The Knoxville Gazette - Layout and Publication

Layout and Publication

The Gazette was a typical late-18th century broadsheet consisting of two pages, each with three columns (later four). The first page contained news, while the second page contained advertisements and announcements. The paper typically measured 10 inches (25 cm) by 16 inches (41 cm), but the size varied due to Roulstone's difficulties in obtaining paper. The Gazette was normally published on a biweekly basis.

Roulstone was a native of Boston, Massachusetts, but had moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, by the late-1780s, where he published an unsuccessful newspaper. Upon the creation of the Southwest Territory (which included what is now Tennessee) in 1790, the territory's first governor, William Blount, saw the need for a newspaper through which the territorial government could announce its legislative decisions, and invited Roulstone to the capital's new territory, Knoxville. Blount and Roulstone spent several months in Rogersville, Tennessee, before moving to Knoxville, and the earliest issues of the Gazette were published in Rogersville. The paper's October 6, 1792 issue was the first published in Knoxville.

Roulstone published the Gazette until his death in 1804. His wife, Elizabeth Gilliam Roulstone, continued publishing the paper until 1808, when she and her second husband moved the paper Carthage, Tennessee. During the same period, George Roulstone's former business partner, George Wilson, moved to Knoxville and established Wilson's Knoxville Gazette, which first appeared in November 1804. Wilson continued publishing this paper until 1818, when he moved to Nashville to publish the pro-Jackson sheet, Old Hickory. Knoxville entrepreneur Frederick Heiskell worked briefly for Wilson's paper before leaving to co-found the Knoxville Register in 1816.