Herald and Tribune Archive

The weekly Jonesborough Herald and Tribune was first published in August 1869 by two prominent local physicians, Christopher Wheeler and Mathew S. Mahoney. The paper was established during the campaign for state governor between Dewitt C. Senter and William B. Stokes, in which the paper backed Senter.  The publishers advocated the principles of the National Republican party and declared that the purpose of their newspaper was to promote the “moral and intellectual improvement” of its readers. Wheeler and Mahoney published the paper jointly until 1873, when Mahoney became sole publisher, and remained so until 1876. 

For over a decade, the paper’s masthead featured an agricultural motif along with the motto,“Honesty of Purpose, and Equal Rights to all Men, will secure happiness to the People.” The motto disappeared in the mid-1880s, and the motif was dropped in 1891. According to Goodspeed’s History of Washington County (1887), the Herald and Tribune had “one of the best equipped newspaper offices in Tennessee, and the editorial library [was] without an equal.”  It had “a cylinder press, several fine job presses, and [was] equally complete in other respects.”

In October 1876, the newspaper was purchased by Walter P. Brownlow, who had previously worked for his uncle William G. Brownlow’s newspaper, the Knoxville Whig and Chronicle. W.P. Brownlow published the Herald and Tribune for seven years, before transferring ownership to a joint stock company in 1883. The Herald and Tribune later supported Brownlow in his (successful) candidacy for U.S. Congress. Frank L. Fornshell became publisher in 1896 and remained with the paper for the next seven years.

The Herald and Tribune focused on world news, market reports, politics, education, and agriculture.  International news came to the paper via telegraph service and was published promptly.  The political portion of the paper highlighted corruption within the major political parties.  Professor Henderson Presnell, the county school superintendent, covered education, concentrating on “Common Schools.”  The paper also extensively covered agriculture in the region. The Temperance Column was a regular feature throughout the 1890s, and was edited by the Jonesborough Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

This newspaper is still printed, and can also be accessed online.