The paper historically served the communities of Acton and Rockwood, and the surrounding townships of Esquesing, Nassagaweya, Eramosa and Erin.

After having published weekly newspapers in Listowel and then in Guelph over the course of several years, Joseph H. Hacking set out to establish The Acton Free Press in July 1875.

[1] Galbraith would leave the following year to become a reporter at the Montreal Evening Post,[b] and Moore would then enter into partnership with his brother H.P.

The field being so efficiently and capably filled by the metropolitan journals, wherein party politics is a specialty and wherein every faculty is afforded for fulfilling their mission, the village paper may well remain content to let them do the heavy work of the craft.

It seems to us the village newspaper can devote its energies to better advantage by giving attention to matters of local import—affairs to which the community can feel an interest."[7]H.P.

The Free Press has been an example to others in its fine typographical appearance, and in its latest issue it makes fitting protest against the growth of sensationalism in some of the current daily newspapers.