Johnstown Independent Newspaper - Archived Copies

The Mary E Babcock Foundation sponsored the digitization of the Johnstown Independent newspaper. The scope of the project includes the Johnstown Independent from June 14, 1884 through December of 2007, with the exception of 1899 which has no known copies.

Click Here to visit the Johnstown Independent website.

An excerpt from the:
Centennial History of the City of Newark and Licking County, Ohio, Volume 1

"The Johnstown Independent was established in May, 1884, by Hon. E. N. Gunsaulus. The paper was conducted by him until the following February, when he sold it to B. G. Ashbrook. The new proprietor was stricken ill a few days later while in Cincinnati buying a new outfit. He returned to his home in Johnstown, at once taking to his bed and never afterward left it. A sixteen-year-old brother had been much interested in the paper from its birth, and helped to secure the preliminary subscription list, entered the office and when the proprietor died on May 5th, 1885, William A. Ashbrook, not yet seventeen years old, assumed charge of the paper and became its editor and proprietor."

Note: Mr. William Ashbrook continued as editor of the Johnstown Independent even after he became an U. S. Congressman. In 1953 William's son, John Ashbrook, also an U. S. Congressman, became publisher and editor of the Johnstown Independent.