County Seat Newspaper
of Clare County

140 Years of Publishing and Perseverance

Clare County’s Oldest Business Celebrates Milestone Anniversary

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The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker…none are found at the oddly named newspaper in Harrison, the Clare County Cleaver, that marks 140 years in business this July. Nursery rhymes aside, just why is this newspaper named the Cleaver? Most newspapers use Gazette, News, Journal, Post, Mail, Examiner, Chronicle, and more. In Clare County there has been the Clare Sentinel, the Clare Courier, the Farwell News, the Harrison Herald, Harrison Echo, the Clare Democrat and Press, and the Farwell Register.

The Cleaver was first printed in the back of butcher shop on Main Street in 1881. The office and press room shared space with a butcher shop and later the post office.  The first printers were John Quinn and John Russell, later taken over and published by two generations of the Canfield family; John and Alfred. Russell had published the first Harrison paper the Harrison Herald earlier in 1881. Alfred Canfield went on to publish the Clare Courier.

 Harrison was a lumber boom town for most of the 1880s. Businesses opened and closed at a furious pace as fortunes were won and lost both in the woods and at the saloons. It was thought it would take decades for the big timber to be lumbered off in Clare County. Due to new lumbering technologies and the railroad, it took a scant decade.

The seat of Clare County was moved to Harrison in 1879, a more central location in the county after the courthouse burned at Farwell in 1876. The county seat likely saved Harrison and the Cleaver from becoming a ghost town. The county seat brought an influx of business and visitors to Harrison and impacted the economy greatly. The Cleaver still publishes notices and does print work for county business as it has done since the beginning.

As the lumber business declined many businesses failed, shanty boys moved on to timber farther north and farming communities replaced wild saloon towns. During this decline in 1899, the Cleaver briefly stopped publishing for a few weeks according to other local papers. It started up again and has published continuously since.

In 1909 Jesse Allen bought the Cleaver and would spend over 35 years of his life at the paper. He sold due to health issues but got it back and continued to publish putting every member of the Allen family in the business at one time or another. In his parting editorial, A.H. Aldrich writes about Allen, “Our successor, Jesse Allen, is a young man that understands the county print shop from A to Z. He is a young man of sterling qualities and is ambitious to make a success in life. He has lived in Clare county about all his life, and is a most loyal advocate of the merits thereof.”

When the Cleaver burned in zero-degree temperatures on Dec. 26, 1925, the following week the Cleaver printed as usual but from the presses of the Clare Sentinel. They set up temporary offices near the State Savings Bank and eventually settled into the Main Street location still the home of the paper today. The printing presses were insured for $1,000. 

In the 100th anniversary issue of the Cleaver in 1981, Roy Allen, son of Jesse Allen describes Emil Bucholz coming to the Cleaver in the late 30s. Allen captures the energy and drive which Bucholz applies to his new job managing the Cleaver and purchasing it a year later. Even in 1981 Allen writes that “few of the weekly papers published in 1937 are still alive.” A journalist himself, Allen probably wouldn’t be surprised there are even less small, weekly papers today. According to Allen, Bucholz took over a very ill, shaky, and exhausted business in a community likewise afflicted.

The inspiration is Allen’s description of Bucholz setting to the task of making the community successful and bringing up his business along with it, “When there was something to be done around Harrison, he usually was involved. Somewhere he saw a great, prosperous newspaper and an equally great and prosperous community. He knew the hard road that had to be traveled to reach such a goal.” Emil Bucholz and other likeminded business owners ushered in the booming tourist industry that began in the 1940s and lasted through the 1960s and 70s.

Emil’s son Dean followed him as editor. Dean had the same passion for the newspaper business but was unfortunately killed in an auto accident in 1965. His brother Glenn stepped in to run the paper and eventually his son Marty took over as editor. With or without passion for the newspaper business itself, all the Bucholz editors had good business sense, commitment to family and community, and brought the Cleaver into the 21st century. 

Today, files are backed-up off site every night and printing of the newspaper hasn’t been done in house for many years. The world has changed and the newspaper and publishing business along with it. Since 1881, radio, television, and internet have been added as means to receive news and information. Yet, local newspapers endure providing local content and connection citizens highly desire. 

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