The nameplate banner for the first issue of the Emmitsburg Chronicle in 1879.

Although Thurmont and Emmitsburg are only 7.5 miles apart, in the early 18^th century, it was probably a 2-hour trip from one town to the other. While a person could make a round trip in a day, it wasn’t something people wanted to do daily if they didn’t have to. It was a distance that made the communities neighborly, but they operated separately.

This could be seen in the publishing of different newspapers, a separate one for each community.

Emmitsburg was the first of the two communities to get a newspaper. “The first paper, the ‘Emmitsburg Banner’ was published in 1840 by a Mr. McClain. The Banner was published only a few times before it ceased operation,” according to a 1951 article in the Emmitsburg Chronicle.

The second newspaper in Emmitsburg was the Emmitsburg Star, published in 1845. It was published by C. Grate and focused on literature and fine arts.

These early newspapers failed to find a large enough subscriber base to sustain them more than a few issues.

Thurmont got its first newspaper in 1860 when Isaiah Wolfersberger published The Family Visitor. “The only known copy of the newspaper, a single tattered paged dated May 30, 1862. This page was obtained by the Enoch Pratt Library and a photo copy of it given to the Town of Thurmont,” according to A Thurmont Scrapbook: Glimpses of History.

This paper was also short lived. In the case of The Family Visitor, the story goes that it is because Wolfersberger was a Confederate sympathizer in a town that largely supported the Union.

Thurmont’s second newspaper fared much better. William Need began publishing the Catoctin Clarion on March 4, 1871. Need served as both the editor and publisher, but he had to sell the paper because of health issues. However, it continued to receive strong support from the community under new owners. This is largely due to the hard work of editors like Charles Cassell, H. Q. Miller, James Firor, J. K. White and Carl Cassell.

The 1870s also proved a good time to start a newspaper in Emmitsburg. Princeton University graduate Samuel Motter started the Emmitsburg Chronicle on June 14, 1879, with an annual subscription costing $1.50.

The debut editorial stated the goal of the newspaper as this: “Our first aim shall be to present the CHRONICLE as a medium through which the outer world may learn our aims, our hopes and high resolves. We shall not try to amuse our readers with rhetorical flourishes, nor with sonorous sentences, neither shall we indulge in meaningless jests, nor silly observations, but endeavor, in an unpretending way to give our readers the current news of the times, with such items of local interest that may present themselves: we shall try to practice the recent suggestion of an esteemed clerical friend, who we estimate as a model editor, substantially, that ‘the value of a newspaper consists not so much in what we put into it, as in what is kept out of it.’”

In another issue of the paper, Motter talked about the newspaper’s equipment and warned off potential thieves, writing, “Sneakthieves are warned to avoid this office. Go round, be distant. Our weapons, offensive and defensives, consist of a carbine nearby. Our apprentice has a single barreled pistol in his vest pocket; the muscular development of the foreman are just nicely symmetrical. He is skilled in the use of his composing and shooting sticks, as well as, of good solid mallet which he uses in a sinister way; the devil has a way of grinning that is significant of his capabilities; but best and most reliable of all, is our pair of crutches, stout and seasoned, which have sustained us in many an emergency, during not a few years; we are thus in good practice; unoffensive we trust, in deposition, but nevertheless on our guard. Avaunt Ye!”