The
Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, founded by
William Brown (c.1737-1789) as the
Quebec Gazette on
June 21,
1764, claims to be the oldest newspaper in
North America. Formerly a
bilingual (
French/
English) publication, in 1873 the
Quebec Gazette joined the
Morning Chronicle to become the
Quebec Chronicle and Quebec Gazette.
Published today as a weekly from offices at 1248 Chemin Ste-Foy, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, the newspaper is a descendant of several newspapers published during the past three centuries. Until 1842, the newspaper published editions in both French and English. It started as a weekly, but in May 1832, it began appearing in English on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and in French on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
In 1925 another merger occurred, with the Quebec Daily Telegraph and the paper was published under the banner of the Chronicle-Telegraph until 1934, when it added Quebec at the front of its name where it remains to this day.
In 1959, the paper was sold to the Thomson Group, owned by Canadian media mogul Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet, and in 1972 went from being a daily to its current weekly edition. The paper was sold again in 1979 and, on January 1, 1993, was published from January 1, 1993, by Karen Macdonald and François Vézina. The current Publisher, Pierre Little, a New Brunswick native, took over officially from the former publishers on August 1, 2007. Please see the newspapers website 
for more details.
Its ISSN is 0226-9252.
Claims of seniority
The Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph claims to be North-America's oldest newspaper.
- The Maryland Gazette began publication in 1727, though it died in its tenth year and the name was only revived in 1922;
- The New Hampshire Gazette began publication on October 7, 1756 and continues as a weekly today. However, the name disappeared for a time and the new version was started from scratch by a different owner who had not purchased the paper from a previous owner;
- In Canada, the Halifax Gazette, founded in 1752, claims to be "Canada's first newspaper." However, its official descendant, the Royal Gazette, is a government publication for legal notices and proclamations rather than a proper newspaper;
- The Newport Mercury began as a weekly in 1758 and still publishes news today under the same name, ceasing publication only for a short period during the American Revolution. Though it cannot claim to be the oldest continually-published paper in North America, neither can the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, which also ceased publication during the siege of Quebec in November 1775; <-- disputed by the Quebec Chronicle Telegraph, 2008.
- Finally, there is the Hartford Courant, founded October 29, 1764, a few months after the Quebec Chronicle Telegraph. The argument from the Courant is that it has never missed a day of publication since its foundation.
The Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph therefore has a defendable claim to being the oldest SURVIVING newspaper that still publishes news in Canada and the oldest in North America with continuous corporate bona fide buyouts from current proprietors to new successors. No other newspaper has this claim in North America and quite possible the New World.
External links
References
