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Place of Publication
Windsor, Ontario
Description
Title Variation
Clarion (Windsor, Ontario)
Publication Dates
1885: Dec. 5 (Vol. 1: no. 1) – 1892? (Vol. 7) Ceased end of 1891 or early 1892
Frequency
Weekly
Online Holdings
1886: Nov. 27 (Vol. 1: no. 52) “Birthday Supplement” page 1?; pages 2-4 missing
1887: July 9 (Vol. 2: no. 32) 4 pages; damaged/incomplete
1891: Dec. 12 (Vol. 7: no. 2) 4 pages
Keywords
Windsor Clarion, Clarion (Windsor), Windsor (Ontario), Essex County (Ontario), Newspapers
Disciplines
Canadian History | Public History
Rights
Public Domain
Comments/Notes
The Windsor Clarion was a 4 page newspaper which appeared every Saturday from December 5, 1885 until the end of 1891, or possibly early 1892. It was owned and edited by Charles Daniel Clark (not the Charles Clark of the Comber Herald). The paper was published out of an office on the north side of Pitt Street East, one building east of Ouellette Avenue, and cost one dollar per year.
In an advertisement in the 1888 Windsor City Directory, the Clarion was described as being “independent, fearless, aggressive, bright, saucy, and good natured”. One of its most popular columns was a series of character sketches penned by “The Corner Loafer” (actually Mayor Hanna, Dr. Coventry, and T. M. White; Windsor Evening Record February 14, 1912, p. 3). The newspaper also had quite a liberal outlook and quirky sense of humour. For example, it was quoted in the Globe and Mail (January 11, 1888, p. 6): “A Salvation Army convert named Moore has been sent to Sandwich gaol for 21 days for abusing his wife. Moore of the same sort should be Sandwiched in that institution.” When the Clarion celebrated its first anniversary, it printed its birthday edition in “saucy” red ink (now faded to blue-purple; Detroit Free Press November 29, 1886, p. 4). Sometimes, its “fearless” reporting got the paper into trouble, and it was threatened with libel suits a number of times. In 1887, it lost a libel suit for claiming that the composer Professor S. Mazurette has pirated a musical piece from Gottschalk (Detroit Free Press October 11, 1887, p. 4). The owner, Charles D. Clark, was a passionate baseball fan and sponsored a local team, “The Windsor Clarions”, which was very successful in the late 1880’s and was covered extensively in the paper.
Unfortunately perhaps, the content of the few existing, digitized issues is fairly standard and somewhat dull: local news, sports, politics, and lots of personal and business advertisements. There is also discussion of reciprocity, political union with the U.S., and the general state of the Canadian Confederation.
There was a business connection between Charles D. Clark and John A. Bell, who was the manager of the Detroit Free Press. In March, 1889, the Detroit Free Press moved into the same office as the Windsor Clarion, and the Windsor Clarion became the official representative of the Detroit Free Press in Windsor. Over the years, the Free Press re-published quite a lot of stories from the Clarion.
Charles Daniel Clark was born June 22, 1844, probably in Connecticut. He came to Windsor in the early 1880s. After the demise of the Windsor Clarion, he briefly worked for the Essex Review in 1892, before becoming a bookkeeper in the office of the Michigan Central Railway. He died June 28, 1910 and was buried in Windsor Grove Cemetery.
Updated: Katharine Ball, March 2021
Source of our Digitized Holdings
Museum Windsor
Other Potential Holdings
Archives of Ontario: 1886: Jan. 9
Museum Windsor: 1888: Dec. 29 – Missing
To view online at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/windsor-clarion-windsor-ontario