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[From the editor: This article quotes at length from a chapter on child newspaper carriers from the early years of the Providence Journal. The children were required to appear early each morning where the newspaper press was located in order to take their newspapers fresh off the press to deliver them to households throughout Providence. The children committed some hilarious pranks, as well as faced challenges. Most arose at 3 a.m. to get ready to prepare for the school day, first by going to the printers and getting their newspapers to deliver. Many of the children came from so-called “good families.” Others came from middle class families and some paid for attending Brown University while keeping their routes during college. It does not appear that any children of color were selected. This was a time when retailer stands did not dominate newspaper sales. Later Providence Evening Bulletins were printed and distributed in the afternoons. By the early 1900s, it was a scandal that children from poor families were out at all hours of the night hawking newspapers on the streets of Providence. But most carriers here recalled their times as carriers fondly. The excerpts here are from the following book:  Half a Century with the Providence Journal, Being a Record of the Events and Associates Connected with the Past Fifty Years of the Life of Henry R. Davis Secretary of the Company, by The Journal Company (Providence, RI:  Privately Printed, 1904), pages 149-180. Minor edits have been made to be consistent with modern usage, spelling, and grammar. Some material deemed to be of modest interest has been deleted. Some clarifying material has been added in brackets.]]

A news boy carries newspapers, 1843 (New York Public Library Digital Collections)

Newspaper carrier positions were much sought after in those days, and the competition for places made it possible for the publishers to select some of the brightest boys, many of whom represented excellent families. When the route was secured, the lads endured a training that proved valuable later in life; so, most of them developed into prosperous citizens, especially if they profited by the lessons in self-reliance, industry, and punctuality that were essentials to success in delivering papers.

Persons have been accustomed to praise mail carriers and have been glad to contribute to the Christmas gifts for these public servants, but few of them appreciate the efforts of the boys who have to start out before breakfast and to trot about long before dawn to distribute the morning papers in season to attend their regular school duties . . . .

When daily papers were first issued and boys were installed in the new business of delivering copies to customers along city routes, people were more appreciative of their efforts and usually rewarded them at least once a year, when reminded at New Year’s of their debt to the messengers who had braved all conditions of weather to leave the record of the previous day’s news on their door-steps in season for perusal at breakfast. From this sense of obligation to the carrier boys started the custom of distributing a New Year’s address as a hint that something was expected as extra reward for service rendered. Thus, after the papers had been delivered on January the boys were accustomed to go over their routes again and to leave each customer a sheet on which verses written for the occasion by some friend of the carriers were printed. The subscriber knew what this meant, and his response was a fee that varied in size from five cents to one dollar, so that boys with large routes often collected as much as fifty dollars on a New Year’s morning. If the day was stormy or the route had been made difficult by a fresh fall of snow, the pluck of the boy in getting about promptly before the paths were trodden was likely to be rewarded generously.

The carriers were obliged to fold their own papers then, and they also had to wrap them in covers where customers demanded this protection; so, the task of preparation was considerable, especially as they had to wait for production from slow presses, which often broke down entirely. In order to be prepared for such chances of delay the boys usually gathered in the dingy old press room at least half an hour before they could be sure of receiving their allotment of papers. As they were supplied in the order of their arrival, it finally became the custom for the first boy who arrived to claim the best place in the room for folding his papers by laying his carrier bag on the particular table he wished to appropriate. There would then be a chance for a nap while waiting, but it was not often possible to preserve quiet among such a crowd of youngsters.

When the carrier boys reached the office before the pressman had started the edition there was an opportunity for mischief that the stern Joe Bucklin had difficulty in repressing. Bucklin had charge of the delivery of papers by mail or carrier, and he was the target for pranks that only active boys could devise. He would have his wrappers addressed for the mail and find afterward that the paste he had to apply in such haste lacked sufficient adhesive power to seal them, as some insoluble powder had been substituted for flour in its preparation. But it was in trying to smuggle an extra copy of the Journal that the boys exercised their ingenuity, no doubt being challenged by Mr. Bucklin’s care lest an additional copy should be taken by the carriers when they were allowed only one for personal use.

The patient John Holliday, who turned the wheel which furnished power for the old Adams press [that printed the Journal and Bulletin newspapers], also had his share of troubles made by the enthusiastic boys hovering about the room. He was accustomed to change his trousers in preparation for the grimy work, and occasionally the wet sponge used in locking up the forms was slipped into the seat of his working clothes as he drew them on, much to his embarrassment.

Those were the days of heavy boots, and to relieve his feet Holliday donned an old pair of slippers as he mounted the platform on which he stood to “grind” off the edition. He was surprised one morning to find the slippers carefully laid out for him, and he was inclined to be gratified by the attention until he tried to shift his feet and was nearly thrown over the fly wheel, for they were immovable. The slippers had been carefully tacked to the floor. Holliday would doze at his monotonous work in turning the crank, until awakened by some disturbance such as a volley of paper wads thrown by the carriers.

Samuel S. Wilson . . . in the 1850s [operated] the old Adams press . . . . Mr. Wilson . . . was regarded by the boys as a stern moralist, surrounded by printers with less scruples about [temperance]. He often related the story of the lesson in total abstinence he received when a lad participating in the welcome Providence gave to Gen. Lafayette [in 1825]. Light wines had been furnished by the members of a militia company, and he drank freely, not realizing their power to befog the brain, until he found himself reeling. He then started in alarm for his home, where his disgusted mother promptly put him to bed. Undoubtedly other means were employed to enforce the lesson, besides the ordinary restoratives, when he awoke, for he always said that the incident made a great impression on him. Mr. Wilson did not extend his prejudices against conviviality to theatergoing, for one of the carriers remembers that his first theatre ticket came from the veteran pressman, and he still recalls the scenes in the drama which he watched from a twenty-five-cent seat in the gallery.

Once out on the street, the responsibility to the subscriber succeeded any anxiety about complying with the rules in the office. It is this feature of accountability to the customer as well as to employer that makes a careless boy shrink from work where he is liable to be criticized by them both. Few subscribers have receptacles for their papers, and when it is only necessary to drop the sheet on the step or piazza of the house complaints about missing Journals are frequent. Sometimes the householder has insisted that the doorbell should be rung each morning, so that an early riser might go out in time to save his paper.

The Journal Building, at 203 Westminister Street, built in the Beaux Arts style, in 1907; it still stands with a restored exterior. The Journal moved out in 1934 into a new building at 75 Fountain Street (Providence Public Library Digital Collections)

One Journal carrier was annoyed by complaints from a very exacting customer that he failed to receive his paper. [The carrier] was asked always to ring the bell. This request was easily complied with, for the house was not reached until the rising hour. One week the boy learned that the customer’s son was very ill; so, for several days he tried to ring the bell “softly,” and when he saw crape on the door [black crape was a bad omen] he omitted the ringing entirely. The next day he was surprised to learn that the subscriber had complained because he failed to ring the bell as he had requested, and a reprimand was written in the book which the carriers were expected to examine each morning before they started out. . . .

But the carrier’s functions are growing more limited owing to the development of the business of the newsdealer, who is doing the work that formerly fell to the publisher. The evening editions of papers are now handled almost exclusively by newsdealers, for only six boys are employed by the Journal Company to deliver Bulletins to subscribers, while the morning Journal, with a smaller circulation, requires thirty-two carriers. Whether the increase of mail facilities and the perfection of news agencies may make it profitable for the publishers to dispense entirely with their carriers is not yet clear, but the newsboy remains a part of the newspaper office today [1904]. . . .

While not a carrier himself, [Samuel] Wilson came in contact with the boys who had the first routes established by the Journal, and his experience with Benjamin C. Simmons, one of that number, is one of the traditions of the office. Wilson lived where the Rhode Island Historical Society building now stands [at 121 Hope Street] and one night he was called into the dormitory across the street by a Brown student, who asked him to keep the Commencement illuminations going in his window. Wilson soon tired of his job, and, deciding to go home, he threw out the board holding the candles and sent the chair after it. Simmons was passing under the window with his bundle of papers, and the chair struck him on the head, greatly frightening [Samuel], who did not learn until sometime afterward whom he had injured. Fortunately, the injuries did not prove serious, and Mr. Simmons lived long to enjoy the distinction of having carried copies of the first issue of the Journal.

John M. Rounds seems to deserve the credit of being the oldest living Journal carrier today, for he had routes back in 1833. The papers were delivered to him from Col. George E. John, and Peyton H.—all of them [formerly] soldiers in the Civil War. . . .  [To Rounds} the snowbanks of those days seem higher than any that have gathered since, and he has vivid recollections of plowing through unbroken streets amid drifts that surmounted cowhide boots and soaked the feet, unprotected by rubbers.

  1. Augustus Bucklin had the route along Benefit Street, and he had to deliver papers to three of the four houses then standing on Governor Street. His customers included the Spragues, the Goddards, and Judge Ames [all, very wealthy]; so, the opportunities for New Year’s collections were the envy of other carrier boys. The opportunity of mounting the steps or entering the grounds did not usually give the carriers the privilege of eating fruit found in dooryards, but Mr. Bucklin remembers one of the subscribers with gratitude today, for this man told him to help himself to all the pears he could get.

Three of the Earle brothers whose name is associated with the Earle & Prew express business were once carriers of the Journal, and Charles R. Earle gives the following account of their experience:

My eldest brother, John D. Earle, had the South Main Street route after S. T. Browne left it to enter the Navy. My brother William H. Earle came on in 1857, and I succeeded him on the North Main Street route [in 1862], taking in the vicinity of Canal, Smith, Charles, and Orms streets. I had about fifty-five subscribers on this route, and the last paper was left at the old State Prison.

The first person to greet me with a ‘good morning’ was Job Winsor, an eccentric man, who will be remembered as the exhibitor of a whale as a curiosity. I often encountered Janey, the colored man, who was always looking for a job (at least the inscription on his wagon would indicate that). On State Street Capt. Joslin would be watching for me, and if the morning was cold, he would generally urge me to come in and drink something warm. . . .

We would make it warm for [Joe] Bucklin when the press broke down, and I remember that at one time this occurred quite often. Sometimes he lost his temper over our jokes, and that was just what the boys wanted. He would sometimes threaten to discharge us all, but the next morning he would greet us very cordially. Mr. [Henry R.] Davis was a young man, in the counting room, and always paid us when it was time to call for our money. The boys used to look forward to New Year’s, and Mr. Bucklin was always very good to see that our addresses were written in time. . . .  I enjoyed getting up in the morning and also the pleasure of carrying the Journal. We used to have heavy snowstorms, and I remember seeing drifts from six to eight feet deep on South Main Street as well as along my route.

Some of the staunchest friends of the paper may be found among those who thus served it in their boyhood, for the favorable impressions made in those early years are lasting, especially when accompanied by such rigorous discipline as early rising. Such a friend of the Journal is Benjamin E. Kinsley, for the father took the paper from the date of its first issue and the son had it follow him in his travels all over the world. Mr. Kinsley retains vivid recollections of the office on Washington Row and the timid way in which he would climb the dark stairs to the press room, fearing each minute lest he should encounter the form of some drunken man who had crawled in there to sleep off his debauch.

Photographs of prominent Providence men who once worked as newspaper carriers as boys (Half a Century with the Providence Journal)

The carriers of one period remember an incident in Mr. Kinsley’s career that led to his discharge. Mr. Kinsley does not hesitate to relate the story, and, although he says he would not think of repeating such a trick now, the revelation it gave him then of Mr. Anthony’s character was some compensation for his punishment. Mr. Kinsley was as active as any in the lively set of carriers, and when he found the other boys waiting for the pressman one morning, he accepted a “dare” to change the types in the form so as to give a ridiculous turn to an announcement in the advertising column. The consciousness of what he had done weighed on him that day so heavily that he was not surprised later when he saw Joe Bucklin enter his father’s shoe store with a very grave face. He was escorted into the august presence of Senator [Henry] Anthony [then owner of the Journal] to be examined about the offense, but it did not require much questioning to bring out the facts, for he was then ready to confess it all. “Of course, we cannot keep you after you did this,” said Mr. Anthony, but in such a kindly way that it seemed to take some of the sting out of the sentence of discharge. Mr. Anthony even asked him to stay and break in his successor; so, he thinks that he was treated pretty leniently, when he considers the character of the offence. The late Daniel W. Ladd was also implicated in this scrape and was discharged with Kinsley.

John Tetlow, headmaster of the Boston Girls’ High and Latin Schools, retains his sympathy for the carriers, for he worked in that capacity when a boy, and he recalls his experiences as follows:

I fix the date of my service by the date of the appearance of Donati’s Comet, which in the autumn and winter of 1858 was a conspicuous object in the eastern sky as I left my father’s house on Cabot Street at 4 o’clock in the morning to take my way to the Journal office. My route began at the bridge [Weybosset Bridge], and after leaving the business section of the city included between the river [Providence River] and Weybosset Street extended westward to the end of Friendship and Pine streets. I was in attendance at the Providence High School at the time, under the instruction of Edward H. Magill, whom I remember as the best teacher I ever had. As I often carried a school book along with me and prepared a lesson as I delivered the papers along my route, I am afraid that I sometimes in my absent-mindedness I missed a subscriber and brought on myself a well-merited rebuke from Joseph Bucklin, who had charge of the room in which we carriers received our papers from the press and folded them before proceeding over our several routes. For, when a subscriber made a complaint at the upstairs office, Mr. Wheeler or Mr. Bucklin entered the complaint, together with a suitable [remark] . . .  in a large book which we were expected to consult on our arrival at the folding room every morning. As the rebuke administered to each one was open to the inspection of all, it not seldom happened that a tardy comer would be greeted by his fellow carriers with jeering remarks as he entered the folding room and would learn from their remarks that there was warm language awaiting his inspection in the order book. . . .

“We were paid once a week, as I remember that I received every Saturday afternoon from Mr. Wheeler in the upstairs office the munificent sum of $1.25. I should add, however, that on New Year’s Day we carried to our patrons a New Year’s address . . . On that day I used to gather in a harvest, as it seemed to me, for the contributions of the subscribers along my route amounted to from $15 to $25. To this day, as the result of my early experience, I feel that there is a bond of sympathy between me and the boy who brings my daily paper; and I regret that I do not have the opportunity to cheer his heart on New Year’s Day, owing to the lapse of the New Year’s addresses . . . .

Henry B. Anthony, who became an editor in 1838 and part owner in 1840 of the Providence Journal. He also served as U.S. Senator from Rhode Island from 1859 until his death in 1884 (Half a Century with the Providence Journal)

The Cragin family furnished three brothers to the carrier force, and Rev. Charles Chester Cragin contributes these incidents to the chapter of experiences, writing from Campbell, California:

I cannot recall when I carried the Providence Journal, but 1861 was a part of the time, for I have a most vivid remembrance of profound feeling when I distributed the paper telling of the firing on Fort Sumter, though I had little thought then that it was the beginning of a war in which I should serve six months as a private and two years as a captain. I carried it also in 1859, for I remember reading-in it, as I was folding the papers for my route, that I had taken a second Greek and a second Latin of the president’s premiums offered to members of the Freshman class in Brown University. I said to myself, ‘I know the result sooner than any other who competed for the prizes’ . . . .

Another event which stands out vividly in my mind was on a bleak, wintry morning, before daylight, when I was on my way to the Journal office. I was near the foot of Sabin Street, and had been running to get warm, when the wind caught me out of breath and forced me to turn around and to stand struggling and gasping for breath, as if my last hour had come.

As I recall it, I used to rise at half past three [in the morning], depending on an alarm clock to awaken me. The first time I heard the clock it was startling, like the crack of doom, and I leaped at once out of bed. But I found afterward that if I lingered awhile before rising it sounded less and less distinctly, until finally I ceased to hear it, till I went back to my first experience and obeyed it instantly. It seemed to me like the voice of conscience, which must be heeded if it would be heard.

Occasionally boys were allowed to sell papers themselves, and William P. Chapin built up a route in this way. Mr. Chapin admits that he was a timid lad and disliked starting out alone on dark mornings; so he strapped a lantern to his belt for company. Early in his career the soldiers were in camp on the Dexter Training Ground, training for the war [the Civil War], and he obtained permission to deliver papers to them each morning.

Dr. E. S. Allen, who was a carrier from 1865 to 1872, appreciates the dangers to which a young boy is exposed by such strenuous work and irregular hours, which interfere with normal sleep. As a rule, the carrier boys have about three hours less sleep than their companions, and he remembers that they used to drop off dozing in the hot schoolrooms during the afternoon. “While I appreciate the value of the training,” says Dr. Allen, “I would never allow a son of mine to be a carrier, for it is too hard work to be safely undertaken at that tender age. The boys who have to rise at 3 o’clock to begin work on their routes do not have a chance to make up the lost sleep, for it is rare that they retire earlier than their companions. They start out without warm food and usually without proper nourishment, for the lunch hastily eaten generally consists of a doughnut or cracker. Sometimes a subscriber would take pity on a carrier and offer him a cup of hot coffee, but such instances were rare.”

Among the merchants who look back with satisfaction to their work as carriers are David S. and Horatio Fraser, coffee dealers, who are both impressed with the hardships which confronted boys who had to rise so early and face all sorts of weather. David came on in 1873, and he remembers that after a severe flood he was once obliged to walk along the upper cross bar of a picket fence to reach his subscribers’ houses on Daboll Street. Horatio remembers that one morning when the snow made traveling difficult, his father had to help him finish his route.

Two Providence children in 1912 are “newsies,” selling newspapers on the streets at all hours of the day, in violation of child labor laws, Jimmie, eight years old, and Irene, twelve years old (Lewis Hines Collection, Library of Congress)

 

Many a Brown graduate began to earn money in preparation for college as a carrier for the Journal, but few of these continued the work after undertaking college duties. In this respect Edward C. Bixby, assistant librarian at the Providence Library, is an exception, for he not only continued carrying Journals until half-way through college, but he built up a route of Bulletins besides. As he lived two miles from the college, he estimates that he had to walk about twenty-five miles a day in all, a task which few students would be willing to undertake in addition to their studies.

Harry C. Curtis, who succeeded to Mr. Bixby’s route, had a dog, which generally accompanied him in the morning, and he trained the animal to leave the paper [at houses] on Lockwood Street, thereby saving himself a good many steps. While the New Year’s addresses were discontinued by Journal carriers in 1867, Mr. Curtis remembers that some customers wished to keep alive the custom of rewarding faithful boys, so they left word at the office the night before Christmas that a present would be ready for the carrier if he called the next day when he had finished his route. While the boys could not ask for fees, there was nothing to prevent accepting them at New Year’s time, and one year Mr. Curtis says that he received $5 from a subscriber who told him that after noting his arrival each morning for six months he found that he had not varied ten minutes in that period.

  1. A. Presbrey, of A. A. Presbrey Sons & Co., who afterward graduated from Brown, thinks that his was one of the hardest routes, for it took him an hour and three-quarters to go over it.

When Eugene C. Myrick, now of the Silver Spring Bleachery, applied for a carrier’s position Mr. Davis feared that he would be too small to do the work; but he secured the opportunity to try, and he succeeded so well that he continued his route until halfway through his course in Brown, where he was graduated in 1890. Mr. Myrick was known as the boy with the dog, and he taught his St. Bernard to run down side streets and drop papers on doorsteps. Many a morning Mr. Myrick would find the snow so drifted that it would be difficult to reach the top step while carrying two bags of papers; but the dog could generally wallow through the snow, carrying the paper in his mouth.

The story of the carriers would not be complete without further reference to the New Year’s addresses they were for many years permitted to distribute, These were generally in the form of verse, which was printed on a single page, varying in size according to its length or ambitions of the paper, although the publishers did not always have a part in their preparation. The lines usually contained some hint of the object of the missive, and there was almost always an obsequious use of congratulations, suggesting that the time for substantial appreciation of the messenger service had come. The custom originated in the beginning of the last century [the early 1800’s], and was adopted pretty generally throughout the country, until it led to abuses and had to be discontinued by self-respecting newspapers. The author of the verse usually withheld his [sometimes her] name and identity, but in rare cases he [or she] signed the missive. The events of the year were reviewed, especially in such strenuous times as the Civil War, while occasionally the rhyme took on a religious tone of thankfulness for blessings and observations on the inexorable flight of time.

Originally the newspapers recognized the custom, and often called attention to the addresses on New Year’s morning by such a paragraph as this, which appeared in the Journal: “The carriers wish to say that in the course of the morning they will wait on their patrons with the compliments of the season done in verse.”


“New Year’s Address of the Carriers of the Providence Journal, January 1, 1864” (Half a Century with the Providence Journal)

But the subscribers who did not contribute in response to the appeals were either slighted or they imagined that they were, and in 1867 the salaries of the Journal carriers were increased, and they were forbidden any longer to distribute addresses.