From the February 25, 1909 Skidmore New Era (Skidmore, Missouri), page 1:
Two Old Papers.
Vannie Goslee sent to this office Monday two old newspapers, belonging to his father, Job Goslee, which he prizes very much. One is the New York Herald, published Saturday, April 15, 1865, the next morning after the assassination of President Lincoln. This paper contains a lengthy description of the great tragedy, all of which is history now, and is familiar to our readers. It also gives an account of the sad and affecting scenes of the gathering of the cabinet and other friends around the bedside of the dying president, and contains an account of the attempted assassination of Secretary Seward. Just as the paper went to press the editor received a dispatch from Secretary of War, Stanton, saying: ‘Abraham Lincoln died this morning at twenty-two minutes past 7 o’clock.’ The paper was issued in the form of mourning, used at that time, by turning the column rules upside down.
Theo. Gwin also has in his possession a copy of the Herald of that date which he bought at that time.
The other paper in the Ohio Statesman, published at Columbus, Ohio, and dated March 26, 1841, and is therefore nearly 68 years old. The editor runs at the head of the first column this notice: ‘The Statesman is published twice a week during the sitting of the General Assembly, and weekly the balance of the year at three dollars a year in advance,’ a pretty good subscription for a weekly.
Papers were very different in those days from our modern journals, little or no display advertisements, and what they did have was set in small type, with space crowded. There were no ‘scare heads’ on the front page, simply plain reading, with the more lengthy articles showing a single line ‘head’ of some small black face type.