About

Charles L. Wheler & Company published the first issue of the Madison Family Visitor in early 1847 in Madison, Georgia. The paper started with semi-monthly circulation, but its popularity allowed the publishers to begin printing on a weekly basis at a subscription cost of two dollars per year. Among the weekly literary newspaper’s many contributors was Miss C. W. Barber, who went on to establish Miss Barber’s Weekly after the Civil War. In 1848, Wheler moved to Athens, Georgia to establish Wheler’s Monthly Journal, and subsequently sold the Madison Family Visitor to A. & S. A. Atkinson. The Atkinsons expanded the paper’s size and began to include non-political news items. Barber edited the Family Visitor’s literary department while the Atkinsons were editors of the news and business department. By 1852, Benjamin G. Liddon was owner, but he put the literary paper up for sale in 1853 which prompted C. W. Barber to leave the Family Visitor. After several changes in ownership between 1853 and 1858, a stock company owned by C. B. Barrow, W. S. Meire, and I. S. Gardner purchased the Madison Family Journal in November 1858. The new owners changed the paper’s title to the Georgia Weekly Visitor. As with many literary newspapers during the Civil War, the Weekly Visitor became increasingly less financially viable and eventually ceased publication in the early 1860s.