175 years ago ...
The very first edition of The Hamilton Spectator rolled off the presses
Volume 1, No. 1 of The Hamilton Spectator and Journal of Commerce was published on July 15, 1846, in a community celebrating its first year as a city.
Within one year, the newspaper boasted more subscribers — 270 — than any of the other three main competing newspapers. The Spectator was started by publisher/ editor Robert Reid Smiley, who was brought to Hamilton to start a conservative newspaper alternative to The Hamilton Gazette.
Smiley’s debut column said the newspaper would be dedicated to “peace, happiness and prosperity ... It may suffice to state that we shall earnestly endeavour to make The Spectator worthy of the patronage that is bestowed upon it.”
In 1852, The Spectator became a daily newspaper and was eventually sold to William Southam in 1877. That led to a major period of expansion and set the stage for the newspaper’s 20th-century dominance.
Hamilton has had several dozen newspapers of various kinds over the years, and The Spectator is the last surviving. The period from 1890 to 1920 saw the most intense competition between rival daily newspapers when three papers duked it out.
Only one copy of the Spectator’s debut edition is known to exist today and kept, revered, by current Spectator management.
It’s tattered and torn across the fold and partly held together with tape. There is fire damage below the masthead.
Evidently, the paper was singed in a fire that broke out in one of The Spectator’s former buildings.
The paper was printed on pulp made from rags instead of wood. Rag pulp is far more resilient to the ravages of time than wood pulp, which explains why it hasn’t disintegrated.
The Italianate Revival-style house owned by The Spectator’s first editor, Robert Smiley, still stands at 16 East Ave. N. Known as Smiley’s Castle, it was constructed in 1854. Sadly, Smiley would die the following year at the age of 38.
The house later became known as Rose Arden and eventually became surrounded by apartment buildings. But Smiley’s castle is still visible from East Avenue between King and King William streets.
A plaque commemorating the paper’s first editor was unveiled on the house in 1996 by then Spectator publisher Pat Collins to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the newspaper.