Orleans County Monitor Archive 

The weekly Orleans County Monitor was published in Barton, Vermont, for just over 80 years, primarily under the direction of two men, George H. Blake and Wallace H. Gilpin.In 1871, Barton abruptly lost the Orleans Independent Standard, the weekly newspaper it had enthusiastically welcomed in 1866. The publisher of the county's other major weekly, the Newport Express, purchased the Standard’s subscription list and merged the two papers, leaving the southern part of Orleans County without a local paper. In response, printer Ellery H. Webster started the Orleans County Monitor in 1872 with support from Barton's business community. A Civil War veteran, Webster named the paper after the Union's iron-clad warship, the USS Monitor.

After running the Monitor by himself for a year, Webster added George H. Blake as a partner to take over the editorial duties. When Webster left the newspaper profession in 1876, Blake purchased the paper. Blake's son-in-law, William L. Jacobs, joined him in the business after graduating from Montpelier Seminary in 1894 and took over after Blake's death in 1898. Jacobs moved to California in 1904 and sold the Monitor to Wallace H. Gilpin, a printer who had started working at the paper when he was a student at Barton Academy.

In 1909 Gilpin formed a partnership with Franz A. Hunt that soon dominated newspaper publishing in Orleans County. In 1919, Gilpin and Hunt started a second weekly, the Newport News. In 1920, they acquired the Express and Standard, and in 1922 they merged the News with the North Troy Palladium to create the Palladium and News. The partners replaced the Express and Standard with the county's first daily, the Newport Daily Express in March 1936. They published the Palladium and News until 1942 and the Monitor until 1953.

The Monitor enjoyed strong support from subscribers and advertisers. The paper's continued success was due largely to each editor's ability to, as Webster explained in 1876, "make it newsy, instructive and interesting to the various tastes of which the general reading public is made up." Over time, the amount of local content increased, especially after the paper expanded to eight and then twelve pages. Reports from correspondents in Orleans County communities, as well as several bordering towns in Caledonia County, filled the paper. The editors championed economic growth, and they promoted agriculture, tourism, recreation, and industries that could take advantage of northwestern Vermont's rich natural resources. The paper supported conservation of natural resources at the same time that it advocated industries like asbestos mining. Blake, Jacobs and Gilpin were active in town and county businesses and organizations, and their diverse interests are reflected in articles and editorials.