Following his parents’ establishment of The Northport Journal, Joseph Robbins founded The Smithtown Messenger in 1887, but not in Smithtown, in Center Moriches. Two decades after its founding, ‘The Messenger’ moved to Smithtown.
Some fifteen years later, in 1907, Lawrence Deutzman assumed ownership of the paper, and also published The Central Islip-Brentwood Messenger, The Lake Ronkonkoma Messenger, and The Smithtown-Kings Park Messenger. Deutzman suffered a fatal heart attack in 1952, with management of the newspaper passing to his wife. Events also prompted another change of location to North Country Road, on a site north of the Smithtown Library.
The year of 1954 saw a change of publishers. Edmund and May Hartung took over the reins and moved the operation to 15 Bellemeade Avenue, a location maintained through the paper’s centennial year in 1987.
In 1986, The Smithtown Messenger was sold to Robert Pastorelli. During his tenure, the paper included features such as a TV insert, and made free use of color and photography.
In 1997, Phil Sciarillo and Sal DiPeri purchased The Smithtown Messenger, and proceeded to further publish The Brookhaven Review and The Ronkonkoma Review (since renamed The Brookhaven Messenger and The Islip Messenger, respectively) , and later The Patchogue Medford News.
The Messenger Papers has made a lasting imprint on the local community for over a century. An imprint that a local businessman insured would continue when he purchased the newspaper in March 2021. Editor-in-Chief Phil Sciarillo decided to sell the newspaper after he lost his business partner and co-publisher Salvatore DiPeri earlier that year to COVID.
The newspaper’s operating hub moved once again, to Ronkonkoma this time, and in September 2021 a new Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Nicole LaMacchia, joined the Messenger Family.
With a growing team of writers, graphic designers, and multimedia journalists the newspaper continues its upwards trajectory toward expanding coverage and offering new and exciting ways to consume local news. The physical transformations this past year are just the beginning…
