Heap sees, but few knows.”

These were the words of Godfrey “Uncle Josh” Harmon. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Lexington County Chronicle & The Dispatch News. The probable date of this anniversary is October 22, 1870, with Vol. 1 No. 1. H

Despite changes in ownership over the years, the Bellune family owns the newspaper today. It was a merger made of two local papers. And its readership is growing.

Who cares if it is also online. There are enough readers who still long for the feel of newsprint in their hands and smudges on their faces as they ponder the stories. Word travels fast about these treasures.

In a day when local newspapers are gobbled up by big newspaper syndicates, the Chronicle has managed to stay local and prosper as a family-owned newspaper.

Readers are interested in hearing news about the people of Lexington, about themselves. Don’t forget the photos.

Local newspapers are more likely to get your good side, even if it is in the Most Wanted. Who’s going to remember what you did in 50 years? But they will remember your name and what you looked like when you did whatever it was. It may even make it into your family album.

Uncle Josh heard the call to go into the newspaper business after he came home from The War in 1865. I know The War was a pretty hard act to follow. And there wasn’t much hard news in the Lexington Dispatch in the beginning.

Uncle Josh wrote about politics, medical discoveries, how to raise your children, letters from correspondents and how to grow cotton. One of the first really big news stories was about Lexington’s big fires. Lonnie Addy recorded in his remem

Lonnie Addy recorded in his remembrances, “A few years before the Big Fire in 1894, John Bell Towill founded a paper called the Lexington News.

”After the 1916 fire, he merged the Lexington News and the Dispatch to form the Lexington Dispatch News.

“It (the newspaper office) burned along with the Harmon Bazaar and Godfrey Harmon residence.”

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