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It is a question I get occasionally and since there are so many new readers I want to address it. We are the only newspaper in the oldest continuously lived in chartered settlement in the colonial United States. Yes, older than Jamestown, older than Plymouth and older than St. Mary's City, places most people think of as the oldest. If you are not familiar with US history, the three places I mentioned all ceased to exist by the 1690's. That means we existed 142 years before our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and went to war with England.
St. Clements Island just offshore from Coltons Point was the landing site for 321 colonists on two tiny ships, the Ark and the Dove, in 1634 and the area has been lived in ever since. It is also the first place in the world with religious freedom as the first English charter guaranteed religious toleration. We are also the site of the first landing of Roman Catholics, first Mass performed in the colonies, first Jesuit priests and the first colony to live peacefully with the Native Americans. If that isn't enough we are the site where the first relic from the True Cross of Jesus came to America and miracles were performed with it.
We are a quiet village of about 250 people on the Potomac River just before it reaches the Chesapeake Bay where the Potomac is seven miles wide. Though we are only 60 miles from Washington, DC there are no governments, no police, no traffic lights, no street lights, no sidewalks, no water, no sewer, no gas lines, no churches, no city hall, no fire department, no sirens, no bureaucrats of any kind and not much of anything in the way of commercial development. We value freedom and independence above all else. This year we celebrated our 375th anniversary although there was no ceremony.
None of that has anything to do with the Coltons Point Times (CPT) except I happen to live here. Before I found myself in Coltons Point about eight years ago I had lived in Iowa, Arizona, Nebraska, California, Washington, DC, Virginia, New Jersey and Kentucky. In addition I had worked several years in New York City and Nashville.
I've done so many things my resume defies belief including newspaper reporting, NYC advertising, politics (32 federal, state and local campaigns), working for presidents, governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, inventing green energy products in the 1970's (or before Gore), working for Democrats, Republicans and Independents, in computer security, writing (newspaper, books and songs), recording music and cancer research to name a few things.
Perhaps that is why the CPT seems to cover a lot of national and international issues. It may also explain why an online newspaper in one of the smallest villages in the USA has had over 110,000 readers this year. The last time I checked we had readers from 96 different nations, all 50 states and Washington, DC.
In the United States after Maryland our top 25 states by rank include California, Texas, New York, Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, Washington, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Massachusetts, Georgia, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Oregon, Tennessee, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Indiana.
International CPT readers by rank are the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, Italy, India, Spain, Netherlands, Philippines, Romania, Brazil, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Turkey, Norway, Israel, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Malaysia and South Africa along with 71 other nations.
The top cities where we are read outside of Maryland include St. Catharine's, Ontario Canada #1, Mountain View, CA (Silicon Valley), Washington, DC, London, England, NYC, Alexandria, VA, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, Bridgeport, CT, Nashville, Chicago and Paris, France.
Our mission is to tell the truth, be an independent voice, share interesting material with our readers and help keep you informed with the inside information on government, politics, science, health, housing, music and a whole bunch of other stuff. When the world stage gets boring we offer a little history and local color that may be of interest. We want to keep the news makers from politicians to news media, Wall Street to the Middle East honest and that has been a lot of work lately.
You may have noticed we are about the last newspaper on the internet to NOT allow those frustrating ads, banners, pop ups, video ads and all the other things created to track and annoy you. We do not require you to register because you have enough people already spying on you. I encourage you to check through our online archives as many stories are updated over time such as the House of Rothschild, Goldman Sachs and personalities like Obama.
Our national and international news distribution service reports that CPT articles hold the top three spots for most popular political stories of the year, four of the top ten political stories, seven of the top 20 political stories, and one CPT article on the Rothschilds and international finance is the 14th most viewed article of all time in all categories. They distribute hundreds of articles a day.
Reader comments are encouraged and responses will be given if needed. You can even ask me to email you privately in your comment and I will not post your email for the world to see. I have responded in numerous languages although the translations might be a little rough.
Since we do not accept advertising or do our own advertising people find us through searches for issues and images as we often have pretty entertaining photos and cartoons with our stories. You can set up an RSS news feed to your home page to get the latest headlines on articles I post.
Word of mouth is our strongest means of exposure and we would greatly appreciate it if you would tell your friends, family and associates about us and give them the site. Most search engines like Google can easily locate us by searching for the Coltons Point Times or you can click on:
http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/ to directly connect.
We appreciate having you in our family and hope you check in for the latest news often. Thank you.
Jim Putnam, Publisher