The ''Sumter News'' was a newspaper serving

Sumter, South Carolina Sumter ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Sumter County, South Carolina, United States. The city makes up the Sumter, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Sumter County, along with Clarendon and Lee counties, form the core of Sumter–Lee ...

. It became the ''True Southron'' and eventually merged with ''The Watchman'' to form ''The Watchman and Southron''.

History

H. L. Darr was a journalist in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

, who moved to Sumter to establish a weekly paper. Noah Graham Osteen (born January 25, 1843) joined the paper soon after. Frank Moses worked for it. It competed against the '' Sumter Watchman''. A conservative paper, it promoted Democratic Party politics and described itself as a white man's paper with an editorial header stating "This is a white man's country and must be ruled by white men". Moses wrote columns and editorials calling for the development of industry in the South, criticizing "

carpetbagger In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical pejorative used by Southerners to describe allegedly opportunistic or disruptive Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War and were pe ...

s", Northern missionaries helping establish Union Leagues, and Republican activities, especially

Radical Republican The Radical Republicans were a political faction within the Republican Party originating from the party's founding in 1854—some six years before the Civil War—until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction. They ca ...

, in Washington D.C. The paper used the

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

to get

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

stories on U.S. President

Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. The 16th vice president, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a South ...

's fight against the

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses Citizenship of the United States ...

and impeachment. The paper was renamed the ''True Southron''. It eventually merged with the Watchman to become the ''Watchman and Southron''. Osteen developed the business into a publishing company. His son Hubert established ''

The Item ''The Item'', formerly known as ''The Sumter Daily Item'' and ''The Daily Item'', is an independent morning newspaper published in Sumter, South Carolina, five days a week (Tuesday to Friday), with a "Weekend Edition" delivered on Saturday morn ...

'' in Sumter.

References

Defunct newspapers published in South Carolina {{SouthCarolina-newspaper-stub