John Gruber and His Famous Almanack Part 5

First, our current Business Manager, Mr. Jerry Spessard took on the Herculean Task of dissolving the old company and as a result of his tireless efforts, The Gruber Almanack Company was officially dissolved in early 2006 and all of its financial responsibilities to Mr. Hershey and to the many shareholders who owned small shares in the company were met.

THE NEW GRUBER ALMANACK, LLC

Then, together with Mary McCain Wilcox Fisher, widow of the late Charles W. Fisher, editor from 1973 to 2000, a direct descendant of John Gruber, Prof. William O’Toole, III,The Almanack’s weather prognosticator extraordinaire, Mr. Spessard formed a three-way partnership. In July of 2006, The Gruber Almanack, Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) was officially registered in the State of Maryland.

Not stopping there, Mr. Spessard took a major step to increase our readership by crafting an arrangement with Orgill, Inc., the nation's largest and fastest growing, independently-owned hardware and building supplies distributor (https://www.orgill.com/) to offer The Almanack for sale at many of the retail locations it services across the country. That was soon followed by national distribution agreements with True Value Hardware and CVS. To provide our new readers with weather forecasts that were appropriate for their region, the new partners agreed to include 12-region national weather forecasting for the "Lower Forty Eight”.

Finally, Mr. Spessard suggested to the partners and gained their agreement to publish multiple editions of The Almanack, the first in the Fall (as it has been for many years), one in Winter (December), and then one in the Spring (March), thus making it available for purchase throughout most of the coming year.

THE ALMANACK OVER THE YEARS

Perhaps the longevity and appeal enjoyed by this humble publication is due to the fact that The Hagerstown Town and Country Almanack has remained basically unchanged since its first edition in 1797. Since then, the responsibility for carrying on this tradition has been continued by John Gruber's descendants, being handed down from generation to generation, so that this current issue has been prepared by the sixth generation.

Originally, the German edition had quite an elaborately engraved cover, and the first few English editions duplicated it; in 1826, however, Mr. Gruber first introduced Miss Columbia with the ship, butter churn, and spinning wheel which readers of The Almanack have become familiar with ever since. The only slight change in this cover has been when a red over-print was added to the old-fashioned grape vine border in 1963. Occasionally a small hole has been punched in the upper left hand corner for easy hanging by a string to a convenient hook or nail.

For more on JOHN GRUBER AND HIS FAMOUS ALMANACK, click here