MCKEAN ORBIT: We’re throwing it way back –– all the way back to October 20, 1849, when the McKean Orbit was being published in Smethport. What is intriguing to us is that on the front page, the title of the paper reads “M’Kean Orbit” instead of fully spelling out McKean, and would be published once a week –– oh, how the times have changed.
Featured on the front page of the first publication of the M’Kean Orbit is a collection of poetry –– in the same section that ‘Round the Square is now featured, ironically enough. The first poem is titled The World We Have Not Seen and describes a glorious world in the afterlife. Also featured on the front page is the names of the two editors of that time –– N.W. Goodrich and J.B. Oviatt.
A week later in the October 27, 1849 edition of the M’Kean Orbit reads the news of the passing of notorious author Edgar Allen Poe. In the writeup reads the words, “Edgar A. Poe, the author and poet, died a few days ago at Baltimore. So pass the things of earth. ‘Passing away,’ we behold written upon all animate and inanimate nature, as we float down the current of time.”
One thing that is noticeable in older writings is the essence and language used –– giving passages a suave tone as one reads on.
