Old Colony Memorial (newspaper)

History

19th century

The Old Colony Memorial began in 1822. Publishers have included George F. Andrews, Winslow W. Avery, Allen Danforth, James A. Danforth, Charles Carroll Doten, William T. Hollis, John Morisey, Thomas Prince, James Thurber. Among the editors: Joseph Francis Bittinger.

In the 1830s, "connected with the printing office [was] a newspaper reading room where intelligence from various quarters [were] daily received, and [was] a pleasant resort for the reading gentlemen at their leisure hours. Under the same roof [was] a book-store and bindery, and a circulating library." In the 19th century its main competitor was the Plymouth Rock newspaper. In the 1880s the O.C. Memorial office stood on Court Street near Shirley Square, and by the 1900s on Middle Street.

20th–21st century

K. Prescott Low, whose family had published The Patriot Ledger for a century, purchased Memorial Press Group (MPG) in 1979 and incorporated it into the privately owned George W. Prescott Publishing Company. Thirty years later, however, in 1997, Low found that "mega-players competing with us" made family ownership of the Ledger and MPG uneconomic, and sought to sell them.

A buyer quickly emerged: James F. Plugh, owner of The Enterprise, the Brockton daily newspaper that competed with the Ledger and several MPG papers. Plugh's Newspaper Media LLC, later renamed Enterprise NewsMedia, bought the Prescott Publishing for an estimated US$60 to US$70 million.

Liberty Publishing purchased Enterprise NewsMedia in 2006 as part of a mammoth deal that also included Community Newspaper Company (CNC) – then owned by the Boston Herald – and a new name for the parent company, GateHouse Media.

References

References

1. "Directory of New England Newspapers". New England Newspaper and Press Association.
2. Rowland, Christopher. Can suburban newspapers deliver? Boston Globe, May 16, 2006
3. Boston Globe, May 24, 1997
4. Library of Congress. "About Old Colony memorial, and Plymouth County advertiser. (Plymouth, Mass.) 1822-1827". Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.
5. Davis, William T.. (1885). "History of the town of Plymouth". J.W. Lewis.
6. John Joseph May. (1902). "Danforth genealogy: Nicholas Danforth, of Framlingham, England, and Cambridge, N. E. [1589-1638] and William Danforth, of Newbury, Mass. [1640-1721] and their descendants". C. H. Pope.
7. Ayer newspaper directory, 1921
8. James Thacher. (1835). "History of the town of Plymouth, from its first settlement in 1620, to the present time". Marsh, Capen & Lyon.
9. Richard Swainson Fisher. (1855). "A new and complete statistical gazetteer of the United States of America". J. H. Colton and company.
10. Old Plymouth: a guide to its localities and objects of interest. Plymouth: Old colony memorial press, 1886
11. Stewart, Colin. "Ledger Owner Explains Decision". ''The Patriot Ledger'' (Quincy, Mass.), page 21, May 24, 1997.
12. Blanton, Kimberly. "Low Family Will Sell Patriot Ledger to the Owners of Brockton Enterprise". ''The Boston Globe'', October 4, 1997.
13. Gatlin, Greg. "Herald to Sell Suburban Papers". ''Boston Herald'', May 6, 2006.