[EARLY AMATEUR NEWSPAPER — with JAMES WELLS CHAMPNEY as a teenage proprietor.] The Enterprise. Vol. I, No. 6. Roxbury, [Mass.]

Single issue, 4 pp., printed in two columns on a folded sheet; [approx. 4 x 5.5 inches]. Caption/masthead title within decorative rule: "The Enterprise. C. G. Way, Editor. One cent per copy. Vol. I. Roxbury, Monday, Feb. 15, 1858. No. 6," with the imprint statement, "This paper is published on alternate Mondays, at the Corner of Gore Avenue & Parker street, Roxbury." Proprietors named as C. G. Way, H. P. Stanwood, J. W. Champney, and A. A. Cutting. Contents include a front-page anecdote ("Extraordinary Rencontre," set in Paris in 1814) and a piece on the regicide generals Goffe and Whalley and their concealment at New Haven, with shorter fillers; closes "End of Vol. I," the final number of the first volume. Toned and foxed, old folds, minor edge chipping, and an ink blot to the first leaf; a fragile survival, complete as issued.

An uncommon pre–Novelty Press amateur newspaper--before 1867 when the tabletop hobby press was introduced--issued fortnightly by a group of Roxbury youths. The proprietor "J. W. Champney" is almost certainly the future genre painter and illustrator James Wells Champney (1843–1903), "Champ," here at age fourteen — the name, initials, locality, and age align precisely, several years before his wood-engraving apprenticeship and Civil War service.  The editor, Charles W. Way (1841-1912), was also an artist, known for his maritime and landscape paintings; he died in Gloucester, in 1912.  The masthead's stated frequency ("alternate Mondays") corrects the "published weekly" of the standard catalogue record; that record (an institutional file of Vol. I, nos. 1–3; II, 3, 5–6; III, 1, 4; shelfmark *7a99-33-- Boston Library) does not include the present No. 6. Institutional holdings of the title appear to be very few.