Heading: (1844 Anti-Slavery newspaper)
Author: Burritt, Elihu, editor and publisher
Title: “The Christian Citizen”, Vol. 1, Nos. 2–45, Jan.13 – Nov. 9, 1844
Place Published: Worcester, Massachusetts
Publisher:
Date Published: 1844
Description:

40 issues, a nearly complete run of the first 11 months of this weekly newspaper, lacking only Nos. 1, 20-22, and 25. Each issue 4pp., 22x16", unbound as issued. 

Fondly known as “The Learned Blacksmith” - his actual occupation - Burritt was a deeply religious man with a newly-acquired passion for the anti-war cause which had been vaguely promoted since 1815 by the American Peace Society. Independently of that group, he launched the Christian Citizen months before the annexation of Texas (much discussed in the paper) and two years before the Mexican-American War, editing, publishing and funding the newspaper out of his own pocket for seven years, until he was faced with bankruptcy. Each issue had three special sections of news and editorial comment - on religion, peace, and, most concretely, the anti-slavery cause. The latter included letters from and about such early abolitionists as fiery Kentuckian Cassius Clay, Gerrit Smith, William Jay, James Birney, Isaac Hopper, Charles Torrey – and, notably, Black abolitionists James McCune Smith, the first African-American physician, and fugitive slave Lewis Clarke. There were also notices of meetings of Anti-Slavery Societies and the new Liberty Party. Being the only newspaper of the day that linked the first American peace movement with the crusade against slavery, the Christian Citizen is not only historically significant, but also quite rare. A handful of institutions have incomplete holdings of the paper, most, if not all, lacking the first four issues.

Small piece of packing tape stuck to front page of Vol. 1, No. 2 near the end of the article titled "The Mind,"; Very good.