Chautauqua News

From the Elk Falls Howard County Ledger, November 25, 1875.

“We are in receipt of the Chautauqua News, published at Peru on the old Wide Awake material [printing press] by F. G. Moore, Esq. The paper looks well for a first number and we do not doubt but Fletch will make a good readable paper, and we hope he will get rich.”

The editor of the Sedan Wide Awake was Joseph Mount, and according to Tom Thompson a deaf mute, although he might have only been deaf. He must have had an incredible time publishing a newspaper. However, he had live in help from someone he identified as his sister. According to the Sedan Graphic, few people believed the arrangement.

Mount moved the Howard County Record from Peru to Sedan in 1874 and renamed it the Sedan Wide Awake.

Mount previously published the Record in Peru from early 1872 to mid 1874. He found the going tough after Peru lost the county seat and he hoped to do better in Sedan. However, about one year after moving and right after Howard County divided, he and his supposed sister up and left town one evening and were never seen again.

Creditors seized the Wide Awake printing press and moved it to Peru where F. G. Moore, whose first name seemed to be Fletch, tried to make a go of it. The Peru Chautauqua News lasted until mid 1880.