Macon Intelligencer Archive

Macon, the seat of Noxubee County, is a small town in the fertile farmland of east-central Mississippi known as the black prairie. An early newspaper, the Macon Intelligencer, began in 1838, only eight years after the region was first ceded to the United States by the Choctaw through the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. The Intelligencer acquired the press of a previous publication, the Mississippi Star, for which there are no extant issues. The prospectus stated that the newspaper will "...be devoted to Literature, Agriculture, and Politics." It is possible that the Macon Herald (1841-42), another four-page Whig weekly, was a continuation of the Macon Intelligencer. In one of its first issues, Herald publisher William Waddill informed readers that "We have sent several copies of the 'Herald ' to the former subscribers to the 'Intelligencer.' If they do not wish it continued, they will please let us know, or they will be considered as subscribers. "The Herald also continued the Intelligencer's motto: "The Constitution and the Laws - The Guardians of our Liberty."

The Macon Intelligencer and the Macon Herald had similar content and coverage. Politics dominated, with numerous reprinted editorials including many from the National Intelligencer (1810-69), one of the nation's leading Whig newspapers in the 1830s and 40s. The two Macon papers frequently discussed the national banking crisis and deemed a strong national bank necessary. Editorials regularly supported the repayment of bonds sold for the failing Mississippi Union Bank, the state's response to the national banking crisis. The newspapers printed Congressional and state legislation including, for example, "An Act to Amend the Criminal Code in Mississippi," which appeared in its entirety in the Intelligencer from April 11 to May 9, 1839. Other topics of current interest covered in the papers were the newly independent Republic of Texas, the Maine/New Brunswick border dispute between the United States and British Canada, and the Seminole War in Florida.

Local news consisted primarily of legal notices and county and city politics. One campaign of note was the 1838 race for the Mississippi state legislature in which Whig candidate Victor M. Murphey (probably the same V.M. Murphey who, along with Hezekiah William Foote, owned and edited the Macon Intelligencer) won the popular election by five votes. The act to incorporate Macon was published in the July 2, 1842 issue of the Herald. Announcements of marriages, deaths, and other matters of local interest appeared occasionally. Rarely, entertainments were publicized, such as the performance of the play, William Tell, by a traveling theatre troupe, in the March 21, 1839 issue of the Intelligencer. A poem and a story also appeared in most issues as well.

The Macon Herald went from publishing political news to primarily printing repeated tax sale notices and local advertisements. In October 1842, Andrew Marschalk, Jr., son of the "father of Mississippi journalism," Andrew Marschalk, Sr., bought the ailing newspaper intending to change its title. While no other Macon papers are attributed to Marschalk, he did go on to publish newspapers in Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana.