[Illustration: FRONTIER SCOUT. Capt. E. G. Adams, Editor. LIBERTY AND
UNION. Lieut. C. H. Champney, Publisher Vol. 1. FORT RICE, D. T.,
AUGUST 10, 1865 No. 9.]
As early as 1853 a printing press is said to have been at the St.
Joseph mission station, site of the present town of Walhalla, but
there is no evidence that the press was actually used there. The first
confirmed North Dakota printing was done on a press which Company I
of the 30th Wisconsin Volunteers brought to Fort Union in June 1864.
In July of that year a small newspaper, the _Frontier Scout_, made
its appearance at the fort, and extant issues name the Company as
"proprietors" and identify (Robert) Winegar and (Ira F.) Goodwin, both
from Eau Claire but otherwise unknown, as publishers.[140] Possibly
antedating the _Frontier Scout_ is a rare broadside notice which
either issued from the same press (not before June 17) or else could
be the first extant Montana imprint.[141]
With its early North Dakota newspapers the Library of Congress has a
facsimile reprint of the _Frontier Scout_, volume 1, number 2 (the
first extant issue), dated July 14, 1864. The Library's earliest
original specimen of North Dakota printing is a copy of the _Frontier
Scout_, volume 1, number 9 in a new series of issues at the paper's
second location, Fort Rice. Dated August 10, 1865, this issue names
Capt. E. G. Adams as editor and Lt. C. H. Champney as publisher. The
Library's copy is printed on a four-page sheet of blue-ruled notebook
paper.
The contents of the August 10 issue are almost entirely from the pen
of Captain Adams, who saw fit to run the statement: "Every article in
the paper is original and sees the light for the first time." A long
poem about Columbus, which he entitled "San Salvador," occupies most
of the front page. More interesting is a second-page editorial headed
"Indian Impolicy," rebuking the authorities in Washington for not
allowing General Sully a free hand in his current operations against
the Indians (whom the editor calls "these miserable land-pirates").
From this issue one gains an impression that Fort Rice must have been
a dreary post. The following is under date of August 6 in a section
captioned "Local Items":
By the Big Horn and Spray [vessels] the Q. M. Dept. at Fort
Rice receive 4500 sacks of corn. The Mail arrives. The
wolves are howling on all sides tonight; we can see them,
some of them are as large as year old calves. The first cat
arrives at Fort Rice. There are so many rats and mice here
it is a great field for feline missionaries.
The Library of Congress obtained its copy of this issue of the
_Frontier Scout_ through an exchange with the South Dakota Historical
Society in November 1939.
[Footnote 140: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, "Pioneer Printing in North
Dakota," _North Dakota Historical Quarterly_, vol. 6, 1931-32, p.
221-230.]
[Footnote 141: See no. 2036 in _The Celebrated Collection of Americana
Formed by the Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter_ (New York, 1966-69), vol.
4.]