AustLit

A public meeting in Cooma on 23 February 1861 resolved that ' funds be provided to the extent of £300 as an inducement to the proprietors of the Alpine Pioneer to remove the plant of that journal to Cooma and for indemnifying the said proprietors for the expenditure of moneys necessary for carrying out and perfecting the undertaking'.

The Alpine Pioneer was owned by J. and T. Garrett and it is probable that the Garretts (or at least Thomas Garrett) initially set up the Mercury in Cooma. In its early life, the newspaper was managed by Messers Dixon and Hardie and then by Richard Taylor. In 1864, the paper was acquired by Thomas William Heney, a printer and the father of poet and journalist T. W. Heney. Heney was assisted by his cousin G. W. Spring.. Following Heney's death in 1875, Spring took full control until he sold his interest in the paper to W. M. Madgwick in 1889. A decade later, Madgwick sold the Monaro Mercury to F. C. Hogg who remained as proprietor until 1931.