The paper was founded in Canandaigua as the weeklyGenesee Messenger in 1806, adopting the name Ontario Messenger in 1810.[2] A merger with The Ontario Repository in 1862 yielded a combined weekly called The Ontario Repository and Messenger.[3] When the paper converted to daily publication in 1906, it took the name The Ontario Messenger and Repository. In the 1910s this was shortened to The Daily Messenger.[4]
Although the Messenger name began in 1806, its history through The Repository was much longer. That paper incorporated the Ontario Freeman (1803), the Western Repository and Genesee Advertiser (1803)
and The Ontario Gazette and Western Chronicle, originally published in Geneva, New York, in 1796. In the 1910s the Daily Messenger billed itself as the "oldest newspaper west of Hudson River".
Newspapers in the Messenger Post Newspapers chain share their Canandaigua headquarters building, the MPNnow.com website, their publisher and executive editor, and their business office functions. Messenger Post papers include:
The Post, serving Chili, Gates, Greece of Monroe County
The Post, serving Irondequoit, Penfield, Webster of Monroe County
The Post, serving Brighton, East Rochester, Fairport, Henrietta, Pittsford of Monroe County
The Post, serving Farmington, Victor of Ontario County
GateHouse, which owns hundreds of daily and weekly newspapers from CaliforniatoMassachusetts, has its corporate offices in Fairport, which is in the Messenger Post coverage area.
