By Deborah Bier, publisher and editor of this ezine.
 The Concord Freeman was a weekly newspaper published from
1834 to 1847, and then again from 1875 to 1888. Of course, we see history -- and historic documents -- through the veil of our own cultural context.
Looking at an example from December, 1839 we picked up at the Concord Free Public Library's Book Sale recently, it is recognizable to us now as a local newspaper only upon a first, cursory examination, and quickly departs from there.
This issue -- rather typical of others of the time -- certainly is thin: only a single sheet folded in half (therefore, four pages). Reading the articles, it seems rather an odd fish by modern terms. It contains extensive reprints or paraphrases from and comments upon many other publications from around the country (the National Gazette, The Dover (NH) Gazette, The Cincinnati Republican to name a few). They cover a variety of topics, few of which are local.
It's also full of....well....how can I describe it? Cute stuff. Poems. Political jabs couched as jokes. Humorous or ironic musings. Yet the language remains as highly formal and verbose as it is in the news items. These short curiosities and amusements must have served as substantial entertainment and information in a way that is difficult to imagine by over-stimulated, media-glutted 21st century standards.
MODERN FRIENDS
When fortune smiles and looks serene,
'Tis "Sir, how do ye do?
Your family is well, I hope;
Can I serve them or you?"
But turn the scale -- let fortune frown,
And ills and we fly t'ye;
'Tis then "I'm sorry for your loss,
But times are hard -- good bye t'ye!"
 | "There is a plant in India whose leaves are all of them in perpetual motion, up and down; sometimes equally, sometimes by jerks, but without any unison." -- Mercantile Journal.
That must be a vegetable of the whig genus, and is exactly like the whig party. That is 'up and down' but a great deal more down than up, and it s members have been for the last twelve months in 'perpetual motion' toward Salt River, 'sometimes by jerks' and always 'without any unison between them.'-- Lancaster, NH Democrat.
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The Mahogany Tree in St. Domingo, is tall, straight, and beautiful, with red flowers, and oval lemon sized fruit. When the tree grows on a barren soil, the grain of the wood is beautifully variegated -- upon rich ground it is pale, open and of little value.
The Machineal Tree also grows upon this island; and its wood furnishes slabs for furniture, interspersed with beautiful green and yellow veins like marble; but the dust of this wood is of so acrid and poisonous nature that the carpenters are forced to work with gauze masks to protect them from its injurious effects.
 But the advertisements really catch the eye from my perspective. Massive, verbose, formal, and even unbelievable, they fill about a third of the issue. We have peppered this page with images of some of them. They reveal something about the texture of the common and everyday (hats, raisins, feathers, chairs, socks) as well as the extraordinary and notable (all manner of patent medicine, including the Resurrection Pills promising to bring the weak, distressed and suffering to "a state of strength, health and happiness"). Do note the ad accompanying this paragraph: it advertises one of the schools the Thoreau brothers -- John and Henry -- ran.
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