Older Than The Nation
The newspaper is The Hartford Courant, the country’s oldest newspaper in continuous publication. The Courant is, in fact, older than the nation. It was started as a weekly paper in 1764 by a printer named Thomas Green. Green helped to keep The Courant afloat at first by selling clothing, stationery, hardware and spices out of a store in front of the newspaper’s office. He sold the newspaper to his assistant, Ebenezer Watson, who ran the business successfully until he died of smallpox in 1777. Then Watson’s widow, Hannah, took over the paper and became one of the first women publishers in America.