The Vermont Transcript Archive

In March 1864, publisher Henry A. Cutler and editor George F. Houghton established the weekly Vermont Transcript in St. Albans. In July 1866, they turned the paper over to Wilbur P. Davis, who had previously been an editor at the Transcript’s rival, the St. Albans Messenger, and a proprietor and editor of the Vermont Standard in Woodstock. In May 1868, Davis and editor Almont Barnes began publishing the Vermont Daily Transcript. The new daily paper competed with the St. Albans Daily Messenger, which started in 1861.

Davis sold the Transcript to Charles H. Baker and Joseph H. Montefiore in August 1869. The Messenger announced the sale, noting that Baker, a bookseller and hotel owner, and Montefiore, a lawyer and former printer, lacked experience in the newspaper business. The Transcript did not last long under the new owners. The daily edition may have ceased first, as only the weekly is listed in Geo. P. Rowell and Co.'s American Newspaper Directory for 1870. No issues produced by Baker and Montefiore have survived to record its demise. Announcements in the Messenger indicate that Albert Clarke, the Messenger’s editor, and J. S. D. (John Syng Dorsey ) Taylor, a local educator, bought and consolidated the Messenger and the Transcript in 1870. The first issue of the new weekly, the St. Albans Messenger and Transcript, appeared on August 12, 1870. The daily paper continued to be issued as the St. Albans Daily Messenger.

The Vermont Transcript was a general interest paper, established “for free discussion of current topics in every department of American life.” Like its local rival, the Messenger, the Transcript supported Republican party principles and candidates. While the Transcript focused on St. Albans and Franklin and Grand Isle Counties in northwestern Vermont, it regularly included state, regional and national news and stories. In the weekly edition, literary content appeared on the first page and an agricultural section was included on the last page of most issues. The editors kept a keen eye on progress and included items about construction projects, real estate transactions, municipal services, and business developments. The paper covered the last years of the Civil War, including the northernmost Confederate engagement, the St. Albans Raid of October 19, 1864, when a small group of Confederate soldiers robbed three St. Albans banks and escaped to Canada. The Transcript also kept readers informed about the activities of the Irish nationalist group, the Fenian Brotherhood, including its attempts to invade Canada from the nearby town of Franklin, Vermont, in 1866 and 1870.