One of the premier newspapers in the U.S., is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year, and the credit for its founding is largely due to a University of Vermont graduate.
The New York Times, which styles itself the nation’s “paper of record,” published its first issue in September of 1851. The newspaper was the brainchild of Henry Jarvis Raymond, who graduated with high honors from UVM in the Class of 1840. The Times kicked off its dodransbicentennial (yes, that is the official term for a 175th) on January 4 with a “Birth of the Times” column that featured the original prospectus published by Raymond and his business partner, George Jones, who functioned as the Times’ publisher.
During his four years as an undergraduate at UVM, Raymond was known as a talented orator who even as a student regularly contributed pieces to New York City papers. Raymond’s ties to the Burlington area went beyond his years at the university. Three years after his graduation, he returned to Winooski to marry Juliet Weaver. Raymond worked for several newspapers after leaving UVM, including Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. He met Jones while working for the Tribune, and later convinced him to join in starting a new daily newspaper. The New-York Daily Times debuted on September 18, 1851, with copies costing one cent. (The word “Daily” was dropped from its banner in 1857.)
As the Times’ David W. Dunlap notes in his anniversary piece, Raymond was a product of his era, and he at first adopted a neutral attitude on the most contentious topic of his day, slavery. But, Dunlap writes, “once persuaded that abolition fortified the cause of unionism, Raymond championed the destruction of slavery. On Dec. 19, 1865, after the 13th Amendment was ratified, Raymond confessed in an editorial ‘to a strange thrill of emotion, and of devout gratitude to Him who orders all things well.’”
Raymond also had an active political life in the era when politics and journalism were deeply intertwined, and all newspapers tended to hew to a political viewpoint. He played a crucial part in the formation of the Republican Party in 1856 and was elected and served as lieutenant governor of New York from 1855 to 1856. He guided the Times as editor-in-chief until his death in 1869. In 1896 the Times was acquired by Adolph Ochs, whose surviving family members to this day own a controlling interest in the paper.