Quarterly Visitor (IA, 1844); upper right corner of front page missing from extant copy

Publication History:

Place of Publication: Washington, Iowa

Frequency:  Quarterly

Volume and Issue Data:  Extant issue, June 1844

Size and Format:  13 x 20 inches; three columns; four pages; ink

Editor/Publisher:  Daniel C. Stover

Title Changes and Continuation:  None

General Description and Notes:

The extant copy of the Quarterly Visitor, June, 1844, contained three basic types of material:  news, features and editorials.  The front page contained mostly poems and short moralisms.  The second page carried three editorials (one which attacked the political neutrality of the Domestic Quarterly Review, another local handwritten paper), a report on an extra session of the Iowa legislature, three news items about rain, wheat and wind, a humor piece about someone’s misfortunes while seeking a claim, a biographical sketch of Henry Clay and two brief news stories.  The third page continued the biographical descriptions of “the most distinguished statesmen now living” (Clay, Martin Van Buren, John C. Calhoun, Richard M. Johnson, James Buchanan and John Tyler).  The rest of the page had an article about the organization of neighboring Keokuk County, a letter to the editor (dated Washington, June 25, 1844) and five short news items.  Included on the third page was a map of Keokuk County showing rivers, townships and sections.  The last page was one-third poetry and two-thirds news items.  Included in the news items were an accidental drowning story and an obituary.

Quarterly Visitor (IA, 1844)

Several references in the extant issue to previous issues provide evidence that at least one previous issue of the paper was written.

Daniel C. Stover, the editor, was a lawyer and had started a law practice in the county seat town of Washington with his brother sometime in 1840, a year after their arrival in Iowa City from Indiana.  In 1844 Stover served as the secretary of the Democratic Convention held in Washington, and was nominated as the Democratic candidate for the Washington County Commissioner’s Clerk.  During the period Stover edited the Visitor, his brother was the district court clerk in Washington.

Information Sources:

Bibliography:  Roy Alden Atwood, “Handwritten Newspapers on the Iowa Frontier, 1844-1854,” Journalism History, 7:2 (Summer 1980), 56-59, 66-67; Nathan Littler, History of Washington County, 1835-1875, ed. by Edna Jones (Washington, Iowa:  Jonathan C. Clark, 1977) pp. 29, 126, 221-222; Kathy Fisher, In the Beginning There Was Land:  A History of Washington County, Iowa (Washington, Iowa:  Washington Historical Society, 1978), pp. 107, 190-191.

Locations:  State Historical Society of Iowa, Archives, Iowa City, Iowa