Heeser, William

[Kibesillah, Mendocino County, California] North Coast Review, Vol. 1 No. 23, Saturday, October 20, 1883

Kibesillah, Mendocino County, California: William Heeser, 1883. [Kibesillah, Mendocino County, California] North Coast Review, Vol. 1 No. 23, Saturday, October 20, 1883

4-page newspaper measures 22 x 16 inches. Paper is toned, especially the top quarter. Previous horizontal fold. Severe chipping at fold and on edges. Possibly small amount of content loss. I hesitate to open paper as some chips are bent and may flake off. Fragile. In sleeve. Fair condition.

Short-lived newspaper from the community of Kibesillah, located 3 miles south of Westport along the Northern California coast. As best as we can ascertain, the paper survived for two years ending its run with Vol. 2, No. 4 (June 3, 1884). The paper was the brainchild of a German immigrant William Heeser who also owned papers in nearby Fort Bragg, Rockport, and Westport.

The four-page paper advertised that it "publishes The Local News General News, Telegraphic News and Marine Intelligence and Court Proceedings...Advertisements, Business Cards, etc. etc., Posters, Programmes, Bill Heads, Cards and All Kinds of Job Work."

Pages 2 and 3 are mostly devoted to local news and regional dispatches, while pages 1 and 4 are devoted to world news and assorted tidbits. Perhaps 30% of the paper are local ads; a treasure-trove for local historians.

Includes an account of James Garfield asking to see his wife shortly after he was struck by an assassin's bullet on July 2nd, 1881. Garfield would die on September 19, 1881 almost two years prior to this paper's publication date. Odd that the piece would run so far removed from the death of the president.

From Wikipedia: "[Wiiliam] Heeser emigrated from Germany to Baltimore with his brother, Augustus H. Heeser, following the death of his father, and then moved to Providence, Kentucky, where he opened a general store in 1844. He arrived in the town of Mendocino in the 1850s and purchased in 1858 from William H. Kelly a farm consisting of most of the land west of Lansing Street in Mendocino. He soon became a justice of the peace and notary public; he was a county supervisor from 1864 to 1867 and from 1877 to 1880. He operated a general store in Mendocino and chose the names for many of Mendocino's streets. As a United States deputy surveyor, Heeser constructed Little Lake Road (a wagon road from Mendocino to Willits), and another road from Mendocino to Ukiah. In 1870 and 1871 he founded the Bank of Mendocino and the Mendocino Discount Bank. Heeser founded the Mendocino Beacon in Mendocino, California, with W. H. Meacham in 1877 and the Fort Bragg Advocate in Fort Bragg, California, in 1889; he also founded newspapers in the Mendocino County communities of Kibesillah, Rockport, and Westport. In 1892, he purchased the Point Arena Record, which had been founded in 1888 by H. B. Cartnell."

We find holdings of at least one issue at Library of Congress and UC Berkeley. Certainly, one of the rarest Mendocino area newspapers from the 19th century.

Will ship flat. Item #2719

Price: $175.00