A Major Newspaper for Adoption
Major Downing’s Advocate, and Mechanics’ Journal. Aug. 27, 1834.
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Jack Downing was a comic character created in 1830 by Seba Smith, who developed the country dialect-speaking character in a series of letters for the Portland Courier. As Downing became famous, Charles Augustus Davis imitated the style and wrote under the same name for New York papers. Davis started Major Downing’s Advocate on Mar. 12, 1834, soon expanding the title to the longer form here. By then Davis had probably left the editorship, and the paper had taken on an anti-Jacksonian tone supporting the Whig party.
