Ever think about newspapers? I know you haven’t thought about them lately, there’s too much shoveling to do. But newspapers have been around Maine for a long time.

From the early 1700s on, we’ve had newspapers to read and write angry letters to. In the early days, Maine journals produced legends like Seba Smith and Charles Farrar Browne, who honed their “media” skills at a time when honing was something people mostly did to the blade of an ax or a scythe. Who are Smith and Browne? There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of them.

Smith and Browne were celebrities in their day and had thousands of loyal readers. Browne began touring and giving talks, drawing huge crowds at halls throughout the country.

Unlike the journalists who write for today’s readers, 19th-century newspaper writers were prudish and starchy men with writing styles to match. Smith and Browne were the exceptions and their readers loved them for it.

Smith, born in Buckfield in 1792, became famous for a series of letters on politics that he wrote using rustic speech and satirical comments under the pen name Major Jack Downing. He’s considered a pioneer in the development of American humor.

Browne was born in Waterford in 1834 and, like others born in that remote area of Oxford County, he was different. Writing under the pen name of Artemus Ward, he developed a unique satirical style that poked fun at the straitlaced stuffed-shirts that were his contemporaries. He went on to become Abe Lincoln’s favorite humorist. Ward’s pieces appeared regularly in Vanity Fair and his letters to London’s Punch magazine made him popular in England, too. He died in London in 1867 when he was only 33.

Today, although there are a lot of bright, gifted and very talented people working in Maine media (just ask them) most regular people assume that if a newspaper, television or radio reporter is any good, what are they doing working in Maine?

A lot of young journalists come through Maine, but many of these people don’t stay long enough to unpack. These transients are often easy to spot because they appear out of nowhere, and they demonstrate rather quickly that they have no idea who we are.

I once wrote for a Maine newspaper that you may have heard of and maybe even read. One night, I was sitting in the city room writing a story when a new reporter sitting close by stopped her frantic typing for a few seconds, turned to me and asked, “John, is Damariscotta anywhere near the water?”

“It was the last time I checked,” I answered.

It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t have a clue. A week before she had been writing cop stories in Fond du Lac, Wis., which I understand is kind of near some body of water. She had never been to Maine in her life and had no knowledge of Maine’s cities and towns. The editor who hired her assumed that she was good because the address on her resume didn’t have a ZIP code that began with “04.”

In case some of you new arrivals are still wondering – Damariscotta is on the beautiful Sheepscot River. In fact there are mounds of clamshells on its beaches where, a few thousand years ago, native people had large clam feasts each summer.

We can only assume Damariscotta was on the water back then, too.

John McDonald is the author of five books on Maine, including “John McDonald’s Maine Trivia: A User’s Guide to Useless Information.” Contact him at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.