The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

A VVJ 1 ml if A I I Fig The Era Newmarket Aurora Keswick Wed Oct A3 EV I 5c YORK A I f I S- f r J r r i fa L t fa- a- fa t- J fa f fa i J fa virgin to news politics literature science education and agriculture 3E By TERRY CARTER Era editor NEWMARKET On a sunny June day years two enterprising young newspapermen stepped off a train at the Newmarket station and walked into towns history Twentyfouryearold Erastus Jackson and his and partner Henderson had been news- together on the Toronto North American a publication operated by Hon William McDougall bad come to Newmarket to buy out the floun during newspaper and printing business established in February by English immigrant printer GS Porter Mr Porter who years later was to describe his establishment of the newspaper he call The Era as inopportune because of the scarcity of money in the area and the meagre education of potential readers apparently didnt waste any time about selling The succeeded In The Era moved again this time to within steps of its original home Mr Jackson built his new plant near the top of Main St hill on land now occupied by the south portion of the Roadhousc and Rose building This building burned in June and the business moved to its present location on Charles St without missing an edition Jackson held sole control of the publication for 30 years until Feb when his son Lyman took over Lyman continued in charge until J March when he sold for a short period to Arthur and his daughter Evelyn Crtckmore Lyman Jackson remained with the newspaper as editor emeritus but these were depression years and he was obliged to buy the business back again and return to active management in May It remained- his possession until Aug when Col Mulock and Andrew became joint owners with Mr functioning as editor and publisher This arrangement continued until July when deal must have been done that very day In those days Newmarket was a hamlet of fewer souls Most homes were grouped around what is now the south end of Main St Jackson later related that no sidewalks rid been laid on north of the Christian Church lp at the top of ih hill and that only two or three homes had been built in thai area From the top of the hill sizeable patches of virgin forest could still be seen to the north and the west The New Era although then the only newspaper published between Toronto and was a meagre four pages weekly and under Mr Porter had printed very little local news and a great many long ajid l dull articles on agriculture literature and science Its headquarters single handpress and stationery store were in the building on the east side of Main St opposite the post office The municipality demolished this structure a few years ago to make way for the landscaped walkway south of the municipal offices From here Jackson and Henderson operated until summers end In the fall of 1853 the partners moved their operation to a new building on the south west corner of Main and Mill Queen streets where it stayed for years until the little firm was able to erect its own building on the south west corner of Main and Ontario streets Both these buildings were long ago torn down These indications of a growing prosperity are tempered by the fact that sometime during the first five years the partnership split up the papers cir culation of about 300 was obviously providing in- ufficlent revenues to maintain two families R Henderson moved on to greater things and 80 Jackson notes in his social column that his former partner is now publishing the Journal of in Toronto In later years speaking of his early days in Newmarket Erastus Jackson said During the first him as editor In Col gained sole ownership and John became editor In 1952 CA Tiny purchased the news paper and held it until when he sold to Major James Baxter During this period Mr Cathers represented the constituency in the federal House of Commons as a Progressive Conservative member In May the Baxters the major had in stalled his son Ian as editor sold to The Toronto Telegram which subsequently established Inland Publishing Co to operate its weekly newspaper holdings Although The Telegram vanished from the Toronto publishing scene in Inland continues as one of the most successful and progressive community newspaper publishers in the nation David Haskell the present publisher became editor and publisher when the Tely purchased the paper In Gil held the editorial chair briefly and late that year Terry Carter joined the firm and shortly after became editor and remains so to the present day With years of publishing history behind it The Era can boast of being one of the longest established and therefore most successful weekly newspapers in Canada J- v- Although never nominally leaving the Reform fold Credit for much of success must go to the j The Era during this period took an independent Jackson family who through two generations and Reform stance and eventually Jackson years provided the firm a continually stable himself ran for the Legislature on that ticket but lost- strong and progressive management fe when it disappeared No records exist to tell us of The schools had not long been established to exercise a sentinels final disposition but since all the founders potent influence of developing newspaper readers were aclivcin loca and Eraslus Jackson hence the firs 0 years were a hard struggle to make supporter Re py his lite two ends meet The credit wdely prevailed to Tne a Reforrn par in days we can the great loss of those with limited means in carrying on respective business operations and trade but after By 1B80 The Era was still on the offensive to establish it continued as a Reform paper but not slavishly partisan Thus the official Reform Parly paper remained the North York Reformer and It continued to be published well into the Other papers had cropped up along the way The North York Intelligencer and Advertiser had been absorbed by The Era about and in the 1890s The Newmarket Express and Advertiser was on the scene as a Conservative publication In 1901 the Express Advertiser purchased the West Sutton Herald and became the Express Herald E was publisher at the time He was succeeded by JD McKay E Wiley JF Harvey suppose The Sentinel resulted from political dif- j Bowman and Angus West In West sold However these were not years without difficult times or without opposition In fact there have been very few of the years when The Era has not had at least one other newspaper in town to oppose it First to appear on the scene after Trie New Era was the North York Sentinel founded Dec 20 by Dr James Hunter Alfred Benjamin Pearson and George Hughes It was Reform Liberal in politics and continued to be published until Hirst decade by faithfully attending council increased and now the people could not do thout The Era what of Porter The Eras real founder one brief year on the Newmarket scene this been born in Norwich England in 1813 Australia where he was reported to haw ted centenary in and folded when they were eventually pat ched up On Dec 26 the first Conservative paper in Newmarket started The Newmarket Courier and it appeared with GM Binns as editor The Courier turned Liberal as early as 1873 A local physcian Dr Playter had acquired control in and two years later sold out to George Fox In the North York Reformer of Newmarket a out the Conservative Express Herald to Messrs and of the Liberal Era Col was the son of Sir William Mulock the Liberal MP for York North for many years and the papers were amalgamated to become the Newmarket Era and Express In the Jones Poirier Publishing Co was formed to publish The Newmarket Post Eight years business and not the newspaper was the owners main carried long columns of one paragraph items of local source of income they were far less commercial than news so many that one wonders how the small staff todays very profit oriented newspapers managed to find them all without use of a telephone Starting as a fourpage paper and growing to eight No one in town one gets the feeling escaped the by the turn of the century The Era was often light editors notice A new roof put on a trip taken an out on advertising by todays standards because one of its of town visitor a runaway horse a boy major functions was simply to serve as a weekly ad- they were all noted in The Era vertisement itself for its owners lucrative printing And of course a community newspaper was a business political forum These reporting was accepted as part In January for instance owner Jackson of a newspapers function proudly announced at the top of his front page The The Era during the Jackson years was Newmarket Era Book and Job Establishment is unabashedly Reform supporting the party stalwarts completely new comprising the latest styles of plain both in general elections and in municipal politics and and fancy type Orders for any of tlie following or other in fact Jackson became so involved in description of printing promptly executed pamphlets politics he set on town council and York County posters business cards cheque books bank notes council for many years and eventually became a circulars bill headings programmes stage bills Warden of York County magistrates blanks letters labels etc Newmarket community grew from at In his printing carried the label Era Steam century to 1700 in 1863 by Printing House obviously Newmarket had a federation at the turn of the century and by prosperous printing business with all the latest World War so did its newspaper- equipment And paradoxically as weekly newspapers News columns of The Era during most of the flourished in their own right their small printing year Jackson tenure carried reports as varied as the business went into a decline High overhead and loss by a workman of a finger in the Cane factory changing technology gave the advantage to large woodworking machinery and a flood in China For in centralized printing operations the papers early days it was often sole Today at The Era the newspaper is king Job source of information Radio and TV had not been printing isnt even handled at the Charles St plant Reform paper bought out The Courier The Reformer July the name The New Era was had been founded that August by a group of Reform who had had a falling out with Era Ihe papers name was carried across the top in publisher Jackson because he had refused to endorse official candidate lawyer that the publication was dedicated Alfred later it too sold out to The Era by then owned by invented and Toronto daily newspapers and Type is still set there but the printing is done jinnlJ magazines were scarce elsewhere It was up to The Era to keep the community in- And in all probability for the lifelong newspaper- formed of developments in the outside world and this man and politician of the century it did providing long reports of events all over the Jackson that is a dream come true Printing may have world which It reprinted from other publications been his livelihood but his Eras show ho was a But it did not neglect the local scene In newspaperman at hearty Inland and disappeared During the early years of weekly newspaper publishing in Canada community publications were both intensely personal and much more wordly than todays community press And because in many instances the printing v I fc