The Daily Gazette Davenport, Iowa Alfred Sanders, Editor Monday Morning September, 8, 1862 To the Readers of the Gazette On the 26th of August, 1841, I established the Davenport Gazette; to-day my connection with it ceases. For twenty-one consecutive years I have published it without the omission of a single number. It is now of age, and I part with it much as a father bids adieu to an only son, as he send him forth at manhood to battle with the world, or to engage in the nation's strife. A generation has passed away since as a small weekly sheet, located in a sparsely settled portion of the country, in a little town of some five hundred inhabitants, the Gazette was first issued. Who can estimate the influence for good or evil it has exerted in all that time? Working ever for what in my in my judgment I considered the real interests of the people with whom I had identified myself, and for the maintenance of the principles that I thought best calculated to promote the prosperity of the county, I cannot but flatter myself its influence has been for good. In severing my connection with the Gazette it is with mingled feeling so pleasure and regret. I am happy in being rid of the constant labor and embarrassment of conducting alone an establishment that should require the concerted and indefatigable efforts of at least two active men. For the past year I have felt the responsibility of my situation and as though I was not doing full justice either to myself or to my readers in assuming so much labor, yet could see no method by which to evade it other than to dispose of the entire establishment, and this I did on the 1st inst. I regret parting with so many kind friends, some of whom have stood by me during the whole term of my editorial labors, but have the reflection that I shall still remain among them. I leave the Gazette in a prosperous condition, permanently established and exercising an influence second to none in the State. My successors are gentlemen well known as citizens of this place-the principal one of whom is also an Old Settler. It was my object in selling the office to continue it in the hands of my fellow-citizens, and I disposed of it to them at a lower rate than I could have been induced to sell it to strangers. Its principles will be unchanged and I doubt not such improvements will be made in the paper as will cause its many readers to be perfectly satisfied with its future control. It has been my aim, which in the long series of years I have never once departed from, to make the Gazette more of a local than general newspaper. First in importance, I have ever esteemed it my duty to urge the claims of the town in which the paper was located, with the view to induce immigration and build it up as the metropolitan city of the State. Next the county, then the State and finally the country at large came in for consideration. Contracting my sphere, under the conviction I could accomplish the more, I have labored assiduously to make the Gazette the exponent peculiarly of this portion of our State, and I am satisfied that it has been largely instrumental in inducing the immigration of the more intelligent class of citizens. My duty to party has been discharged from principle, and if in the heat of discussion with my opponents I have inflicted unnecessary pain, let it be attributed to zeal and not to depravity, as I bear ill will to no man. But I leave the acts and influences of the paper to speak for themselves, trusting and believing its future usefulness will not be impaired by the change now made. To my many readers for whom I have so long catered, I wish long life, prosperity and happiness; to my cotemporaries who still plod on in the laborious path of newspaper publication, I tender my sympathy, and with all ardently hope that the clouds which now loom so murkily upon our Southern horizon may soon be dispelled and peace and prosperity again rest upon our country. Alfred Sanders Wonderful.-The New York Evening Post tells a large story of the freaks of lightning in France. A young girl was struck by lightning and changed to a boy. The very thing wanted in this vicinity. Our women are anxious to enlist, but under existing circumstances the Government will not receive them. Pass that lightning round, and let's have the objection removed. A White Contraband.-Among the "contrabands" was found one white man sixty-three years old, of pure Anglo-Saxon blood, without any African taint, who has been a slave for sixty-three years. Reared in the slave-pens of Virginia, doubtless the child of misfortune, but thought to be more valuable for the "shambles" than to "strangle," he has been herded with the negroes, compelled to live a lie for more than three-score years. What a field of anguish is open to the imagination? We immediately dispatched him north on the overground railroad to Governor Morton of Indiana, to show what are the specimens of the system that now defies the Government.-Cor. Cin. Com. More Indian Troubles in Minnesota. St. Paul, Sept. 5. The Indians attacked Forest city on the 3d, and were repulsed. Capt. Strout writes to the Adjutant General from Hutchinson, 3d, they were attacked by 150 Indians. The fight lasted two hours and a half, when the Indians gave way. Our loss was 3 killed and 15 wounded. Capt. Strout also says the Indians had excellent guns, and were dressed partly in citizens dress, and rode fine horses. He thinks the difficulty in that vicinity will be very serious. ~~~~~~*~~~~~~ Elaine Rathmann ACC Scott Co, IAGenWeb Project List Adm: *IA-CIVIL-WAR *IA-DANES