The Sentinel’s Mysterious Demise
Written By William Brigs, Board Co-President
Morgan Hill Historical Society
T
ucked away in the archives of the Morgan Hill History
Museum is the only known copy of a largely-forgot-
ten artifact of South County journalism history. The
first edition of The Morgan Hill Sentinel hit the dusty streets of
the new community of Morgan Hill, California, on Thursday
March 30, 1893. There would never be a second edition.
The reasons for the swift demise of The Morgan Hill
Sentinel are lost in swirls of historical speculation. Whether
it was lack of advertising, circulation support, produc-
tion capabilities, market forces or politics cause editor and
publisher Alfred Herbert (Bert) Bynon to cease publication
so abruptly, we don’t know.
Bynon went on to other towns and other publishing
ventures. In 1894, George Edes founded the Morgan Hill Sun,
which has continued over the years under various banners,
including the Morgan Hill Times. The Times’ continuity makes
it Morgan Hill’s oldest business in town. But the Sentinel,
however short-lived, was the first.
For years, passengers disembarked at “Morgan Hill’s
place,” officially known as Villa Mira Monte. It was built in
1886 along the railroad line by heiress Diana Murphy and her
husband, Hiram Morgan Hill, to serve as their country home.
At that time the surrounding area was one of vast ranchlands
and a few homesteads and roadhouses along El Camino Real.
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
Subdivision of the ranches after 1892 allowed small farmers
to settle in southern Santa Clara Valley for the first time, and
a town was planned. The Southern Pacific Railroad actively
promoted “Morgan Hill” as a good place to settle.
Perhaps Southern California editor and publisher Bert
Bynon had seen a railroad or real estate promotion for
Morgan Hill or the “Valley of Heart’s Delight.” Whatever the
catalyst, he seized a ground-floor business opportunity to
create a newspaper in the nascent township of Morgan Hill
and hoped to prosper from it. In 1893 he arrived, set up
shop in a local barn, and published his one and only edition.
The newspaper’s sudden demise was soon overshad-
owed by other publications. It went unmentioned by local
historians and might have been forgotten if it weren’t for
local resident Miriam St. Clair. In 1989 she was sorting
through belongings of her late grandfather Frank C. Wilson,
an orchardist who died in 1943, when she found a well-
preserved, eight-page folded copy of The Morgan Hill Sentinel,
Vol. I, No. 1, dated March 30, 1893.
With that first edition’s tone of optimistic boosterism and
plenty of advertising, there would have been good reason
for Bynon to think the Sentinel could succeed. Nevertheless,
there is no evidence of a second edition, and in 1894, Bynon
took his journalistic career down Monterey Road to Gilroy,
where he edited and published the Gilroy American, both
weekly and daily. Just two years later, Bynon headed south.
For the next decade, Bynon worked in Southern
California, followed by publishing stints in Glenn County,
Fresno County and Palo Alto. By the 1920s, Bynon had
returned to the periphery of the Santa Clara Valley, editing
the Hollister Morning Observer, competing with the Hollister
Freelance and Hollister Advance. By 1925, worn down by
community conflict and struggling for cash, Bynon closed his
newspaper and abandoned Hollister. Neither the Freelance nor
the Advance made mention of Bynon’s arrival or his departure.
The trail of A. Bert Bynon’s peripatetic journalism career
gradually fades, winding its way to Santa Fe. In 1934 he
was working for the New Mexico Examiner. He kept at his
trade until he died Oct. 1, 1938, leaving some South County
journalism history—and some as-yet unanswered questions
—in a satchel in the attic.
FALL/HOLIDAY 2019
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