Beacon Digitization:

The Lambertville Free Public library is taking over 100 years of Lambertville's former beloved newspaper--The Beacon-- and making it available online for public reading! Doing this will preserve the history of Lambertville, ensuring that anyone can always go back and find out more about their families and the history of our area. All editions of The Beacon will be available through our website for free once the digitization process is complete. 

Donation Tiers:

Choose your amount: Any donation is greatly appreciated and will help us reach our goal! Your gift is tax deductible.

$150: Digitizes one year of the Beacon.

$250: Receive a framed printout of your sponsored year's front page.  (The library will contact you once your framed page is available)

$1,000: Digitize an entire decade of the Beacon & get your name or logo on the Beacon Archives search page for one year.

History of The Beacon

According to a chapter on "Communication" in "The First 275 Years of Hunterdon County," the Lambertville Beacon started as the Telegraph, published in 1844 by John R. Swallow.

The chapter was written by Mrs. Frederick Stothoff and updated in 1989 by Ed Mack. Stothoff wrote that after several years Swallow, "evidently possessed of an adventuresome spirit, left for the west" and Edwin G. Clark become editor. She said he sold the newspaper to F.P. Sellers, who named the paper the Beacon. In November 1869 then-owner Clark Pierson sold it, she wrote, to K.P. Hazen and I.S. Roberts, "Thereby initiating the long reign of the Hazen family."

The publication remained a Hazen family-owned business until 1989, when Joseph N. Hazen, then publisher and editor, sold it to the Packet. He stayed with the larger company until shortly before his death in 1998, as a managing editor and then staff photographer. His obituary said the Beacon had been a Hazen-owned business through four generations. During his years with the Beacon, Hazen wrote a popular column "Chit Chat" and preserved local history with his photographs.

According to the letter from Kilgore, Packet Media's "current mix of 12 newspapers will change to a suite of fewer titles." He called the decision a difficult one "in that many of our newspapers have published for more than one hundred years or longer. But our communities and their needs have also changed with time."