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was published California’s first newspaper. Commodore Sloat took possession of Monterey on July 7, 1846, and placed Robert Colton in charge as Alcalde. On the 15th of the following month he and Dr. Robert Baylor Semple issued the first number of “The Californian.” They were unusual men and were both prominent in California history, Colton as a wise, able and efficient dictator of
Monterey during its transition period from Mexican to American rule, and Semple as a leading figure in the Bear Flag incident and as President of California’s first constitutional convention. Their printing press was an old ramshackle affair that had been used by the padres on occasion in their church work. In his dairy, written at the time, Colton says:
“Though small in dimensions,
our first number is as full of news as a black walnut is of meat. We have received by couriers, during the week, intelligence from all the important military posts through the territory. Very little of this has transpired; it reaches the public for the first time through our sheet. We have also the declaration of war between the United States and Mexico, with an abstract of the debate in the
Senate. A crowd was waiting when the first sheet was thrown from the press. It produced quite a little sensation. Never was a bank run upon harder; not, however,
by people with paper to get specie, but exactly the reverse. One-half of the paper is in English, the other in Spanish.” They issued their little paper every Saturday, filled with news that came by local courier or by sailing vessels that had rounded Cape Horn. Today, the
