NYS Historic Newspapers 
has added some new newspapers to their online collection.
Jewish Tidings was published weekly from Feb. 5, 1887 to Jan. 12 1894 for a total of 354 issues.
Jewish Ledger is available online from Sept. 27, 1924 to Dec. 23, 1993 (3406 issues). This is also a weekly newspaper. Sources online say this newspaper is still being published. But it appears that it ceased being published in either 2019 or 2020.
These two publication will be very helpful to members of the Rochester area Jewish community. The online versions were created from microfilms in the NY State Library.
Also now available are these very early Rochester newspapers:
- Rochester Daily Democrat: Feb. 17, 1834 – July 28, 1836 (613 issues)
- Rochester Democrat: Sept. 13, 1836 – June 2, 1840 (565 issues)
- Rochester Daily Democrat: June 3, 1840 – June 30, 1847 (2092 issues)
You can search these titles by entering a term in the search box of that newspaper’s web page. Or you can search all newspapers from the NYS Historic Newspapers home page.
Those issues of the Democrat from 1840 to 1847 have been available on Fulton History but not the earlier issues. Again these were digitized from microfilms at the NY State Library.
Hi Dick Thank you! I found several interesting things about my family.
Joseph Cochrane, the brother of one of my ancestors, was a “Wholesale and Retail Dealer in Groceries and Provisions” and also a member of the Common Council. I found numerous advertisements for his store with lists of things he carried. Interesting! I also saw that he was granted a license for a grocery store in 1835.
Was one of your ancestors Joseph Halsey? I saw a note that a license was granted to him “for his store in St. Paul street on payment of $34.” Also, that on a motion of “Ald. Halsey,” a license was granted to Joseph Cochrane for his store on “Main Street.”
Do you have any idea what a “custom mill” would have been in the 1830’s? There were several notices that Joseph Cochrane wanted to “hire a good custom mill.” I also found a reference in 1840 to the “Tory Locofoco Party.” It will be fun searching for information about all of this and learning about it.
Thank you.
Joseph Halsey is in the Halsey Genealogy that was published in 1895 but he turns out to be a 5th or 6th cousin. So technically related but not very closely.
Google AI says that “The Loco Foco faction, also known as the Equal Rights Party, was a radical wing of the Democratic Party in the United States during the 1830s, primarily active in New York City. They originated as a protest against Tammany Hall, the city’s dominant Democratic organization. The name “Loco Foco” comes from the use of friction matches (locofoco) to light candles during a political meeting disrupted by Tammany Hall.”
Custom mill could be just about any kind of mill. It could be a saw mill or a flour mill. Maybe he had logs that he wanted to have cut into lumbar. Or he could have some wheat or other grain he wanted ground.
Hi. Thank you for this interesting information! Since he had a grocery store, wanting to grind wheat to sell would make sense.
I first came across Locofoco in an article of October, 1840. It was a report of a “meeting of the Whigs of the Fifth Ward.” They passed a resolution that the members of the Tory Locofoco party had a plot to defeat the Whig candidates in the coming election.
I found other articles that mentioned a big rivalry between the Whigs and the Locofoco party. It’s all very interesting, and it’s fun to read about what people at the time thought about things that were going on.
I wonder if or how these things affected my family and what that impact might have been then and even today. History is so much more than names and dates. I wonder what people two hundred years in the future will think about the things we’re going through now.
Thanks for your posts!