This is the old headquarters of the Middlesex Standard, a newspaper produced in the Nesmith Block on the corner of Merrimack and John Streets. The Middlesex Standard ran from July 25, 1844 to March 13, 1845 under the editorship of John Greenleaf Whittier and Chauncey Langdon Knapp.
This paper circulated during a time when important abolitionists such as Fredrick Douglass came to the city to speak against the institution of slavery. The editors, Whittier and Knapp made it clear that they would not report any individual who escaped slavery. They did print stories about enslaved people who successfully joined family members already in Massachusetts.
