Chester Herald

City: Chester

County: Randolph

State: Illinois

The Chester Herald was a newspaper published in Chester, Illinois, from 1849 until 1860. The Herald had its origins with the Kaskaskia Republican, which James Fitzsimmons began publishing in Kaskaskia in June 1840. After a flood destroyed much of Kaskaskia, the publishers struggled to sustain the Republican, and in 1849, Benjamin J. F. Hanna bought the Republican and moved it to Chester, renaming it the Herald. Hanna and various partners edited the Herald until 1856, when Elzy J. Montague assumed the editorial reins. Montague edited and published the Herald until around 1860, when he left Chester and moved to Belleville, Illinois to take charge of the Belleville Advocate.

Franklin William Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879, vol. 6 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1910), 20-21, 51, 213; Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois (Philadelphia: J. L. McDonough, 1883), 196; Richard B. Servant to Abraham Lincoln.