R. C. Mirror

Available from the Hathi Trust.

The first newspaper ever printed on Staten Island was the Richmond County Mirror, which made its appearance in July, 1837. Mr. Francis L. Hagadorn was the editor and proprietor, and the publication office was located on Richmond Terrace, New Brighton, somewhere between York avenue and Belmont Hall. It contained eight pages of three columns each, was ably edited, neatly printed, and reflected credit upon its manager. The editor was the son of the publisher of the Free Press, and had been connected with that paper. The first number contained a steel engraving, entitled, "A View of New Brighton," by Chapman, and later on there were printed engravings of the Pavilion Hotel and the castle-like residence of Mr. A. G. Ward, still standing at the corner of Richmond terrace and Franklin avenue. "Everyone will remember," says the editor, "that as recently as 1834 the present Richmond terrace, which now forms one of the finest drives in the country, was the very worst tatter of a road on Staten Island. Where, so lately as the year '34, the uncherished domicile of Capt. Lawrence, with the dilapidated stillhouse opposite, and three or four random cottages around, were the only objects around to occupy the visual organs ; now the stately Pavilion and its surrounding palaces do honor to the emboldened shore, that, bristling from the sloping chain of mountains in its rear, leaps like a startled deer upon the bay and arches up its antlers of Corinthian as if doubting whether to proceed."