We
mean just this, die, disappear, vanish, so that not a stick or stone or
man or woman of it remained -- except the files of the local
paper. Then suppose that someone from a remote corner should come
to the spot where the town had once been and should find the files of
this paper. Wouldn't he have a pretty good idea of what kind of a
town this had been; what kind of people had lived here? Perhaps
you never stopped to think of it, but the local newspaper is about the
only historical record which a town has.
Central New York Press Association
(from the Cazenovia Republican, January 17, 1921)