NOTE ON SOURCES

published by Charles R. Webster. By December 1788, more than 800
copies of Albany Gazette were printed each week; it circulated in the
New York counties of Albany, Clinton, Columbia, Montgomery, and
Washington and in Bennington, Vermont, and Berkshire County, Mas-
sachusetts. It was also sent regularly to the principal towns from New
Hampshire to Virginia (Albany Gazette, 26 December, Mfm:N.Y). The
Albany Journal was published by Charles R.Webster and his twin brother
George. The journal was established as a semiweekly on 26 January
1788, although it became a weekly with the issue of 31 March 1788. As
a semiweekly the Journal appeared on Mondays and Saturdays, and as
a weekly it appeared on Mondays. The newspapers were Federalist, and
they often shared articles. Albany Antifederalists sharply criticized the
Websters, especially Charles. A few days after the Websters established
the journal, Abraham G. Lansing wrote Abraham Yates, Jr., that "it is
the sincere wish of our Friends that some Person would set himself
down here and disconcert these White Livers by publishing an impartial
paper." Lansing hoped that Melancton Smith would prevail "on
[Thomas] Greenleaf [of the New York Journal] to send one of his Jour-
neymen to set up a printing office" in Albany (31 January, I below).
Aware of this strong opposition to them, the Websters reluctantly pub-
lished a few Antifederalist items. Dissatisfied with the half-hearted ac-
tions of the Websters, Albany Antifederalists pressed harder to establish
an impartial newspaper to be called the Albany Register, but with no
assistance from Greenleaf and Antifederalist leaders in New York City,
they abandoned their search by the end of March (John Lansing, Jr.,
et al. to Melancton Smith, 1 March; and Abraham G. Lansing to Abra-
ham Yates, Jr., 2 March [both III below]; and John Lansing, Jr., and
Abraham G. Lansing to John Lamb, 23 March [IV below, Albany County
Election]. The Albany Register was finally established in October 1788;
it appeared on Mondays.).
Printed in neighboring Lansingburgh, the weekly Northern Centinel,
and Lansingburgh Advertiser, published by Thomas Claxton and John
Babcock on Tuesdays, was a Federalist newspaper. Its motto was: "The
PRESS is the CRADLE of SCIENCE, the NURSE of GENIUS, and the SHIELD
of LIBERTY." "Dissatisfied with their situation" in Lansingburgh, Clax-
ton and Babcock moved their newspaper to Albany in January 1788,
and from 11 February to 14 April, they published on Mondays as the
Federal Herald (Abraham G. Lansing to Abraham Yates, Jr., 31 January
1788, I below. Lansing described the newspaper as insignificant.). The
paper was eventually returned to Lansingburgh, and, beginning with
the issue of 28 April, it appeared on Mondays under the same name.
Ezra Hickok, however, had replaced Claxton as Babcock's partner.
When Antifederalists criticized the Northern Centinel for not printing

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