The City Gets A New Paper

There was no inkling of the news to come concerning the paper: In November, less than six months after starting The Inquirer, the founders sold out. The new owner was Jesper Harding, associate editor of the United States Gazette and soon to become the nation's leading publisher of the Bible.

Harding promised that The Inquirer would be independent, and that opinions of events and public men would be offered "with moderation and forbearance."

By the end of the year, his front page featured news of a cure for fits, at 50 cents a bottle, and word that Dr. Hull's truss would help "those labouring under the distressing and dangerous disease of hernia."

In the next few years, improvements in typesetting "unleashed a flood of newsprint upon the community," Wainwright wrote. Amid that flood, the founders of The Inquirer sank from local view.

City records show a John R. Walker serving as justice of the peace a few years after The Inquirer was sold. Norvell was appointed postmaster of Detroit, and later served as U.S. senator from Michigan.

Their achievement was not in producing a great newspaper. It was in keeping it alive so others might do so.

Contact staff writer Jeff Gammage at 215-854-2415 or jgammage@phillynews.com.