The Myrna Echo was founded in 1752 by Reginald McGivens Twinbolt and his wife Lee, recently arrived from Ireland and gifted with a mercurial wit, compulsive conviviality, and, in Reginald’s own words, a desperate need to find community in the middle of the largest stretch of woods he could not ever have imagined existing. Myrna was the name of the ship they arrived on in Dartmouth on Christmas Eve in 1750.
The first 20 years of the weekly focused on the comings and goings of the gentlefolk of the tidal regions of northeast Fitchfield and environs, and of the smaller population of seasonal workers who moved up and down the seaboard fishing and whaling and moving timber.
The early years of the paper also featured news from towns large and small in Ireland, from whence hailed a good percentage of Fitchfield. Many Irish locale names were lost in the Rising Tides, including the villages of Cattydub (Cat Dubh — black cat), Crandark (oak tree), and Orla’s Oak.
