The first newspaper in California launched in Monterey on Aug. 15, 1846, with a blockbuster story: news of the declaration of war with Mexico.

The paper, named The Californian, was founded by pioneering publishers Dr. Walter Colton and Robert Baylor Semple.

In an era that needed men of action and leadership, Semple and Colton provided both as adventurers, frontiersmen, orators, statesmen and leaders.

Producing such a first was not an exception with Colton, as he had previously engaged in journalistic enterprises in Washington, D.C., where he edited the American Spectator in 1828, and in Philadelphia where he worked on several papers during the early 1840s.
Colton was born in Rutland County, Vt., on May 9, 1797. He was the third of 12 children born to Walter and Thankful Colton.

At 17, Colton went to Hartford to learn the cabinetmakers trade.

He was deeply interested in personal religion and in 1816 became a Christian. Deciding to continue his education, he prepared for college at Hartford Grammar School and entered Yale in the fall of 1818. So successful was he in his studies that he won the Berkeleyan Prize for the best Latin translation, and at graduation in 1822 he delivered the valedictory poem.

Determined to follow a religious life, he entered Andover Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1825. After ordination, Colton became a professor of moral philosophy and letters at the Scientific and Military Academy at Middletown.

Proceeding to Washington to undertake the editorship of the American Spectator and Washington City Chronicle, he was also elected to preach at a church attended by President Andrew Jackson.

A close acquaintanceship developed between the men, and the president offered Colton the choice of being a chaplain in the Navy or a foreign consul. Colton chose the former, was nominated chaplain of the West India Squadron in 1831 and visited ports throughout the world.

After marriage to a Philadelphia woman of the same family name, he sailed to the Pacific in 1845 and later recorded the story of that eventful voyage in his book “Deck and Port.”