with lawbreakers. He built Colton Hall for use as a town hall and school. It was built through the labor of convicts and paid for partly through taxes on liquor shops and fines on gamblers. He won wide acclaim as a fair judge and impaneled the first jury in California to assist in making decisions. He and Robert B. Semple launched the first newspaper published in California, The Californian on August 15, 1846. The first issue was released only a month after the American flag was raised at Monterey, The Californian carried the news of the declaration of war with Mexico. Colton's book about his experiences, Three Years in California, was published in 1850 after his return to the east. He died in 1851 and was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. Legacy Walter Colton has been inducted into the California Newspaper Hall of Fame. His book, Three years in California, is regarded as a principal description of California before the California Gold Rush. Colton Hall, now preserved as a museum, was the site of the 1849 California Constitutional Convention. For a time it served as a grade school. The Walter Colton Middle School, located some two miles uphill from Colton Hall, was named in his honor and is a part of the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District. Bibliography The Sea and the Sailor: Notes on France and Italy, and Other Literary Remains of Rev. Walter Colton, New York, A.S. Barnes & Co., 1846 Visit to Constantinople and Athens, Dublin, James M'Glashan, 1849 Three Years in California, New York, A.S. Barnes & Co., 1850 Land and Lee in the Bosphorus and Aegean; or Views of Athens and Constantinople, New York, A.S. Barnes & Co., 1851 Deck and Port: Or, Incidents of a Cruise in the United States Frigate Congress to California - with Sketches of Rio Janeiro, Valparaiso, Lima, Honolulu, and San Francisco, New York, A.S. Barnes & Co., 1860 Ship and Shore, in Madeira, Lisbon, and the Mediterranean, New York, A.S. Barnes & Co., 1860 References External links Colton Hall Museum 1797 births 1851 deaths 19th-century American male writers 19th-century American newspaper editors 19th-century American politicians Andover Theological Seminary alumni Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia) Mayors of places in California People from Rutland County, Vermont Publishers from California United States Navy chaplains Yale University alumni 19th-century American clergy 19th-century American businesspeople