Philadelphia at first was cold to the proposition; so much so that both Swain and Simmons were inclined to give up the undertaking. Abell, however, had greater faith and business expectations for the paper. It occurred to him that it might be worth while to visit Baltimore to see what the prospects were for establishing a penny paper in that city. He found there none but sixcent papers and, despite the fact that the year was one of unprecedented gloom and business depression, he persuaded his partners that the field was a fertile one, with the consequences that, on May 17, 1837, the first number of the Baltimore Sun was issued, with Abell himself in charge.
Swain remained the editor in charge at Philadelphia, and these two enterprising men, one in Baltimore and the other in Philadelphia, were thus able to strengthen their property by their individual enterprise in separate cities.
The abolition riots in Philadelphia, in 1838, gave the Ledger an opportunity to show its courage and public spirit, when it denounced the mob and pleaded for the right of free speech and a free press. The courageous course of the paper attracted to it the support of the lawabiding people, and it strengthened its position by being one of the first papers to advocate independent voting. Twice the office was mobbed, but the courage of the editor never wavered.
Both Swain and Abell were enthusiastic supporters of the Morse magnetic telegraph and Swain was afterward president of the company for several years. For twenty years Swain was the master mind on the Ledger, and he is said to have accumulated a fortune of three million dollars, but at the beginning of the Civil War it was found that they were losing money because of the increased price of paper. Swain was unwilling to raise the
