 In the 1830s, with the founding of the "Yarmouth Register" a considerable back and forth battle emerged from those two papers due to the "Register's" championing of John Reed Jr., the local Whig member of Congress.Phinney sold the paper in 1869 to Franklin B. Goss and George H. Richards.Goss, who had apprenticed at the Patriot before founding a string of local papers, shifted the paper's politics from democratic to republican as his own support shifted to supporting President Grant's administration.