The newspaper traces its origins back to 1846, when Hamilton Student was founded by student and abolitionist George Gavin Ritchie as "a semi-monthly mirror of Religion, Literature, Science and Art.

"[1] The newspaper was shut down and Ritchie expelled by the college, then called Madison University, after he published an editorial criticizing New York residents for opposing African-American male suffrage, though he continued to publish the Hamilton Student as "The Hamilton Student and Christian Reformer.

In 1868, Colgate restarted the campus newspaper under the name Madisonensis, and the modern staff considers this as its official foundation.

An independent paper, the Colgate News, emerged in 1969, as a less liberal alternative to the official student newspaper.

The Colgate Maroon-News has a circulation of 2,250 print copies, which are distributed around campus, the Village of Hamilton, and to subscribing alumni.