Densmore bought the Walworth County Independent in 1855, changed its name to Elkhorn Independent, and published it until 1857. Then he sold it and gave up journalism as a career. Later he summed up his eight years of newspaper experience in Wisconsin by saying: "I started at Oshkosh, succeeded eminently, and threw it all away. I started again at Kenosha and Elkhorn, succeeded beyond my hopes, got more and threw it all away." He departed from Wisconsin without fortune he had come to get but he had added to the vigor and picturesqueness of early journalism in the State. -- Richard N. Current: "The First Newspaperman in Oshkosh", Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol.30, No.4 (June 1947), pp.408-422.

No, Mr. James Densmore neither departed from Wisconsin in 1857, nor gave up journalism then. In 1860 he still stayed in Hudson, Wisconsin. He edited Hudson Chronicle there, writing down his political positions on it (cf. James Densmore: "The Bond Question", Hudson Chronicle, Vol.4, No.16 (March 31, 1860), p.2, l.2). In fact, Mr. Densmore in 1860 resided at St. Paul, Minnesota, 10 miles west from Hudson, but he could not depart from Wisconsin journalism.