Connecticut western news., 1921-06-30
INTERESTING LETTER
 FROM FORMER EDITOR
Harry M. Doty Tells of "News" Under New
 Company

cut Western News, anu e'SI yo1'G connected with it, on the fact that the paper has completed fifty years of existence.
 think I am correctly q1otlng Charley Peaes when I say he told me the News beat the railroad to Canaan bv a few days---or it may have been q few hours. At any rate there wasn't much difference between the Illile when the railroad construction gangs and the wagons bearing the news naner outfit, (then owned by ms father) reached Canaan village
 Permitting me to be the Judge' +bo newspaper is a mighty sight more sr,riobtlv at the end of the half cent71rv than is the railroad---either railroad from what l have seen o1 the New York, New Haven and Hart. ford and from what l have heard or the old c. N. E. It was my privilege to occupy the editorial tripod of the News for three wears, April + 1906, to April l. l9o9' Three enjoyable years they were oe- cause during all of this time con structive work was in progress Ill Canaan and The News was very active participant. Well I remember the evening l made, with the owners of The News, 2 contract to take editorial charge or the paper. J. Henry RoraoacK' nresident of the Canaan Printing Companv> which had been formed few weeks previous for the purpose of. taking over The News and the job printing business of c. H. Pease ana combining the plants, informed me m very understandable English that the company wanted man as editor If The News who would cause the naner to boost Canaan fifty-two weeks in the year.
 , MT. Roraback's remarks were heartily approved by the other mem, bers of the company who sat around the large table in the Roraback office that evening, because they were all enthusiastic town boosters, the lead CTS in every progressive move m the community.
 II readily and willingly agreed tc contribute my very modest mlte toward booming Canaan because believed, at that time, a local news paper should be an active agent II bettering conditions in it's terrltor! and in this respect have no changed my mind and never expec to. .,
 When I began my labors for tn Canaan Printing Company was con siderably disappointed as to the slz hxy | the circulation of the paper was nc much more than half as large as anticipated. This was also dl' appointment to MT. Pease who WE the business manager of the plar and who had oversight of it's mechal ical department
 We were thus confronted by condition we had not forseen but faced the situation by starting g active campaign for new subscriber We established a Sharon edition ar made a canvas in East Capaan, AS lev Falls, Sheffield, Falls Vlllag Lime Rock, Taconic, Sahsour Lakeville, Sharon and other vlllag and at the end of three years h. doubled the circulation.
 The first issue of The News, und ownership of The Canaan Printi Company, contained seven colum of advertising. We solicited ad tional patronage from the businf men in our territory explalnlng 0 purpose to conduct a paper in interests of the community. So mol and so liberally did these men "a to our support that the avers amount of advertising was lncreaf to twenty-five or thirty columns week. The paper enjoyed the VI unusual distinction of having rep sented in its advertising colun ninety per cent of the business professional men in Canaan. 1T believe, was a condition t existed in no other village in
 nutmeg state. I recall that we I suaded even the dressmakers to
 vertise when we established
 umn of the so-called "buslr cards"
 Tn July 1906 the newspaper pl was moved from the Main stl . building in which it had been I lished for many years by MT. 5. ley, to MT. Pease's building on |
 road street where his job prin
 outfit and stationery business
 located. About this time the I
 of the paper was changed from
 pages to eight to accommodate
 increasing amount of news and
 vertising.
 7. Right here permit me TO s'
 word with regard to Charles
 Pease with whom I was closely
 ciated during all of my three y
 in Canaan. First he had bt
 mechanical knowledge of the p
 ing business than any other m
 ever knew. He was unusually (
 ful and particular and by the
 cise of those two characteristics