Michael Hodder and Q. David Bowers
The Plain Dealer was founded in 1842, its first editor being J.W Gray. The first edition appeared on January 7 of that year, and was distributed to 300 subscribers. The initial investment in the paper was $1,000, not a grand sum even for the time. Humble beginnings notwithstanding, the new paper soon made its presence felt in a now famous altercation with the English novelist Charles Dickens.
In April of 1842 J.W Gray ran an editorial which he picked up from the Index, published in Alexandria, Virginia. Headlined "War With England" the militant editorial reflected Southern outrage at the refusal of British authorities in Nassau to surrender slaves carried in the American brig Creole. The Creole had been bound for New Orleans from Hampton Roads, Virginia in March 1842, when the slaves she carried mutinied, slaughtered the white crew, and sailed her to Nassau where they sought and received sanctuary and their freedom. Secretary of State Daniel Webster demanded the return of the mutineers, but met with refusal. In Congress, Representative Joshua R. Giddings of the Western Reserve district of Ohio offered resolutions based on the Creole case, calling for the abolition of coastal trade in slaves, but he was censured by Congress, which was outraged by Britain's position. Anti-British sentiment was strong in the nation in early 1842. The boundary dispute between the United States and British Canada over where to draw the line separating Maine from New Brunswick had created much ill will in America, occasioned by the intransigence of Lord Melbourne, head of the Queen's government. This may explain why a Southern editorial calling for war with Great Britain could be reprinted in an Ohio newspaper despite the censure and resignation of Representative Giddings.
It left nothing to its readers' imaginations:
We must confess we are astonished at the apparent apathy of Congress on the subject of a war with England.... The people demand war! Our country is insulted and her glory is dimmed by the insolence of England. We should act as a man would act who has been insulted on the walk. Thank God, the old blood of the Revolution is still trickling in our veins. We whipped England when we were in our infancy; We thrashed her again when we arrived at the age of manhood; and with the blessing of God we can in a short time sing "Jefferson and Liberty" in Hyde Park and "Hail Columbia" in the scarlet halls of Westminster.
This rousing call to arms might have gone unnoticed outside the narrow circle of the paper's readership had it not appeared just as Charles Dickens arrived in Sandusky, Ohio while on an American lecture tour.
Dickens described the minor diplomatic incident in his American Notes (1842), the published version of the journal he kept during his tour which found fault with nearly everything American he encountered during his visit. While stopped at Sandusky he saw a copy of the Plain Dealer and read the editorial, which did nothing to make him feel kindly toward Ohioans, whose seemingly rude manners, compared to the early Victorian niceties he was used to, also upset him and his wife.
When his steamer docked at Cleveland injury was added to insult. He was a celebrity and his tour had been well publicized, so when the boat arrived a crowd of locals was on hand tomeet the world-famous novelist. They pushed on board, climbed up to the accommodation deck, and flocked outside his cabin door awaiting his appearance. Two of them, unwilling to wait, opened his door, elbowed past his wife who was somewhat startled by their affrontery, and stood behind the great man, staring over his shoulder, watching him shave.
In American Notes Dickens described his feelings in this way:
"I was so incensed at this and at a certain newspaper published in that town which I had accidentally seen in Sandusky, that when the mayor came on board to present himself to me, according to custom, I refused to see him ... :' Dickens later did receive him, but only after keeping him waiting long enough to even the scales by infuriating the mayor with the delay. Dickens watched, with pleasure we can be sure, as the mayor picked up a large stick and began furiously whittling it with a huge clasp knife. He kept him waiting until the stick had become a toothpick! This was the first time the Plain Dealer received more than local attention. Fifteen years later the paper would be noticed nationwide, its daily editions awaited eagerly, even by a future president, Abraham Lincoln.
In October 1857 Editor Gray made the best decision for his paper since deciding to found it. In that month a young writer walked into his office looking for a job, and on a chance Gray hired Charles Farrar Browne, better known under his pen name as Artemus Ward, Lincoln's favorite humorist, second only to Mark Twain in popularity. Ward's humorous columns and reviews received national attention and were syndicated to many other dailies and some monthlies, especially in the sophisticated East. Ward may have done more than any other single person in spreading the Plain Dealer's name across the country. He even-tually joined Vanity Fair in 1860, a measure of his standing.
Artemus Ward was the name Browne gave to a fictional charac-ter he created who embodied the brash, untutored western spirit of the day. Artemus was poorly educated, unskilled at lying, but a great teller of tall tales, and always out for a buck no matter the means to get it. He was introduced to readers of the Plain Dealer in 1857/1858 as the leader of a wonderful traveling show which planned to make its next stop in Cleveland. The show never reached "there, of course, because its progress was the vehicle for Browne's humor. A typical sample of Ward's style may be found in an early "letter" to the editor:
Pitsburg, Jan.27, 18&58
The Plane Deeler:
Sir:
i write to no how about the show bisnes in Cleeveland i have a show consisting in part of a Californy Bare two snakes tame foxes &c also wax works my wax works is hard to beat, all say they is life and nateral curiosities among my wax works is our Saveyer Gen taylor and Docktor Webster in the akt of killing Parkmen. now mr. Editor scratch off a few lines and tel me how is the show bisnis in your good city i shal have hanbils printed at your office you scratch my back and i will scratch your back, also git up a grate blow in the paper about my show don't forgit the wax works.
yours truly
Artemus Ward
Pitsburg Penny