Shepherdstown Register Archive

Promising to serve the local interest and remain politically neutral, the Shepherdstown Register first hit the streets on December 4, 1849. Over the following century, the Register provided its readers with regional, national, and international news every week.

The Register owed its existence to a partnership between Maryland newspaperman Henry W. McAnly and a local schoolteacher. McAnly felt strongly that the newspaper should remain politically neutral, a unique stance to which many successive owners and editors of the Register adhered. In its early years, the paper changed ownership several times. After working with several partners, Henry McAnly eventually sold the paper J. T. H. Bringman in 1851, a veteran newspaperman and prior owner of The Democrat and Carroll County Republican in Maryland. Bringman eventually sold the paper to John H. Zittle, who reaffirmed the paper's commitment to "no particular sect, denomination or party."

John Zittle oversaw the Register for nearly three decades, keeping readers informed of the latest local gossip and national news, entertained with short stories and poetry, and advised in agricultural and industrial matters. True to his word, Zittle opined relatively little on politics. Yet the Register ceased publication in June of 1861, and Zittle served in the Civil War as a Confederate officer in the 2^nd Virginia Infantry. The Register resumed publication in 1865, and Zittle continued its publication until 1883, when Harry Lambright Snyder assumed ownership of the paper. Harry Snyder oversaw the Register for four decades, until his son William B. Snyder took over the paper in 1935. Tough commercial times finally forced the Register to close its presses in 1955, after, as William Snyder sadly noted, "seventy-three years of the Snyders' blood, sweat, and tears."