The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1902-01-09
A PLYMOUTH PIONEER
DR.. Howell. Who Printed the First
Paper in This City.

The Rochester Republican publishes
an interesting article about the first
newspaper man of Plymouth, whose
paper, the Pilot established in 1851,
became the Banner and then theRepub-
lican. We reproduce it below:
There may be several men in Fulton
county whose names should be record
ed in history, but if there is one more
deserving than another it is DR.. J. @.
Howell, at present a resident of the
little village of belong, in this county,
where he is the sole proprietor of a
nice little drug store and in some in
stances practices his profession. To
be of still greater service to humanity
Mrs. Howell, assisted by "a young lady,
provides meals for the travelling pub
lie and hungry humanity generally
who are Sojourners at that place be-
tween trains, and in this wry occa-
siOnal dollars are added to the exche-
quer of the household. DIR. and Mrs
Howell are five years beyond man s
allotted time-three score years and
ten-and are approaching the octog-
enarian altitude. But with all this
they seem to be unusually well con-
tented with their lot, always cheerful
and very willing to render service t,
those of younger years. They were
united in the Silken bonds of wedlOck
in 1856, when James X. Polk was
president, and two years before the
Mexican war. In those days, railroads
were few and far between, telegraph
ing was just supposed to be possible,
sewing machines, reaping machines
and hundred other present day in
ventionS were unknown.
John Quincy Howell learned what
there was to know about the printing
business in 1874 i'm Muncie, Ind. In
1S4S he started the first paper in Wa
bash, but Wabash was small town
at that time and he moved the entire
outfit by wagon to Anderson where he
printed a paper for year or two and
thence to Lagro, in Wabash county
which was bigger town than the
county seat. This did not prove sat
isfactory and in 1851 he come here
and established the Rochester Weekly
Republican.
The friends of the enterprise promised
TO get him five hundred subscribers at
81. 80 each, but only succeeded in find
ing about two hundred subscribers at
s1.0O each. He could not make liv-
ing at this and after printing a paper
for five weeks he moved his plant to
Plymouth where he printed the first
paper for that town, called the Plym-
outh Banner, and supplied the Fulton
county subscribers from that place.
To show that he was quite dissatisfied
with himself he changed the name of
the paper to Plymouth Pilot, and at
the close of the first years publication
sold out and moved TO what was at that
time known as Marshland, in Fulton
county, where he commenced the prac-
tice OF medicine, and during the fever
and ague seasons had paying prac-
tice. In 1866 he was made the Demo-
cratic nominee for county clerk but
because he was unable to leave his
practice and make successful canvass
and adjust bit of ENHANCEMENT in
his party he was defeated by Dr. Yer
non Gould by sixteen votes. Since
that time he has sought to obtain
some recognition at the hands of his
party but he did not possess the pro-
per degree of nerve to push himself
to the front and the honors and emol-
umentS were not his to possess.