The first paper: the North-Western Pioneer and St. Joseph's Intelligencer

1831–1834

The first sheet: The first newspaper published in South Bend — and, by the Cass District Library's research guide to the paper, the first newspaper published west of Ann Arbor in the Michigan Territory, north of Indianapolis, and west to Galena, at a moment when Chicago had no newspaper at all — was the North-Western Pioneer and St. Joseph's Intelligencer. Its first number was issued on Wednesday, 16 November 1831, by two brothers, John D. and Joseph H. Defrees. The 1907 county history, whose press chapter is the fullest early account, puts the office "on Water street, fronting on the river and opposite the store of A. Coquillard" — the ground now at La Salle Avenue and Michigan Street — and prints the prospectus the brothers circulated before the first issue: "In politics, the Pioneer will be an advocate for the system of policy which has been broadly and characteristically denominated WHIG measures… a tariff of duties for the protection and encouragement of domestic industry… Internal Improvement, by which the 'North West' may become connected with the Atlantic cities and the valleys of the West be made the home of a rich and enlightened population; and these measures summed up and sustained by the motto: LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE." Subscriptions ran two dollars a year in advance, two dollars and a half in six months, and three dollars at the year's end, "or an equivalent in Merchantable Produce."

With the issue of 23 May 1832 the paper took a new name, the St. Joseph Beacon and Indiana and Michigan Intelligencer, and the office moved to the building where Lilley had kept tavern, at St. Joseph and Pearl streets. In 1833 Joseph H. Defrees sold his interest to his brother and removed to Goshen, where he became a distinguished merchant and served in both houses of the state legislature and in Congress. In 1834 John D. Defrees removed the paper to White Pigeon, Michigan, and there sold it to a Mr. Gilbert; its South Bend life had run two and a half years. John D. himself returned to South Bend, read law, sat in the state senate, edited the Indianapolis Journal, and was appointed public printer by President Lincoln. Extant issues of the Pioneer run from 1831 to 1833 and survive on microfilm at the Indiana Historical Society; the paper has not been digitized. George Brown's 1920 history of the county's press adds the detail the 1907 chapter omits — "the press brought overland in an oxcart" — and its claim of priority in the wider form, "the first paper published north of the Wabash river or west of Detroit." Brown's own title table garbles the name as the "Western Pioneer and Intelligencer"; the full form stands as Howard prints it and as the Cass guide settles it.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, History of St. Joseph County (1907), Chapter VII, "The Press," §1 — the prospectus, the office, the renaming of 23 May 1832, the Defrees brothers' courses, and the removal to White Pigeon in 1834.
2. Jonathan T. Wuepper, research guide to the North West Pioneer and St. Joseph's Intelligencer, Cass District Library (April 2023) — the priority claim (first paper west of Ann Arbor, north of Indianapolis, west to Galena), the title change of 23 May 1832 to the St. Joseph's Beacon, and the surviving run, 1831–1833, on Indiana Historical Society microfilm. The guide gives the weekday as Thursday; 16 November 1831 fell on a Wednesday, as Howard prints it.
3. George Brown, History of St. Joseph County (1920), Chapter IX, "Growth of the Press" — the oxcart press and the wider priority claim; its title table's shortened name is noted in the entry.
4. Library of Congress, U.S. Newspaper Directory — the title chain: the St. Joseph Beacon and Indiana & Michigan Intelligencer succeeded by the Free Press in 1836 (carried in the Sources chapter).