By Rob Bates
The Arizona Miner, the Weekly Arizonian, the Yuma Sentinel, the Tucson Citizen and many other Arizona territorial newspapers were the voice and opinion of the new land opening and stretching along reaches of the far Southwest.
The year 1859 had brought a new newspaper and press to Tubac, and with it, the beginnings of the recorded word that had set the history of the new territory in motion. With it came the newspapermen who were to be the editors and voice-men of politics and promotion of will. These were men of sinew and substance, of adventure solicitors of the new idea, taking chances as they went with heavy iron and delicate type. The likes of those who now read in history as an integral part of the region's story: Richard McCormick, Charles Beach, Albert Banta, John Marion, Tisdale Hand, and many others who had influenced the press with intrepid attributes.
Although having never come south to Arizona, an 1860s Nevada adventurer and newspaperman for the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Samuel Clemens had said this to a group of printers at a dinner about his early printing adventures in the Mississippi Valley: "I can see that printing office of prehistoric time yet, with its horse-bills on the walls, its "d" boxes clogged with tallow, because we always stood the candle in the "k: box at night. The towel was not considered soiled until it could stand alone." For the printer, "I built his fire for him in winter mornings; I brought his water from the village pump; I swept out his office; I picked up his type from under his stand; and if he were there to see, I put the good type in his case and the broken ones among the "hell" matter; and if he wasn't there to see, I dumped it with the "pi" on the imposing stone for that was the way of the cub, and I was a cub. I wetted down the paper Saturdays, I turned it Sundays - for this was a country weekly; I washed the rollers, I washed the forms, I folded the papers, I carried them around at dawn Thursday mornings.
"The carrier was then an object of interest to all the dogs in town. If I had saved up all the bites I ever received, I could keep Mr. Pasteur busy for a year. Every man in town helped edit the thing - that is, he gave orders as to how it was to be edited; dictated its opinions, marked out its course, and every time the boss failed to connect, he stopped his paper. We had one subscriber who paid cash, and he was more trouble than all the rest."
"He bought us once a year, body and soul, for two dollars. He used to modify our politics every which way, and he made us change our religion four times in five years. If we ever tried to reason with him, he would threaten to stop his paper, and of course, that meant bankruptcy."
These were the words of the printer's world. Samuel Clemens himself was concerned that some of these terms would not be recognized at a printer's convention, even in 1884.
As with most things in the not too distant past, the beginnings and births of many things now overlooked and taken for granted were a world unto themselves. Richard McCormick had brought his printing press from Santa Fe, where there were several itinerant printers willing to come to Arizona and work for the new Arizona Miner, namely Albert Banta and Tisdale Hand. Not much is known about Tisdale A. Hand, other than his working at the paper. He had left the territory in a short t, after being threatened by a gunman. Albert Banta had worked newspapers and set type around New Mexico, and afte coming to Arizona had started several newspapers here, also taking over the Pick and Drill in Prescott that he had renamed from The Populist.
John Marion, another itinerant printer, was born in New Orleans in 1835, learned his trade in St. Louis, and arrived from California in the Prescott mining district in the early 1860s. He bought the Arizona Miner from Richard McCormick, who had gone to Tucson in 1867, and began a stormy career that brought fame to that Prescott newspaper.
He had eventually sold the Miner and founded what is today's Courier. In 1876, Charles W. Beach became editor of the Arizona Miner. He became involved in a court battle in 1883, and was eventually murdered in his home at Mrs. Taylor's lodging house several years later. He was shot through a window. The home was on the northeast corner of what is now Goodwin and McCormick streets. Beach Street, behind Sharlot Hall Museum, is named after him.
There is a photo of Charles Beach and John Marion hanging in the Museum's print shop, as well as the young Samuel Clemens, at age 15, as a young printer holding his composing stick of type.
The composing stick is an old printer's device in which the to place the pieces of lead type, in order to make up a sentence. All print in those days was hand set one letter at a time using individual pieces of type. This is a long manual process requiring good dexterity, mechanicals, and knowledge of the language - not an easy combination found in all persons.
There were those individuals; however, who blended all this with a pioneer spirit, both men and women together.
There were women compositors and print shop owners sporadically throughout the West, such as Caroline Romney of Colorado fame, and Josephine Brawley (wife of Governor Louis C. Hughes) was in charge of the Arizona Star.
These are just some of the many people who made up this unique group that had brought an information network and sense of place to this far-off region.
Rob Bates, who died January, was a Curatorial Assistant and Living Historian for the Sharlot Hall Museum.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:() Reuse only by permission.
Rob Bates (as Tisdale Hand) shows a group of school children the difficulties of being a printer in the West in the late 1800s. The Sharlot Hall Museum's Print Shop has been renamed the Robert A. Bates Memorial Print Shop in honor of Bates who died in January.