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The
Branford
Review
is Founded
by Lois C. Flesche
To reach the
Branford Review office when it first opened in 1928, the
number you called was 737. And a copy of the first
newspaper would have cost you five cents. Today the
Review phone number includes seven digits and cost per
issue is 50 cents. Times have changed.
The first
edition of the Review was published on April 13, 1928.
Its founders and owners were Myer and Jennie Leshine,
owners of a stationary store and printing business in
Branford.
In that first
edition, the Editor, Francis L.H. Gill said it was being
“published in the interest of the people of Branford and
the surrounding communities”, which included North
Branford, East Haven and Guilford as well as Branford.
The newspaper
was started with the support of the Chamber of Commerce
and despite some financial problems, particularly in the
early years; the Branford Review has been published
without interruption each week since.
In the April
first edition Gill said: “one of the greatest assets in
any community is a newspaper published in the interest
of the town in every respect. One that will give just
credit to the activities of the community.”
Leshine
continued publication until February21, 1952 when he
sold the Review to the Free Press in turn sold it to the
Hamden Chronicle in March 1956 and the Chronicle sold it
to the Curtis Johnson Publishing Co., Inc. in 1958. Sam
B. Warner, publisher of the Shore Line Times Company,
acquired the Review in 1960. In November 1972, its
ownership again changed when Warner sold his newspapers,
including the Review, to Richard B. Lightfoot.
Subsequently, in 1978, Lightfoot sold to Capital Cities
Inc., current owner of the chain.
Meyer Leshine,
born in the small Russian town of fastov in the Ukraine
in 1888, immigrated to the United States in 1902 with
his widowed mother and four siblings. They settled in
New Haven and, with the help of relatives, purchased and
operated a market in the Hill section of the city. In
1912, anxious to relocate to a more rural setting, Mrs.
Leshine, Meyer’s mother purchased a stationary store
from the Clancy family and moved her family to Branford.
Leshine’s
ambition was for the Review’s success. When he sold in
1952, he wrote: “my only wish is that more community
spirit may prevail here so that we may make Branford a
better town in which to live.”
Meyer died in
1956. His heritage lives on.
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