From The Connecticut River Valley in Southern Vermont and New Hampshire: Historical Sketches by Lyman S. Hayes, Tuttle Co., Marble City Press, Rutland, VT., 1929, page 282:
THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN–FIRST EDITOR OF THE FIRST BELLOWS FALLS NEWSPAPER–BECAME OF WORLD-WIDE FAME
The first editor of the first newspaper published in Bellows Falls was Thomas Green Fessenden, a man widely known in this country and in England for his marked peculiarities and writings. He was a writer of both poetry and prose of much force. During his entire mature life he was a celebrity of note, interest and importance. He established the "Vermont Intelligencer and Bellows Falls Advertiser," in January 1, 1817, and edited it until he went to Boston and there established the "New England Farmer" in 1822.
He was born in Walpole, N. H., April 22, 1771, a son of Rev. Thomas Fessenden, the second town minnister of Walpole, who served the town for 46 successive years (1767 to 1813). He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1796 and studied law in the office of Nathaniel Chipman at Rutland, Vt. He went to England in 1801 where he wrote extensively and published several volumes, which appeared in both England and America.
In 1805 he returned to America, being in New York City and Philadelphia until 1808, when he came to Bratttleboro. In 1812 he established a law practice in Bellows F'alls, which he continued while editing the local paper. One of his warm personal friends during his lifetime was Nathaniel Hawthorne, who said of him at one time that he "was ill qualified to succeed in the profession of the law, by his simplicity of character, and his utter inability to acquire an ordinary share of shrewdness and worldly wisdom." He was married September 5, 1813, [283] while at Bellows Falls, to Miss Lydia Tuttle, a daughter of John Tuttle, of Littleton, Mass., who was visiting relatives in this village. His residence after 1822 was largely in Boston, as an editor of several newspapers, and writer of well known books. At one time he was interested in the silk industry, which in the '30s spread over New England and was for a while a prominent factor in Bellows Falls business. He died in Boston in 1837 and was interred in Mount Auburn cemetery.
DurIng Mr. Fessenden's residence in Bellows Falls he boarded at Robertson's Tavern, which was erected in 1816, the year before he made Bellows Falls his residence. The proprietor was John Robertson, and his son, Richardson Robertson, was then a boy employed about the hostelry. The latter gave the writer many years ago an interesting account of Mr. Fessenden as he remembered him. Although Mr. Robertson was then a young boy he remembered Mr. Fessenden clearly. He described him as a tall man of very robust stature and constitution, dark complexion and with a rather forbidding aspect, always full of fun and the life of any party in which he might be. Many of his various pubblications that contributed to making him famous were written by him while in Bellows Falls, living in that early hotel. Among them was a volume entitled "The Ladies' Monitor," which was a poem of 130 pages, giving excellent advice to young ladies in a doggerel rhyme, the whole being of considerable merit. A copy of this book was in the ownership of the late George O. Guild of this place, and highly prized as the paper was made in the first paper mill here, in which in later years Mr. Guild was employed. It was printed and [284] bound by Bill Blake & Co., who owned and operated the first paper mill here; the covers of the volume were made of birch wood cut thin and covered with colored paper, this being the usual method of binding books in those early days.
Mr. Robertson said that Mr. Fessenden was an excellent singer, and during his college course supported himself by teaching in town schools, while in his vacations he taught music, and held singing classes and singing schools in the evenings. He was devoted to his cello, or bass viol, as it was then called, and while here kept it behind the dining room door of the hotel. On this instrument he often played when the meals were late, amusing himself to the edification of the patrons of the hotel.
The office of the "Intelligencer" was in the second story of a frame building standing where what is now the Corner Drug Store stands, between Westminster and Mill Streets, and it is understood that, as he did the editorial work there, he had his law office there also. Bill Blake & Co.'s wholesale and retail book store occuupied the first story, and during a few years about that time the firm published many noted books, Bibles, Tesstaments and others for their own store and the Boston market. Mr. Fessenden wrote and published in his paper a consecration hymn that was used at the opening of the first frame Immanuel (Episcopal) church when it was consecrated by Bishop Griswold September 24, 1817. He was probably among the most widely known and eminent men who have ever made Bellows Falls their home, in all its history, having had a marked and favorable reputation on two continents.