Journalism on the agricultural frontier of the Old Northwest territory of the United States was shaped by a variety of cultural forces and environmental factors and took on diverse forms. Bridging the gap between the two cultural forms of written correspondence and printed news was a third form: the handwritten newspaper. Between 1844 and 1854 there were at least three handwritten newspapers published in the frontier town of Washington, Iowa. They were the "Domestic Quarterly Review," the "Washington Shark," and the "Quarterly Visitor." Though this genre was not peculiar to the agricultural frontier, the appearance of these particular papers can be understood in terms of their demographic and biographic contexts. During its first 15 years, Washington was without a printing press. The town had developed as an agricultural center rather than as a trade or business center, and because of its relative isolation, its population had remained modest in size. Possibly because of their relative isolation, the editors and their readers turned to the handwritten papers as one means of recreating the cultural world they had known. The editors, who were lawyers, politicians, and educators, may have tried to create a communications environment that could embody their own cultural and professional values and provide a mode of discourse to which they had grown accustomed. (Author/FL)