An unedited transcription of a page 1 article from 11 Nov 1915 Simcoe Reformer.
[Some paragraph breaks inserted by the transcriber]

Another Milestone Passed

We forgot to chronicle the fact of the Reformer having had a birthday, but last week we began our 38th volume.

Fifty-seven years ago, on the first Thursday afternoon of November, William H. Oliver issued the first number of the Erie News, a name soon changed to Norfolk Reformer.

Oliver did not stay long in Simcoe; leaving here at the expiration of a year and a half, selling the paper to William Buckingham, and becoming himself editor of the Cornwall Freeholder.

In 1865 he foresook  journalism for the study of medicine. After graduating he practiced in Petrolea; thence he moved to LaSalette, Ill., finally to Chicago. He died there in 1904. 

Dr. Oliver was born in Bayswater, London, England, in 1824, and before coming to Canada, which he did in 1854, he had won considerable prominence as an editor and contributor to various publications.

He came to Canada under contract to edit a paper in Cobourg, but remained there only a few months. From 1855 to 1858, he owned and edited the Paris Star.

The Washington press, still a treasured item of The Reformer's plant, is said to have been the press upon which the Star was printed, and an office tradition still lingers that it once reposed in the bed of the Grand River, having been pitched there by indignant citizens who did not take kindly to some of Oliver's strenuous opinions.
 

William H. Oliver
The portrait above
 is a reproduction
 of a photograph
taken not a great
while before
 he died.

 
Copyright 2008-2014 John Cardiff