Nov. 23 -- If it's human to err, the Santa Fe New Mexican got off to a very human start 175 years ago sometime this week.
No, we can't really be more specific than that.
Thanks to what appears to be an error in the publication date, it's now unknown when exactly in 1849 The New Mexican had its first actual run.
Allison Dellinger, the newspaper's archives coordinator and news librarian -- and unofficial lead detective in the abiding first print date mystery -- said sources are mixed.
"We don't have microfilm going back to 1849; nor are there images in Newspapers.com," Dellinger wrote in an email, referring to the subscription website that serves as a historical archive for many newspapers. Nor does the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library have records of the newspaper's first edition, she added.
Copper printing plates that adorn a wall in The New Mexican's newsroom office at 150 Washington Ave. show a front page and an inside page, ostensibly from that first day -- but the dates don't match.
The cover, marked as "Volume 1, Number 1," is dated Nov. 24, 1849, which would have been a Saturday. The inside page, though, lists the date as Nov. 28, 1849, a Wednesday. It's not clear whether the plates are original or reproduction, but either way, the confusion begins there.
The paper's various name changes could also play a role in the historical haze. The set of plates calls the then-weekly publication The New Mexican, with no reference to Santa Fe, but another set, titled El Nuevo Mejicano and featuring items in both English and Spanish, lists the publication date as "Noviembre 28, 1849," and also marks the edition as "Tomo 1, Numero 1."
Dellinger said a counterpart at the Chavez library only had bound copies of the newspaper dating back to the 1950s, but cited a book called New Mexico newspapers: A comprehensive guide to bibliographical entries and locations, which seemed to give credence to the Nov. 24 date, even considering all of the newspaper's early name variations.
An article published in 1974, celebrating the paper's 125th anniversary, agrees with Nov. 24 date.
Another book addressed the flub head-on but drew a different conclusion, according to Dellinger, who was provided the reference by a former New Mexican reporter.
"It is, perhaps, characteristic that it leads off with typographical errors in its heading -- one is its motto, Magna est Veritas es Prevalebit, and another is in the date of the first page, November 24, 1849," wrote Olivier La Farge in his book Santa Fe: The Autobiography of a Southwestern Town.
"On page two it is Wednesday, November 28, and on page three (the first Spanish page), under the masthead, November 28. Since November 28, 1849, did fall on a Wednesday, we can take this as the correct date of publication."