History of newspapers in Carey

Frank Tripp started The Carey Times. The newspaper has been published continuously ever since its first issue on May 8, 1873.

The newspaper has been called The Carey Weekly Times, The Wyandot County Times (for a brief period in 1878) and then The Carey Times until if became The Progressor-Times in 1971.

Frank and his brother Will were the original owners with Frank doing the editing and Will acting as the general foreman, typesetter and pressman.

The hand-operated press took three men to operate and it took hours to turn out the press run of 300 copies.

Death with the first issue.
The first copy of the Carey Weekly Times indirectly caused the death of Carey's village clerk, Roswell Perry. Perry and other elected officials were invited to the second floor printing office to see the initial copies come off the presses. Perry was so interested in his reading material when he got his copy of the Times that he fell from the second floor to the first, some 10 or 12 feet, and was killed. It had a sobering effect on the excitement surrounding the printing of the first issue, reports said. Others quickly took their paper and left.

Daily for two days.
Except for a two-day period in 1890, the Times has always been a weekly. There were back-to-back issues printed in 1890, however, when the Democratic convention for Hancock, Seneca, Wyandot, Union and Marion counties was held in Carey.

Homer Thrall buys the Times.
Owners of the Times changed hands rapidly in the early years but when Homer Thrall bought the paper in 1893, ownership stayed in the same family for the next 60 years. After Homer came Eloise, his daughter.

Then, in 1953, Herbert and Maryellen Miller purchased the business and owned it for 11 years, until 1964 when Leon Davenport became the owner. Davenport owned the business for a short period – until 1966 – before selling to Marjorie Patton. Michael, her son, was named editor.

Carey had two papers for three years after Steve Zender started The Carey Progressor. The first issue of the paper was published on July 10, 1968, and the Progressor and the Times were competitors for three years until Zender purchased the Times in 1971 and combined the two publications.

The Carey Blade.
The first newspaper ever put out in the Village of Carey was the Carey Blade in November 1872. Its publisher was 15-year-old Franklin A. Dame.

The price of the Blade was 50 cents per year, but the two-column, four-page publication didn't last that long. After getting out just four issues, publication was suspended, although young Mr. Dame continued to operate a printing shop for several months after that.

Dame later moved west to Chicago where he worked as a printer. He lived to be just 36 years old and is buried in Carey's Spring Grove Cemetery.

The Exponent.
There have been two newspapers in Carey on a least two occasions. The Carey Times and The Carey Progressor existed for three years as competitors and E.C. Burk published The Exponent in 1903.
           
Today The Progressor-Times and the Mohawk Leader, a newspaper for the Sycamore area, are put together in the same office at Carey.