In earlier times, a measure of character often was the progress made in rising from humble beginnings:

Born in a log cabin, for instance, or educated in a one-room school.

(ENLARGE)

A long line of staff members have maintained traditions and institutional memory at The Daily Reflector. Don Schlienz, left, and Chester Walsh, the paper's first full-time reporter, worked through much of the 20th century.

Greenville's daily newspaper was born in a one-room school.

The Daily Reflector, which marks its 125th anniversary this year, started operations in a one-room frame building at West Third and North Pitt streets. From that modest beginning, an integral part of the community grew into what is today Greenville's oldest business.

David Jordan Whichard and brother Julian R. Whichard started The Reflector on Jan. 26, 1882, in part of their mother's schoolhouse, using equipment they had brought from an earlier local paper they worked for, the Greenville Express.

The Express began as a weekly newspaper in 1877, and David Jordan Whichard was, at age 16, believed to be the youngest editor of a North Carolina paper at the time. By 1880, the Whichards were known as "J.R. Whichard & Bro.," the editors and proprietors.

The paper carried information about "the Political, Agricultural, and Mechanical Interests of Eastern North Carolina" and sold for $1.50 a year, according to research done by Patricia M. Moore as part of her master's degree thesis work at East Carolina University. The paper promoted itself as "the cheapest home printed paper in the First Congressional District."

The Express ceased publication in 1881, and the Whichards acquired the printing equipment from the Express' owner, with the intention of starting their own newspaper in Greenville.

They moved "and straightened out" the equipment in about three weeks in its new home at the schoolhouse, David Julian "Big Dave" Whichard, son of David Jordan Whichard and nephew of Julian R. Whichard, said in 1984.

The inaugural issue of the newspaper, called The Reflector, carried on its front page news from Washington about attempts to secure equal rights for women; a 32-line poem; a directory of Greenville-area churches and lodges; an advertisement for grocer, confectioner and provisioner James Long; an advertisement for Moore & Fitzpatrick, "general commission merchants," and a few news briefs.

The town of Rocky Mount, for instance, raised nearly $2,000 in private funds to establish a graded school, and, from a news account in the Wilson Advance, the first group of steel rails had arrived in Beaufort that would be used for the development of the Midland Railroad.

At some point in its earliest years, the newspaper became known as The Eastern Reflector. The brothers continued to produce the paper and operate a job printing business until April 15, 1885, when they dissolved their partnership, and David Whichard bought Julian Whichard's interest.

The newspaper announced Julian Whichard's departure April 29, 1885, marking the date when David Whichard became sole owner and editor of The Eastern Reflector.

Julian Whichard, meanwhile, moved to Salisbury, where he bought and operated the North Carolina Herald in 1891 as a daily paper. He later became involved in a newspaper in Shelby and later in Georgia.

Before the end of 1891, The Eastern Reflector published six special editions under the nameplate The Daily Reflector. These special editions marked the annual conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which began in Greenville Nov. 25, 1891.

The Daily Reflector published editions on nearly every day of the conference, ending Dec. 1, 1891. Each paper cost 5 cents.

David Julian Whichard remembered his father telling him that Greenville citizens seemed to like the idea of having a daily newspaper, and over the next three years, they asked his father to consider publishing a daily paper for the community.

The first regular daily newspaper in Greenville to carry the name "Reflector" was published on Dec. 10, 1894, a four-page edition with news (a serious explosion and fire at a Washington lumber mill, which killed seven people), advertisements (a Page 1 ad for Frank Wilson's clothing and dry goods) and train and steamship schedules, among other things.

The paper was published Monday through Saturday afternoons.