doc241 - Schoenherr Home Page in Sunny Chula Vista

Mrs. Wrightington was a widow several years, and a well remembered character
of Old Town. She was a mother to all the unfortunates around the Bay. She spent her
last days with her daughter, Mrs. Israel, at Coronado.
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PART II. CHAPTER XIII. THE JOURNALISM OF OLD SAN DIEGO
The first paper published in the city of San Diego was the San Diego Herald. The
initial number appeared on May 29, 1851, only twelve days after the first publication of
La Estrella de Los Angeles (The Star of Los Angeles). In September of the preceding
year a small sheet called the San Luis Rey Coyote had been issued by some army officers
stationed at that mission, purporting to be edited by one C. Senior (Sí Señor). It
was a comic journal neatly written, and contained a map and some useful information;
but it was not in any proper sense of the word a newspaper, and only one number was
published. It is not known how many copies were issued.
The Herald was at first a four-page four-column paper, published every Thursday.
The subscription price was $10 per annum, and the advertising rates were: 8 lines or
less, $4 for the first insertion and $2 for each subsequent insertion; business cards at
monthly rates and a discount offered to yearly advertisers. The reading matter in the first
number, including a list of 320 letters which had accumulated in the San Diego post office,
filled five and three-fourths columns. The local advertisements made two columns,
and those of San Francisco advertisers eight and one-fourth columns. The paper contained
quite a little local news and was well set up and printed.
The editor and proprietor of this paper was John Judson Ames. He was born in
Calais, Maine, May 18, 1821, and was therefore a few days past his thirtieth birthday
when he settled in San Diego. He was a tall, stout, broad-shouldered man, six feet six
and one-half inches high, proportionately built, and of great physical strength. His father
was a shipbuilder and owner. Early in the 40's young Ames's father sent him as second
mate of one of his ships on a voyage to Liverpool. Upon his return, while the vessel was
being moored to the wharf at Boston, a gang of rough sailor boarding-house runners
rushed on board to get the crew away. Ames remonstrated with them, saying if they
would wait until the ship was made fast and cleaned up, the men might go where they
pleased. The run-
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ners were insolent, however, a quarrel ensued, and one of the intruders finally struck
him a blow on the chest. Ames retaliated with what he meant for a light blow, merely
straightening out his arm, but, to his horror, his adversary fell dead at his feet. He was
immediately arrested, tried for manslaughter, convicted, and sentenced to a long term in
the Leverett Street Jail. The roughs had sworn hard against him, but President John Tyler
understood the true facts in the case, and at once pardoned him. After this, he was
sent to school to complete his education. A few years later, being of a literary turn, he
engaged in newspaper work, and in 1848 went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and started
a paper which he called the Dime Catcher, devoted to the cause of the Whig party, in
general, and of General Zachary Taylor's candidacy for the presidency, in particular.