The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1912-02-15
WILLIAM HAsWELL, PRINTER.
Learned His Trade In Bennington
81 Years AGO.

Learned His Trade In Bennington
81 Years Ago.
The special number of the North
Adams Transcript in honor of its
moving into its new building, contains
a large amount of interesting histori-
cal, including the following relative to
a son of Old Bennington.
"The Transcript has in its proof
reader William Haswell 1t is believ-
ed, the man who has been longest en-
gagged in the printing busine in this
part of the country. Mr.. II veil will
have completed by next March, 67
years at the printers craft, as he be-
came an apprentice in 1S45 in the of
fee of the Vermont Gazette at Ben
nington and has been continuously en-
gagged ever since that time with news
papers or offices doing printing bust
ness of another kind than newspapers.
"The only man in this part Of the
state, it Is believed, who has been ac-
tive in the business anything like the
length OF time that Mr.. Haswell has,
is Editor r. William Waterman OF
the Athol Chronicle at Athol, Mass.
Mr.. Waterman is rs years old and Mr.,
Haswell is in his saith year.
"The Gazette at Bennington was
the first paper to be established In
that state which lived for any length
of time, and Mr.. Haswell's GRANDPA
Their, Anthony Haswell, was the man
who first published the paper in 1883.
It's last editor before the Gazette went
out of business in 1850, was A. j.
Aiken, one of the early supporters OF
the free soil cause in this region, who
with James T. Robinson, another ar
dent free soil advocate, short time
after Mr.. Aiken quit the Gazette start
ed paper called the Greylock Senti'
mel at North Adams. This paper al
forwards merged with the Adams
Transcript when Judge Robinson
bought the Transcript.
For a number of years after learn
ing his trade in the Gazette Office, Mr..
Haswell worked in various printing
plants, those of the Northern lntelli-
gencer and the World of Music, the
last a publication for musicians, on
which he learned to set the music
types. both CO Claremont, n. H.; then
as a compositor in the Orleans Ameri-
can and the Orleans Republican at
Albion, N. Y. There was still a new
and untried field awaiting the young
journeyman printer and when Mr. Has
we'll went to New York he found en-
ployment as a compositor in a book
office. He spent a longer time with
the book office in Boston, where he
was with II. o. Houghton, OF the Riv-
erside Press, who afterwards founded
the present house of Houghton, Milf
lin & Company, with John Wilson &
Company OF the University Press now
OF Cambridge, who then had an office
in Boston. however, and with Alfred
Madge & Son, located on School street
in Boston, who were book and job
printers.
Following this Boston experience.
Mr.. Haswell returned to Vermont and
became a publisher and printer on his
own account, publishing the Poultney
Bulletin for several years. By this
time, as it was usual for the appren-
tices to the printers trade to learn
everything about printing office
from the setting of types to running
the printing presses, most of which at
the time of Mr.. Haswells apprentice
ship were hand presses, Mr. Haswell
had served in all branches OF the bust
ness up to the position of editor and
publisher. He never afterwards own
ed paper himself, but was with other
newspapers, going to the Bennington
Banner from Poultney along in the
'7O's where he was located for several
years. In 1881 he moved to this town
to become a compositor on the Hoo
sac Valley News, with which he was
connected II years and for somewhat
over IL years past has been the proof
reader for the Transcript.
"Mr. Haswell's long term Of service
covers the period of greatest develop
ment in the art OF printing. When he
became an apprentice in the little
country printing Office from which the
weekly edition of the Gazette was is
sued, boy entering such an Office
was taught all branches OF the bust
ness from setting type to running the
handpresses of the period and when
he graduated was competent to do ev-
erything on a weekly newspaper from
the editing down. Now an apprentice
of a newspaper does not attempt to
master more than one branch, either
the work in the composing room or
the press room and even in these two
general divisions the work of the mod
ern Office is greatly sub-diyided, Civ
ing rise in the larger city offices to a
number OF well recognized trades. II.
Illustrations in a newspaper are among
the things which have come with the
improvement of the press.
I'm looking back over IL all Mr.. Mas
well, still active in one of the most
important parts of getting out a care
fully edited newspaper, might refer TO
these past events in the words of a
famous historical parsonage, the Duke
of Wellington, "All of which saw
and part of which was