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New York Times Timeline 1851-1880

1851

September 18

"We publish today the first issue of the New-York Daily Times, and we intend to issue it every morning (Sundays excepted) for an indefinite number of years to come." The founders are Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones.

1852

1852


Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones publish a Western edition, The Times of California. It arrives whenever a mail boat makes its journey around Cape Horn. It dies with the rise of California Newspapers.
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1854

September 27
The trans-Atlantic steamer Arctic
The trans-Atlantic steamer Arctic goes down; fewer than 50 survive. The Times beats the herald with an exclusive eyewitness report.

1856

October

The Associated Press is formally organized, with Raymond as a director.

1859

June

During the Italian war for independence, Raymond gets a 10-day jump on the other New York Papers with his eyewitness account of the Battle of Solferino. His wife, in Paris, gets his report onto the last mail boat to New York.

October
Harper's Ferry, VA
The Times publishes extensive reports from the Harper's Ferry, Va., about John Brown's abortive raid on the federal arsenal. He and his men are executed on Dec. 2. Guarding his gallows is a young cadet who will later appear on the New York Stage: John Wilkes Booth.

1861

April 21

Responding to the thirst for Civil War news, major dailies, including The Times, start Sunday Issues.

November 21

The Times, as a leading memberof the A.P., arranges for the agency to be the official receiver of all war news from the government. Before, the government had dispensed news to a few favored organs.

December 11
The Times' first illustrations
The Times publishes its first illustrations: front-page cartoons of Henry J. Raymond's rival James Gordon Bennett; publisher of The Herald.

1863

July 13-16

Mobs riot in New York to protest the draft; more than 100 are killed. The Times, pro-union and anti-slavery, is a leading target. Its Park Row building is defended by Raymond and others with rifles and Gatling guns; mobs attack the Tribune building instead.

1865

April 15
The assassination of Lincoln
Its front-page columns bordered in black, The Times reports the assasination of Lincoln.

1868

The Times takes on Erie Railroad speculators in a series of articles that will help sharpen its quills for an even bigger fight to come, the Tweed series.

1869

June 18

Raymond dies suddenly. George Jones takes over as a publisher.

1870-1871

Times exposés brings down the corrupt Tweed Ring
A series of Times exposés brings down the corrupt Tweed Ring and ends its domination of City Hall.

Reaching out to New York's German residents - 25 percent of the city's population - The Times also prints the articles in a German-language supplement.

1873

E. Remington & Sons typewriters
E. Remington & Sons starts producing typewriters in the United States.

1876

Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. The Times will get its first phone number (number: John 470) in 1886.

Disgusted with the scandals in the Grant Administration, George Jones, now the publisher, moves The Times away from the Republican Party.
November 7

With the Headline "A Doubtful Election", The Times goes it alone and declares that the presidential contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden is without a victor; the other papers give the election to Tilden. After months, an electoral commission and Congress decide in Hayes's favor.