Page:History of the newspapers of Beaver County, Pennsylvania.djvu/54

38 HISTORY OF BEAVER COUNTY PAPERS. that he would give Stuart "a part of his plantation that lies on the west side of Big Beaver creek, opposite the bloclthouse at the lower falls of said creek," for living and clearing on his part what the law requires, etc. January 26, 1Y98, Stuart assigned his rights to Joseph Wells, who in turn assigned all his rights to David Town- send January 26, 1799. Soon after this one hundred acres of this pronerty came into the possession of a company composed of David Townsend, Benj. Townsend and Benj. Sharpless, who sold about one third of the tract to Evan and John Pugh December 13, 1802. In 1800 David Townsend started a saw mill and in 1804 the Messrs. Pugh set up a flouring mill, and thus began Fallston, which became, for many years the most flourishing manufacturing town in the valley. Prosperity was in the air, and then the newspaper man appeared on the scene. The only papers in the county were in Beaver, and it was perhaps partly on account of failure to maintain a third paper in that town, that the effort was made in Fallston. There was the most intense war between the Wolf and Muhlenberg fac- tions of the Democratic party in the State. Both these leaders were Democratic candidates for Governor and their respective adherents were full of fight and anxious for newspaper organs. The "Democratic Watchman" of Beaver, was the Wolf organ in the county, busy in meeting the attacks of the "Argus," the able champion of Joseph Eitner who was elected Governor by the division of the Democrats. In this condition of political turmoil. The "Fallston and Brighton Gazette," the first paper at the falls of the Beaver, came into being.