About Hillsdale Whig standard. (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1846-1851
Hillsdale, Mich. (1846-1851)

Hillsdale Whig Standard and the Hillsdale standard

In its first edition, published on June 30, 1846, the editors of the weekly Hillsdale (Michigan) Whig Standard pledged to print "good Whig doctrine." A Whig newspaper had been active in Hillsdale County as early as 1840, but by 1843 it had moved to Adrian, the seat of Lenawee County. By 1846, a group of Hillsdale County's leading Whigs wanted a new partisan outlet for their party's views. To make their dream a reality, they loaned money to Stephen D. Clarke and Harvey B. Rowlson, "payable when they were able to meet the claim." Although very young (the eldest of the pair was barely 21), Clarke and Rowlson had previously worked at the Democratic Hillsdale Gazette and with that experience went on to found the Hillsdale Whig Standard.

The Standard was a reliable party organ. Like all Whig papers, it opposed the Mexican-American War, writing that "a long and prosperous peace, by which we have been elevated to an high degree of national glory, has been rudely broken, and the bloody banner of war is scattering upon the earth its countless miseries ..."

The Standard struggled in its first years because the small number of Whig party supporters in the county offered very limited financial support. In the spring of 1850, Clarke sold his share in the paper to Rowlson, who became the sole owner and editor, positions he still held in 1879. In 1851, as the Whig Party was collapsing, Rowlson changed the paper's name to the Hillsdale Standard. Rowlson subsequently became a Republican and in 1855 announced the Standard's support for the newly formed party. The rapid ascendency of the Republican Party in Michigan placed the paper on a firm financial footing.

Rowlson himself became a modestly important figure within the Republican Party. He served as county treasurer for eight years and in 1868 was elected as a member of the state legislature. He resigned from the legislature in 1869 to accept a federal patronage appointment as United States Collector of Internal Revenue for the First Michigan District, which was headquartered in Detroit. In 1873, Rowlson continued to serve as a United State Collector of Internal Revenue in the new, eight- (later 15-) county Third District, conveniently headquartered in Hillsdale.

In 1909, the Hillsdale Standard merged with the Herald-Democrat  to form the Hillsdale Daily Standard Herald.

Provided by: Central Michigan University, Clark Historical Library