The Montgomery County Sentinel

The Montgomery County Sentinel is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Montgomery County, Maryland.^[1] It is also currently one of the smallest local newspapers, in terms of circulation.^[2] It has been based in Rockville since the Civil War-era and its first print was on August 11, 1855.^[3][4]

History

The Montgomery County Sentinel was first published as a weekly newspaper in 1855 by Matthew Fields and has been continuously published, with brief interruptions, until the present. The early focus of the paper was on advertising and politics, with relatively little space devoted to local news. News articles were usually brief and to the point without elaboration. On two occasions, once before and once during the Civil War, the paper suffered brief interruptions while Matthew Fields, a Southern sympathizer, was held by Union military forces.^[5] Throughout the war, The Sentinel wrote on the issue of slavery and when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Fields published the document's text in full on September 26, 1862. In addition to discussing the various political issues, war reports were used to inform readers on the progress of the war.^[6]

After rioting killed Union soldiers in Baltimore, martial law was instituted in Maryland, allowing the Union Army to imprison Confederate sympathizers for disloyalty. On October 6, 1862, Union soldiers arrested Matthew Fields on the suspicion of 'southern sympathies.' Court documents indicate Fields was to be released as soon as he was willing to take an oath not to publish material favoring the South. He was released on November 25, 1862, during Lincoln's Thanksgiving Amnesty.^[7]

Fields eventually died in 1871 and his wife took over publication, often handling production entirely on her own until 1910 when Matthew Fields' son Henry Clay Fields became the editor. Rebecca Fields would maintain a limited role until her death in 1930 at age 100.^[8]

The Fields family maintained ownership of The Sentinel until 1932 when it was sold to P.G. Stromberg. Stromberg expanded The Sentinel and hired numerous reporters and a newsboy to handle deliveries. In its centennial year, the family of P.G. Stromberg sold The Sentinel to Louis Linebach and Cy Campbell. During their ownership, Linebach and Campbell had significant disagreements, with Campbell eventually selling his stake in the publication.

In 1962, Leonard and Bernard Kapiloff purchased The Sentinel from Linebach and the Kapiloff family continues to publish it today.^[9] Bob Woodward was hired as a reporter at the Sentinel after failing a two-week trial hiring at the Washington Post in 1970. After one year at the Sentinel learning the ropes of being a reporter, Woodward was hired by the Post and 12 months later was reporting on the Watergate break-in.^[10] In June 2015, the Sentinel removed over 80 editorial cartoons it had plagiarized from a variety of other artists.^[11][12]

References