During the Civil War, Storey’s correspondents sent reports from the battlefields, making the Free Press a nationally-known source for the latest news. He emphasized not only the local news but expanded coverage of national news via the telegraph.
Storey bought the paper in 1853 and created a series of innovative firsts for the Free Press, such as the first regular Sunday edition in the nation. After some waffling back and forth among other titles, Daily Free Press, Free Press and Democratic Free Press, a variety of owners, and a variety of weekly and daily editions, the Detroit Free Press became the permanent name in 1848. The name was changed to Detroit Daily Free Press in 1835 when it became the area’s first daily paper. The newspaper went through a series of name changes, first dropping “Michigan Intelligencer” from the masthead to become the Democratic Free Press in 1832. Sheldon McKnight, former publisher of the Detroit Gazette, was publisher. Williams and his uncle Joseph Campau, under the auspices of their business, Joseph Campau & Company, bought out the Oakland Chronicle in Pontiac, and moved the equipment to an office at the corner of Bates and Woodbridge streets in Detroit. The first issue of the Detroit Free Press was published on under the name The Democratic Free Press and Michigan Intelligencer. Citing a need to establish a newspaper sympathetic to Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party, John R.