Nicholas Hornyansky (Hungarian/Canadian, 1896-1965) ARCA, OSA, CPE, FIAL, ACPS
‘Home of the Colonial Advocate’ [MacKenzie King House, Niagara-on-the-Lake]
With a view of Queenston Heights in the background.
aquatint
(image): 4 ¼” high x 5 3/8” wide
(frame): 8” high x 9 ¼” wide
Markings: titled and signed in margins
Condition: Good, Ready for Display
For Accuracy: The image is complete but shifted upwards in the mat to show the title and signature, due to this position there is even acid burn around the left and right, below the title and signature, and through the upper section of the image. It retains good colour, is framed behind glare-free glass and ready for display.
Notes: “The Home of the Colonial Advocate. // THIS THE HOME of the Colonial Advocate, a quite insignificant newspaper and yet it shook the country. Sometimes there is dynamite in newspapers. The gingery, wiry, peppery little Scot, William Lyon MacKenzie, had come from Dundas where he had some connection with the grocery trade, to found a newspaper on the frontier at Queenstown. On May 20, 1824, the first issue came out. That day saw something more than the launching of a newspaper. It was really the launching of a man on a career that was to carry him through storm and battle, insurrection and exile, and at last place him under the shadow of the gallows. He was to come home again after the fires had burned low to end his years in tranquility, and to enjoy at least some of the reforms to which his life and fortune had been devoted. // This building was MacKenzie’s home at Queenston, and, as has been said, the home of the Colonial Advocate, but the paper was printed there for only a few issues. An early Advocate remarked that a contract has been issued to have the first twelve issues printed in another shop for MacKenzie had no printing equipment as yet. The editor assured his readers in the issue of October 7 that it had been half printed at home and half printed in the American Republick, but did not say where. The Advocate of October 14 was the first completely home product. // In the American Republick, but where? Across the river was the Lewiston Sentinel, founded in 1828 by James O. Daley. Of the sentinel and the first fifteen issues of the Advocate one can say they were alike in this: same size page, same five columns to the page; same 48-point caps in the heading; same 24-point old English in the sub-head; same 8-point body type. There seems no reason to doubt that the first fifteen issues came from the presses of the Sentinel. For a month the Advocate was at home, in the building shown in the picture – then came York.” ~ Courtesy, Louis Blake Duff
