Hampshire Gazette

Sign for the Daily Hampshire Gazette offices, currently on exhibit in the Shepherd Barn. Historic Northampton (ID 1977.103.1)

Established in September 1786 – with news about Shays’ Rebellion – the Hampshire Gazette is one of the oldest newspapers in the United States.  On November 1, 1890, the Daily Hampshire Gazette first appeared and continues to this day as a six-day daily newspaper.  Read a history of the Hampshire Gazette.

Historic Northampton holds some early issues of the Gazette in bound volumes (1826-1838), plus select special issues mostly related to Northampton’s 150th, 200th, 250th, and 350th Anniversaries.

Index

The Index to Local News in the Hampshire Gazette Northampton, Mass., 1786-1937 was published by The Historical Records Survey of the Works Progress Administration in 1939.  The index was the first venture of the Massachusetts unit of the Historical Records Survey into the field of newspaper indexing; The Hampshire Gazette was selected due to its continuous existence from 1786. 

You can find the pre-1938 indexes online, via the Internet Archive, in 3 parts:

  • Part I Northampton
  • Part II Hampshire and Franklin Counties
  • Part III Personal Section

And the printed indexes for 1950–1994 are available at Forbes Library.

Online access to the Hampshire Gazette

On the Forbes Library website (available to Northampton residents with a library card) you can find full-text articles on local news, issues, events, people and much more from more recent issues of Daily Hampshire Gazette via Newsbank, a news database designed for researchers. The content is updated daily and includes editorials, announcements, and other local content from the Gazette going back to January 3, 1994 (note: images are not included).

Current issues of the Daily Hampshire Gazette are available on https://gazettenet.com to subscribers, with limited web access for non-subscribers.

page of the Hampshire Gazette newpaper dated January 3, 1787
Page 1 of Hampshire Gazette, January 3, 1787. Forbes Library.

View Early Issues

View issues of the first 11 years of the Hampshire Gazette beginning with the second issue, Sep 13, 1786 (the first issue no longer exists). Note: These are large PDF files and may take some time to load, depending on your internet speed.

Masthead of the Hampshire Gazette, Printed at Northampton (Massachusetts), by William Butler. Wednesday October 19, 1796. Vol XI, No. 529.

Additional Resources

Forbes Library in Northampton has the entire run of the Hampshire Gazette on microfilm, as well as other local historic newspapers (the Hampshire Herald, the Northampton Courier, and the Northampton Free Press, among others).

Forbes also has a large collection of photographs and negatives from the Hampshire Gazette.

Additional commercial databases with access to local newspapers resources, such as Genealogy Bank, are available through any public and academic libraries.