Haverhill Gazette

The Haverhill Gazette (est.1821) is a weekly newspaper in Massachusetts, owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. of Montgomery, Alabama. For at least part of its history, it was a daily. In 1998 the paper was bought by the Eagle Tribune Company and converted to a weekly. In 2005 it was bought by Community Newspaper Holdings.

Nathan Burrill and Caleb Hersey established the paper in 1821 in Haverhill; politically it supported the Federalists. In 1823 the paper absorbed the Essex Patriot. Among the Gazette's editors: Edward G. Frothingham, John H. Harris, Arthur Asa Hill, Isaac R. Howe, E.P. Rodgers, William Ellsworth Smythe, Jeremiah Spofford, Abijah W. Thayer, John Greenleaf Whittier. Publishers have included Howard & Hill. By 1904 it had a circulation of about 8,000 subscribers.

Following a strike in 1957 by Local 38 of the International Typographical Union during which it employed replacement printers, the paper found itself in competition with the Haverhill Journal, a daily founded by William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader. The new competition was founded after several local business owners sought out a new newspaper to carry its advertising without offending the sensibilities of the significant numbers of Haverhill residents who were members of various shoe manufacturing unions. They prevailed on Loeb to publish a free shopper. Loeb, encouraged by favorabloe reaction to the first editions of the shopper, launched a daily in December 1957. Haverhill this became one of only three cities in Massachusetts with newspapers owned by competing publishers, the others being in Boston and Lynn.

The Gazette was purchased by Newspapers of New England, Inc., a consortium of newspaper publishers who intended to "save" the Gazette and prevent Loeb from gaining inroads into publishing in Massachusetts, and matched Loeb's offer for the paper.

The Gazette's owners included principally the Lowell Sun; The Holyoke Transcript-Telegram; the Brockton Enterprise & Times; Essex County Newspapers Inc. owner of The Newburyport News and The Gloucester Times; the Springfield Union and Springfield Daily News; and the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. Other members of a 96 publisher association also owned less significant stakes.

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