The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 242
641 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
his publishing deadlines. The issue of August 9, 1830, was delayed
because the press broke down. Pied type delayed the issue of
October 30, 183o, and the paper shortage forced Gotten to
explain to his readers in the issue of November 27, 1830, that
he would not be able to get out the next issue on time because
the paper he had ordered from New Orleans had not arrived.
As if this were not enough to drive any man from the pub-
lishing business, Gotten also had trouble with persons who
were not subscribers taking the papers from subscribers' homes.
Gotten offered a ten dollar reward and warned that he would
prosecute the thieves to the limit of the law.18
In the first number it was announced that the Texas Gazette
was to be dedicated to unbiased political and miscellaneous in-
telligence. "It will chronicle events," wrote Gotten, "as they
transpire within our own country, or [what] may come to us
from foreign parts." Although the paper advocated the national
and state constitutions in the belief that they would work for
harmony and union, there was to be no party spirit displayed
in the Gazette.
Gotten did most of the editorial work, but it is known that
Robert McAlpin Williamson and Stephen F. Austin also con-
tributed editorials to the first volume. All the editorials each
man wrote have not been identified, but some of the more
important ones have. D. W. Robinson maintains that Gotten
wrote the strange editorial championing the cause of some
gamblers who had been arrested and fined. Robinson reasons
that it was probably Gotten who wrote the editorial requesting
the ayuntamiento to return the fines leveled against the gamblers
because Williamson was, at the time, prosecutor for the
ayuntamiento, and Austin was against gambling on moral
grounds. This left Gotten as the probable author.14 As additional
evidence, it should be pointed out that Williamson had stopped
writing regularly for the Gazette at least five months before this
editorial appeared. Robinson advances the idea that, because
of this editorial and other similar incidents, Austin wrote of the
Texas Gazette that it had been "badly conducted.""
7aTexas Gazette, I, No. 23, May 15, 1830.
14Robinson, Texas' Three-Legged Willie, 48; Texas Gazette, I, No. 42, October
2, 1830.
15S. F. Austin to S. M. Williams, Saltillo, February 19, 1831, in Barker (ed.),
Austin Papers, II, 599.242
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953, periodical, 1953; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101145/m1/288/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.