Western Statesman Archive

Carroll, a cotton-producing county straddling the eastern edge of the fertile Yazoo-Mississippi River Delta and the adjacent hill country in northwest Mississippi, was established in 1833. Carrollton became the county seat one year later.

For most of the 1840s Carrollton had a series of sequential, but unrelated and short-lived four-page weekly Whig newspapers. The Southern Pioneer, and Carroll, Choctaw and Tallahatchie Counties Advertiser (1840-42), also known as the Southern Pioneer, was perhaps the earliest. It was followed by the Hornet (1843), and then the Western Statesman (1844-45). The Statesman began in Carrollton, but moved to Greenwood, 17 miles west, where it was renamed the Greenwood Reporter (1845). According to the June 16, 1845 issue of the rival Mississippi Democrat (1844-48?), the Reporter would be discontinued and ". . . the press will be removed to this place (Carrollton) and a Whig paper established." This "Whig paper" may have been the Whig Creed (1845-46), which published its first issue September 1, 1845, but within six months, publisher G. W. H. Brown advertised the sale of the press and materials. Brown had been publisher, either singly or with a partner, of most of the Whig newspapers in Carrollton and was described by a fellow editor as having ". . . the energy, talents and independence to publish a most excellent [Henry] Clay Whig Anti-Repudiation paper."

Content, purpose and principles of these newspapers were clearly stated in prospectuses, mottos, and editorials. The Southern Pioneer explained that it was "devoted to Politics, both State and National, Agriculture, the current news of the day and the advancement of the great cause of Education." Its succinct motto was "Principles not Men." The September 24, 1842 issue of the Pioneer opined that the nation would have been ". . . restored to a quiet, prosperous, and happy condition . . . and all kinds of business revived" if President Harrison had lived instead of the present administration of President John Tyler, where ". . . we are [an] impoverished people and a bankrupt nation." The Southern Pioneer also criticized Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tilghman Tucker (1842-44) and his proposed one dollar tax per cotton bale. The banking crisis was a topic of concern in all the newspapers. The Hornet aimed ". . . [to] spread the rascality and corruption of the anti-bond leaders before the eyes of the uninformed . . . ." The Statesman's motto belied its Whig loyalty: "Liberty and Union, Now and forever, one and inseparable." All four newspapers ran articles, advertisements, and other information of specific interest to cotton farmers, such as market prices and current crop conditions. Other content included legal notices, reprinted Whig editorials, and some reporting on county politics. Towards the end of the decade, the Creed reported on the Oregon territory boundary dispute with England and the growing concern over a war with Mexico.