About The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968
Lambertville, N.J. (1872-1968)

The Lambertville Record

The Lambertville Record was started on September 24, 1872 by Clark Pierson. The paper was Republican in politics, though as Pierson explained in his first editorial, it was not going to blindly follow party politics but act on principle and truth. Pierson had been a Democrat prior to the Civil War. A crusader, Pierson saw the time as presenting great moral questions, and he intended to throw his weight behind the prevention of vice and wrongdoing. A weekly four-page newspaper originally published on Tuesdays, the newspaper began to be published Wednesdays in December of 1872.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, questions of how the South should be reconciled to the Union still dominated the newspaper and elections. Just prior to the general election of 1872, Pierson made the case for voting Republican rather than Democrat "to lift that party to power is to establish a reign of terror among loyal whites and blacks of the South; and it is to bring to the front the unrepentant rebel element, with all their false notions of 'states rights'" (October 29, 1872). As Civil War issues eventually receded, the paper focused increasingly on local and state matters.

Clark Pierson was born in Lambertville in 1836. Leaving school at an early age, he worked in the printing office of Lambertville's Telegraph and Hunterdon and Bucks Counties Advertiser. In 1858, he purchased the People's Beacon (Lambertville, N.J.) newspaper. He published and edited the Beacon until 1869 when he sold his interest in the paper and invested in spoke manufacturing.

In 1903, Pierson died after a brief illness, and the newspaper passed to his daughter, Jessie E. Pierson, who published the newspaper until her marriage in June of 1910. The paper was then leased to William B. Dimon who was editor and publisher. Dimon maintained the newspaper's Republican outlook, and within two weeks began publishing the paper twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and in an enlarged eight-page format, to better serve advertisers. The paper was published twice per week only until December 1910 when it again became a weekly paper, published on Fridays. In January of 1911, William Dimon relinquished publication of the Record and went to work on a newspaper in Kingston, New York. The paper reverted to the Pierson's ownership and was once again a four-page newspaper published by Lide E. Pierson, Clark Pierson's widow.

The Lambertville Record was sold to Theodore G. Kitchin on February 1, 1913. Kitchin immediately changed the political alignment of the newspaper from Republican to Independent and stated that his aim was to boost Lambertville and keep boosting Lambertville. The paper was enlarged to 12 pages and its publication date moved to Thursday. Initially the tag line for the newspaper was "Unlike Any Other Newspaper," but within a few months it was changed to "A Little Bit Different From Any Other Newspaper." In addition to Lambertville Record, Kitchin published the New Hope News, and he was also an engineer who created and published maps.

In December of 1917, Kitchin sold the Lambertville Record to Jesse M. Hunt. Hunt was a job printer in Lambertville at the time. Kitchin continued to publish the New Hope News, and Hunt printed both the Record and the New Hope News.

In August of 1920, the Lambertville Record, along with the New Hope News and the printing plant on Coryell Street, Lambertville was purchased by Gordon Cooper. Cooper was originally from Georgia, but after being invalided out of World War I, he was sent to convalesce in Lakewood, N.J. Cooper, who had a background in journalism and literature, published more news relevant to ex-servicemen along with poetry and literature. Cooper edited and published the Lambertville Record for 46 years, selling it in 1966 to David M. Mulcahy who sold the paper to John C. Hazen in 1968 and it was merged with the Lambertville Beacon to form the Beacon and Lambertville Record.

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