No, we’re not quoting a line from John Lennon’s Christmas/New Year’s song with this headline, and we are not cutting 2020 short (though it would be nice to get done with this most eventful year and what it contained). We are about to celebrate another year of publication.

The first issue of the Boothbay Register was published on Dec. 9, 1876. According to Francis Greene’s history of the region, “The first newspaper established in town was by B. T. Cox, who issued the first number of the Boothbay Register December 9, 1876. It was a sheet of four pages, size 7 1-4 by 10 1-2. It carried twelve columns, three to each page.”

Having been around for only the last 64 of the newspaper’s 144 years, I can’t vouch for first 80 years, but looking back at our archives (what we have left after the fire of 1945 destroyed many issues), I feel proud that we’ve persevered for going on nearly a century and a half and have kept up with the times.

I joined the newspaper during a great time as the 1990s saw a great boom in the economy and we were publishing 40-plus pages during the summer months. Though times are tough right now, it isn’t the first time the newspaper and the local economy have struggled.

According to Harold Clifford’s history of the region, the Depression years were probably the worst for the newspaper. Clifford wrote: “The impact of the Depression was clearly shown by the lack of advertising in the Region’s weekly newspaper. The management reverted to syndicated fiction as a space filler during the nine months when there were no tourist activities with supporting news items.”

We wish to thank our advertisers and supporters for getting us through this recent tough time and we’re shooting for year 145 and beyond!

Stay safe and keep reading and supporting our newspaper and advertisers.