President George Washington’s First Inaugural Speech
As a follow up to the previous post about the eyewitness account of George Washington’s 1789 inauguration, below are excerpts from the May 6, 1789 Massachusetts Centinel, which contains descriptions of the inauguration as well as the full text of Washington’s first inaugural speech, one of America’s 100 milestone documents.
Griswold’s Only Eyewitness Account of George Washington’s 1789 Inauguration
A lot has been written about George Washington’s 1789 inauguration and whether he actual said “So help me God” at the conclusion of his oath. John Bell of Boston 1775 has a great piece on the inauguration. And so does Ben Edwards of Teach History. In 1854, Rufus Wilmot Griswold first published The Republican Court; ...
The War of the Gazettes and the Dark Ages of the American Newspaper
“From the vantage point of the twentieth century, journalism historians look back on the period between 1789 and 1808 as the ‘dark ages’ of the American newspaper.” This great line leads the third chapter — titled Weapons in the Great Debate — of John Tebbel’s Compact History of the American Newspaper. “The golden age of ...
Gen. George Washington’s Arrival in Cambridge: The Public and Private Exchanges
Last week, J.L. Bell wrote on his Boston 1775 blog about Gen. George Washington’s arrival in Cambridge to take command of the Continental Army. Washington was accompanied by Gen. Charles Lee, an experienced British officer who was bitter about not being appointed Commander in Chief and, according to Wikipedia, had nothing but the utmost disdain ...
The First National Report of Lincoln’s Assassination
President Abraham Lincoln was shot at 9:30 p.m. on Friday, April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theater. He was moved to a house across the street where he died at 7:22 a.m. on Saturday, April 15. The news bulletins through 2 a.m. reached the New York Herald by telegraph in time to make its first edition, ...
The Salary of a King
As published in the December 26, 1803 issue of the Independent Chronicle (Boston).
The Deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died only hours apart on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. One of the best newspaper reports covering their deaths was the July 15, 1826 Niles’ Weekly Register, which also included biographical backgrounds and respects for each. Here are the first few ...
Three Cheers for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is easily one the most famous speeches in American history. For collectors of historic newspapers, the speech is one of the most difficult to find printed in an 1863 paper. According to Wikipedia, “despite the speech’s prominent place in the history and popular culture of the United States, the exact wording ...
Milestone Document: Washington’s Farewell Address
The Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Paris (1783), the Constitution of the United States (1787), the Bill of Rights (1791) — all of these are widely recognized for being among the most important documents in American history. Another milestone document was President George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796), in which Washington declared he would ...
