About

In November 1872, Reverend Joshua Knowles partnered with Henry C. Billings to publish the Georgia Home Journal in Greensboro and Madison, Georgia. The paper was a weekly Democratic newspaper that circulated at a subscription cost of two dollars per year. Billings, who published the Madison Appeal and Real Estate Advertiser, folded that newspaper in order to publish the Home Journal. Knowles, a former editor of Macon’s Georgia Journal and Messenger and Athens’ Southern Recorder, was editor-in-chief while Billings held the role of publisher. In 1875, H. W. Baldwin joined the Home Journal to edit its Madison editions while Knowles edited the issues published in Greensboro. Knowles dissolved his partnership with Billings in 1877 and formed a stock company titled J. Knowles & Son to manage the Georgia Home Journal in Greensboro. In Madison, Billings sold his shares of the Madison Home Journal to J. C. C. and B. M. Blackburn, and the Blackburns changed the title of the paper to The Madisonian. The Madisonian, after several changes in ownership, became the Morgan County Citizen, The Madisonian in 2001 and continues to print today as Morgan County’s paper of record.