Imitators of The Hagerstown Almanack Part 6
BUY THE GENUINE ACCEPT NO OTHER
Otho Swingley died in Harford, Maryland, on 27 September 1908, at the age of 79. After Wooldridge’s Farmers’ and Merchants’ Hagerstown Almanack petered out around 1912, no one has attempted again to imitate Maryland’s most famous almanac.
If it were not for Gruber’s Almanack’s publishing in each edition for nearly a century a statement of its victory over Swingley, the imitation "Hagerstown Almanacs” would be completely forgotten. That they did exist shows the esteem that the Grubers had deservedly won for themselves for so many years. We are fortunate that J. Gruber’s Hagers-Town Town and Country Almanack is still with us today, a vital, living publication.
If it were not for Gruber’s Almanack’s publishing in each edition for nearly a century a statement of its victory over Swingley, the imitation "Hagerstown Almanacs” would be completely forgotten. That they did exist shows the esteem that the Grubers had deservedly won for themselves for so many years. We are fortunate that J. Gruber’s Hagers-Town Town and Country Almanack is still with us today, a vital, living publication.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Joseph Wehberg of Baltimore, Maryland, who shared important insights with me, as well as copies and reproductions from his extensive collection of early almanacs. I am also grateful to Prof. Douglas G. Greene of Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va.; Todd A. Farmerie of Fort Collins, Colo., and Glovenia E. Snead of Fort Washington, Md., Clifford L. Stott of Orem, Utah, and the Maryland State Archives, Annapolis. In addition, I wish to thank Charles W. Fisher Jr. of Newtown, Pa., current editor of J. Gruber’s Hagers-Town Town and Country Almanack and great-great-great-great-grandson of John Gruber, and Gerald W. Spessard, Business Manager, Gruber Almanack Co., Hagerstown, Md., for their encouragement.
Dr. David L.Green
Professor of English and former Chair of the Humanities Division
Piedmont College
Demorest, Georgia
Demorest, Georgia
