The company was founded in the late 1970s as a holding company for various properties owned by the Dwight family, longtime publishers of the (now defunct)
Holyoke Transcript-Telegram. Under the leadership of publisher Minnie Dwight and her son, William, the
T-T in 1955 bought
The Recorder-Gazette of
Greenfield, Massachusetts. Minnie died two years later, and William bought the
Monitor in 1961. In 1960, the
T-T bought the
Edwardsville Intelligencer in Illinois; the paper was sold in 1964. When son-in-law George W. Wilson, publisher of the
Monitor, was named company president in the late 1970s, the
T-T,
Recorder and
Monitor were placed under the umbrella of Newspapers of New England. The company added the
Valley News of
Lebanon, New Hampshire, in 1981. NNE remained the publisher of the Concord, Greenfield and Lebanon dailies, plus the
Ledger, until purchasing the
Daily Hampshire Gazette in 2005. In December 2007, the company announced it would buy one of the
Gazette's main competitors, the
alternative weekly Valley Advocate of
Easthampton, which had been founded in 1973. The
Advocate was owned by
Tribune Company, which also publishes the
Hartford Courant and
Advocate weeklies in
Connecticut.
Advocate circulation at the time was given at 50,000. == Properties ==