoundrel." This early issue bears
the name of the subscriber Richard Eastin, one of the first justices
of the peace in Jefferson County.[40]
The Library's only other examples of Kentucky printing from 1788 are
eight additional issues of the _Gazette_, for November 8 through
December 27, which have been detached from a bound volume and are
still joined together. These belonged to Walter Carr, who was serving
as a magistrate in Fayette County by 1792 and who in 1799 attended the
convention to form the second constitution of Kentucky.[41] Nothing
more can be ascertained about the acquisition of these holdings than
that the March 1 issue is first listed in the 1912 edition and that
the later issues are first listed in the 1936 edition of _A Checklist
of American Eighteenth-Century Newspapers in the Library of Congress_.
[Illustration: (THE KENTUCKE GAZETTE, March 1, 1788.)]
[Footnote 38: See J. Winston Coleman, Jr., _John Bradford, Esq._
(Lexington, Ky., 1950).]
[Footnote 39: Brackets in text.]
[Footnote 40: J. Stoddard Johnston, _Memorial History of Louisville_
(Chicago and New York [pref. 1896]), vol. 2, p. 3.]
[Footnote 41: C. R. Staples, _The History of Pioneer Lexington_
(Lexington, 1939), p. 78 and 151.]