The first newspaper to serve Hunterdon County was the ''Hunterdon Gazette and Farmers' Weekly Advertiser'', established at
Flemington on March 24, 1825, by Charles George, who shortened the paper's title to the
Hunterdon Gazette in 1829. He discontinued the
Gazette on May 2, 1832, but retained his shop in Flemington and periodically published issues of the paper. George sold the
Gazette to John S. Brown, who returned the paper to weekly publication beginning with his first issue, published on July 18, 1838. On the ''Gazette's'' editorial page, Brown state that he was "'an old-fashioned Democrat,' which was in reality an admission that he was a Whig and opposed to the Jacksonian administration." In 1838, the same year that Brown bought the
Gazette, a rival newspaper appeared under the name
Hunterdon Democrat. The ''Democrat's
editor, George C. Seymour, ensured that his newspaper held to the principles of the Democratic Party. Within months, the rival editors began making personal attacks on each other in addition to their sniping on political topics. The new owner hired Henry C. Buffington as editor. Earlier in his career, Huffington had worked at Philadelphia area newspapers with Seymour, the Democrat's'' owner and editor. "Seymour did not welcome his old colleague to Flemington" and within months he initiated a new personal feud. "In the meantime, Seymour of the Hunterdon Democrat and Buffington of the Hunterdon Gazettepursued their respective ways without much change or improvement. ... Actually, both editors were probably skating on thin financial ice at all times." In 1852 Seymour sold the
Democrat to Adam Bellis, also a staunch Democrat. On July 3, 1867,
The Hunterdon County Democrat made its debut, taking the place of both
The Hunterdon Democrat and the erstwhile
Gazette (which had changed its name to
The Democrat after having been transformed into a Democratic paper in 1866). The editor during this time was Robert J. Killgore. His son, Anthony Killgore, later took over the editorship, serving until 1922. Alex L. Moreau and D. Howard Moreau then became the owners of
The Democrat. Following the death of A.L. Moreau in 1933, D. Howard Moreau became sole owner of the newspaper, until his death on June 7, 1963. After Moreau's death his son-in-law H. Seely Thomas Jr. became publisher of
The Democrat. Thomas hired Edward J. Mack as editor of the newspaper in 1965. In February 2001, Penn Jersey Advance, Inc., a unit of
Advance Publications (Newhouse), bought
The Democrat and its sister publications. Based in
Somerville, New Jersey, Penn Jersey Advance is the parent company of NJN Publishing, a network of newspapers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. ==Sister publications==