By Ed Neuert, in UVM News

One of the premier newspapers in the U.S., the New York Times, was first published 175 years ago September 18, and the credit for its founding is largely due to a University of Vermont graduate.

The Times was the brainchild of Henry Jarvis Raymond, who graduated with high honors from UVM in the Class of 1840. The paper kicked off its dodransbicentennial (yes, that is the official term for a 175th) this January with a “Birth of the Times” column that featured the original prospectus published by Raymond and his business partner, George Jones, who functioned as the Times’ publisher. The paper’s celebration continues with a multimedia “New York Times at 175” website.

The front page of the September 18, 1851, debut of the New-York Daily Times (it dropped the “Daily” from its banner in 1857) featured news of severe flooding in the mountain valleys of Switzerland, an account of the sailing victory off the Isle of Wight of the schooner America–which was the first running of what would subsequently be called the America’s Cup Race–and disturbing news of the public hanging of two convicted murderers at Manhattan’s main prison. Most of the international news in that’s day’s paper came from foreign newspapers that were several weeks old, but newly arrived for the first time in New York by steamship. 

By September of 1852, the fledgling Times had a circulation of around 25,000 daily copies. Today, the paper has nearly 12 million estimated daily paid subscribers of its printed and online content, and has about 6,000 employees worldwide.

During his four years as an undergraduate at UVM, Raymond was known as a talented orator who, even as a student, regularly contributed pieces to New York City newspapers. Raymond’s ties to the Burlington area continued beyond his years at the university. Three years after his graduation, he returned to Winooski to marry Juliet Weaver. 

Raymond worked for several newspapers after leaving UVM, including Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. He met Jones while working for the Tribune, and later convinced him to join in starting a new daily newspaper. 

As the Times’ David W. Dunlap noted in his anniversary piece, Raymond was a product of his era, and he at first adopted a neutral attitude on the most contentious topic of his day, slavery. But, Dunlap writes, “once persuaded that abolition fortified the cause of unionism, Raymond championed the destruction of slavery. On Dec. 19, 1865, after the 13th Amendment was ratified, Raymond confessed in an editorial ‘to a strange thrill of emotion, and of devout gratitude to Him who orders all things well.’” 

Raymond also had an active political life in the era when politics and journalism were deeply intertwined, and all newspapers tended to hew to a political viewpoint. He played a crucial part in the formation of the Republican Party in 1856 and was elected and served as lieutenant governor of New York from 1855 to 1856. He guided the Times as editor-in-chief until his death in 1869. In 1896 the Times was acquired by Adolph Ochs, whose surviving family members to this day own a controlling interest in the paper.