In that year Mather and Ash were successfully sued by William Hutchison, J.P., for a libel accusing the wealthy squatter of dummying, and giving the opinion that Justices of the Peace should be free of such taint.
[2] Considerable sympathy was felt by the farming community[3] for Ash and Mather, and they had a legislative council champion in A. M. Simpson,[4] but after a Supreme Court trial under Justice Boucaut lasting ten days, Hutchison was vindicated, and Mather and Ash lost all they had.
The paper was forced to close at the end of August 1889; publishing resumed with the issue of 25 October after Archibald returned to purchase the business, and with his brother Dugald Caldwell ran it until his death.
In 1948, Dugald sold the business to James L. Thomson, a long-serving employee, and along with a new owner came an updated name, The Naracoorte Herald.
The Post Office, Railways and other government departments had standardised the town's spelling to "Naracoorte" before 1896, but like the editor of the Narandera Argus, Archibald Caldwell doggedly stuck to the original orthography.