The Item celebrates 115 years of serving Sumter

By GRAHAM OSTEEN
Editor-At-Large
graham@theitem.com

This past Thursday The Item turned 115 years old, which puts your local, independently owned newspaper into an increasingly smaller club. The first edition of the paper was published on Oct. 15, 1894, by Hubert Graham Osteen, whose father was a newspaperman named Noah Graham Osteen. Without Noah there would be none of this long, unique legacy in Sumter, and his life story reads like a Dickens novel. Noah's association with newspapers dates back to 1855 when, as a 12-year-old boy, he began an apprenticeship at the Sumter Watchman. My father recently came across a copy of an address Noah gave to the South Carolina Press Association in July 1906 titled, "Personal Recollections of Journalism," which goes into great detail about his 50 years of experience as a newspaperman and printer. I've been transcribing this mesmerizing document, and what follows are some excerpts from the first part of it published here in recognition of The Item's birthday.

In his own words, here's Noah Graham Osteen:

My personal recollection of journalism dates from a time when, as a country child, I began to read the Black River Watchman, to which my father subscribed, and which was started in April 1850, by A.A. Gilbert and John F. DeLorme, printers, with the late Judge T.B. Fraser and his brother, L.L. Fraser, editors. Sumter was then a village of 1,000 or less population with no railroad, and was called Sumterville. T.B. and L.L. Fraser were also associated together at that time as lawyers. About this time the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad was built, and Sumterville changed its charter to a town and dropped off the "ville." Occasionally when I came to town I visited the printing office, sightseeing, and got it into my head to be a printer. In the latter part of 1855, when I was less than 13 years old, I read in the paper that two boys were wanted to learn the printer's trade and that boys from the country would be preferred. I talked the matter over with my father and he carried me to town to secure one of the places. Being small for my age there was some objection to me on that account, but Mr. Gilbert took me on trial, and I afterwards entered a five-years apprenticeship – serving altogether nearly five and a half years.

Soon after commencing on trial with Gilbert & Richardson another partner was added in the person of Mr. H. L. Darr, a practical printer from Charleston, but he soon bought out Mr. Richardson, so that I served my apprenticeship with Gilbert & Darr. Mr. Haynesworth having retired from the editorial staff, Mr. Gilbert was sole editor, while Mr. Darr directed the work of the office. They were both good printers and fast typesetters, Mr. Darr being classed as a "swift." But they were not alike in any respect, Mr. Gilbert being full height, dark complexion, a full head of black hair and with an impediment in his speech, and quiet, to reserve in manner, while Mr. Darr was inclined to be short, what hair he had was red, a florid complexion, a sky blue eye that never rested, but was continually moving from side to side, a free talker and inclined to be jovial in disposition. He was quick in all his movements, and so full of energy that he was always trying to keep the work ahead. He was miserable if he could not get the paper out ahead of time; at first he would have the forms ready the evening before, so the press work could start early the next morning, but he would gain a little each week until the form would be ready so early in the afternoon that he insisted on printing the paper a day ahead of the date. Before long it was the custom to go to press early in the morning of the day before the date, and then he kept on getting ahead until he went to press Wednesday morning for a Thursday dated paper. Then, to even up, the date was changed to Wednesday, but he would soon have the forms closed up on Monday.He was full of energy and put all of it in whatever he went at. While he was quick and sometimes irritable, I liked him best of the two, and when he married and went to housekeeping about a year after my apprenticeship began, I asked to change my home from Mr. Gilbert's house to his, which he agreed to, and built a room for me. Other boys were taken into the office, and during most of my time there were four of us, and only one man. The man being necessary to pull the Washington hand press on which the paper was printed and a smaller one on which all jobs were done, from a wedding invitation to a horse poster.

So far as I know hand presses were at that time used by every paper in the state outside Columbia and Charleston, excepting, perhaps, the Yorkville Enquirer, which was one of the first country papers to use power press.

I love his use of language and the descriptions of his mentors, and it's even more intriguing to consider that he was actually typesetting the very words he wrote throughout his entire life. We have photos of him when he was an old man right there in the pressroom with a heavy apron on over his white shirt and tie. Communication has come a long way, but there's nothing more fascinating and meaningful than the written word. Those of us here at The Item consider ourselves blessed to still be hammering away at it, one letter at a time, for 115 years. Thanks for reading.

Graham Osteen is co-president of Osteen Publishing Co. and Editor-At-Large of The Item. Contact him at The Item, 20 North Magnolia St., Sumter, S.C., 29150; graham@theitem.com, or call 803-774-1352.