June 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Gazette (June 9, 1773).

“If any on Trial should not answer the Purpose intended, he engages to take them back, and to supply the Parties with others.”

In the summer of 1773, Isaac Melcher sold a “compleat and warranted Assortment of BOULTING-CLOTHS, Suitable to every Branch of that Business” to millers in and near Philadelphia.  In an advertisement in the June 9 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, he announced that he had “lately imported” those items and sold them “on the lowest Terms for Cash.”  In an effort to generate demand, Melcher pledged that “Considerable Allowance will be made to those that take a Quantity.”  In other words, he offered discounts for purchasing in volume.

Melcher deployed another marketing strategy to entice prospective customers, offering to replace the “warranted” bolting cloths with other items if buyers tried them and were not satisfied.  “If any on Trial should not answer the Purpose intended,” Melcher pledged, “he engages to take them back, and to supply the Parties with others in their Room.”  The option of exchanging merchandise, however, came with a condition.  Buyers had to return bolting cloths that did not meet their needs “without Damage” to qualify for that provision.

At a glance, Melcher’s advertisement may not appear very flashy to modern eyes.  Like almost every other advertisement that appeared in that issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette, it consisted entirely of text without any images.  (One advertisement seeking freight and passengers included a stock image of a ship at sea.)  Yet Melcher did not merely announce that he had bolting cloths for sale and then hope that prospective customers would do business with him.  Instead, he incorporated two marketing strategies intended to motivate millers not only to purchase bolting cloths but to acquire them from him rather than any of his competitors.  He promised discounts for large orders while also allowing for exchanges after customers tried his bolting cloths.  That attention to customer satisfaction made purchases more than perfunctory transactions.  While not as sophisticated as modern marketing practices, advertisements like those placed by Melcher should not be dismissed as mere announcements of goods for sale.  After all, Melcher devised strategies to engage prospective customers.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 9, 1773

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Pennsylvania Journal (June 9, 1773).

**********

Pennsylvania Journal (June 9, 1773).

June 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 8, 1773).

“THE Printer of this Paper … will undertake any Kind of Printing-Work.”

Charles Crouch, the printer of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, included a brief note in the June 8, 1773, to alert readers and, especially, advertisers that “Advertisements omitted this Week, for want of Room, shall be in our next.”  Despite that “want of Room,” Crouch found space to run six of his own notices.  Some of them concerned the business of running the newspaper, while others advertised goods and services available at the printing office.

In tending to the operations of the newspaper, Crouch requested that “ALL Persons who may favour the Printer of this Gazette with their Advertisements … send the CASH with them, except where he owes Money, or has a running Account.”  Crouch suggested that “will prevent disagreeable Circumstances, as well as Trouble.”  He also prepared to address some of those “disagreeable Circumstances” with recalcitrant subscribers.  In another notice, he informed “ALL Persons in Charles-Town, who are in Arrears for this GAZETTE, to the first of January last, HAVE THIS PUBLIC NOTICE given them, that in the Course of this Month, they will be waited upon by my Apprentice, for Payment.”  Printers throughout the colonies often ran notices calling on delinquent subscribers to settle accounts, sometimes threatening legal action.  Few mentioned having their apprentices attempt to collect payment, but many likely tried that strategy as well.

In other advertisements, Crouch attempted to generate business at the printing office.  He advised that the “Printer of this Paper, being supplied with plenty of Hands, will undertake any Kind of Printing-Work, let it be ever so large.”  Prospective customers could depend on job printing orders “be[ing] correctly and expeditiously executed, and on reasonable terms.”  In another advertisement, the printer hawked “Shop and Waste PAPER, to be sold at Crouch’s Printing-Office, in Elliott-street.”  He also tried to generate interest in surplus copies of “THOMAS MORE’s ALMANACK, for the Year 1773.”  Though nearly half the year had passed, Crouch emphasized contents that readers could reference throughout the year, including “a List of Public Officers in this Province; a List of Justices for Charles-Town District; excellent Notes of Husbandry and Gardening, for each Month in the Year; [and] Descriptions of Roads throughout the Continent.”  At the end of that advertisement, Crouch appended a note that he also stocked copies of “BUCHAN’s Family Physician.”  In a final advertisement, the printer tended to the health of readers with products unrelated to the printing trade.  He announced that he just imported a variety of popular patent medicines, including a “Fresh Parcel of Dr. KEYSER’s genuine Pills,” “Dr. RYAN’s Incomparable Worm Destroying Sugar Plumbs,” and “Dr. JAMES’s Fever Powders.”  Like many other printers, Crouch sold patent medicines as an additional revenue stream.

An item that could be considered a seventh advertisement from the printer even found its way into the local news.  Immediately above the entries of vessels arriving and departing the busy port provided by the customs house, a short note stated, “Those GENTLEMEN who subscribed with the Printer hereof, for the AMERICAN EDITION of BLACKSTONE’s COMMENTARIES on the LAWS of ENGLAND, are requested to apply for the Fourth Volume, and the Appendix.”  Crouch served as a local agent on behalf of the publisher, Robert Bell in Philadelphia.

Crouch claimed that a “want of Room” prevented him from publishing all of the advertisements received in his printing office, yet he managed to include many of his own notices in the June 8, 1773, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  He exercised his prerogative as printer in shaping the contents of that issue, an act that potentially frustrated some advertisers who expected to see their notices in the public prints.  Given that just a few months earlier Crouch emphasized his “REAL Want of his Money,” he may have considered that a necessary gamble in his efforts to continue operations at his printing office on Elliott Street in Charleston.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 8, 1773

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Courant (June 8, 1773).

**********

Essex Gazette (June 8, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 8, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 8, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 8, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 8, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 8, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 8, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 8, 1773).

June 7

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Supplement to the Newport Mercury (June 7, 1773).

“A general Assortment of English and India GOODS.”

For the third week in a row, Solomon Southwick, the printer of the Newport Mercury, distributed an advertising supplement because he did not have sufficient space to print all the news and notices submitted to his printing office on Queen Street.  As usual, the standard issue consisted of four pages, created by printing two pages on each side of a broadsheet and then folding it in half.  The supplement consisted of only two pages, one on each side of a smaller sheet … but not simply half a sheet of the paper used for printing the standard issue.

Instead, Southwick conserved his paper supply by resorting to an even smaller sheet.  Rather than accommodating three columns, the smaller sheet allowed for only two columns of the same width.  Southwick left it at that for the supplement that accompanied the May 31, 1773, edition.  For the May 24 and June 7 supplements, however, he managed to find room for a few more advertisements by creating a third column that ran perpendicular to the other two columns.  The printer placed shorter advertisements in this narrow column.

That worked well for the two lines that advised “Choice red CEDAR POSTS to sell, by THOMAS TRIPP” or the three lines about “CASH given for clean LINEN RAGES, coarse or fine, at the PRINTING-OFFICE in Newport.”  John Bours, on the other hand, ran a longer advertisement for a “general Assortment of English and India GOODS … at his shop, the sign of the golden eagle.”  To fit it in the narrow column without breaking down the type and setting it again, Southwick merely divided the advertisement in half and placed the two halves next to each other.  He did the same for a similar advertisement placed by George Lawton and Robert Lawton and his own notice about imported writing paper.  That facilitated reconstituting the advertisements when necessary to appear as usual in columns that had not been rotated when space permitted.

Bours’s advertisement did feature a slight variation on the usual practice.  When it ran in the standard issue on June 14, the printer replaced the smaller font for “GOODS” with a larger font to help attract attention.  The smaller font had been necessary to make the advertisement fit in the narrow column, but the notice received new consideration when space permitted.  Such was the exception rather than the rule when printers squeezed advertisements into what would have otherwise been margins.

Colonial printers often published advertising supplements that made such use of the space available to them.  Southwick and his counterparts in other towns devised a means of serving the advertisers who placed notices and the subscribers who read them while simultaneously minimizing the costs of producing and disseminating their newspapers.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 7, 1773

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Supplement to the Newport Mercury (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the Newport Mercury (June 7, 1773).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 7, 1773).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 7, 1773).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 7, 1773).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 7, 1773).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 7, 1773).

**********

Pennsylvania Chronicle (June 7, 1773).

**********

Pennsylvania Packet (June 7, 1773).

**********

Pennsylvania Packet (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 7, 1773).

June 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

Who were the subjects of advertisements in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 1, 1773).

“A CARGO OF ONE HUNDRED and FIFTY-FIVE Sierra-Leon NEGROES.”

When it came to advertising, Charles Crouch, the printer of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, did good business in terms of notices about enslaved people.  Such advertisements, whether offering enslaved people for sale or offering rewards for the capture and return of those who liberated themselves by running away, generated significant revenue for Crouch and other printers.  Consider the June 1, 1773, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  It carried sixty-one advertisements.  Among those that hawked a variety of consumer goods and services appeared two notices from the printer, seven legal notices from courts held in various towns throughout the colony, and sixteen about enslaved people.  Thirteen concerned upcoming sales, while the other the described enslaved people, including Flora, a “Washer and Ironer,” who escaped from their enslavers.

Visual images made the preponderance of advertisements about enslaved people all the more striking.  Enslaved people populated the page just as they populated the busy port of Charleston as well as towns and plantations in the countryside throughout the colony.  Images adorned fourteen of the advertisements in the June 1 edition, four of them depicting vessels at sea for advertisements seeking cargo and passengers and ten of them depicting one or more enslaved people.  Nine of those woodcuts of enslaved people appeared in a single column on the third page, the repetition and proximity making them all the more difficult to overlook.

Those advertisements described captives who arrived in Charleston “after a short Passage from AFRICA,” “from the Gold Coast,” “directly from GAMBIA,” “directly from the Coast,” “from GAMBIA,” “From CAPE-MOUNT, (A RICE COUNTRY),” “from Angola,” “directly from the Coast of Africa,” and “from the Gold-Coast.”  The images not only represented the presence of enslaved people of in Charleston and throughout the colony.  They also testified to the scenes in the ships that transported enslaved people across the Atlantic and the scenes at auction sites that put Black bodies on display for examination and scrutiny by prospective buyers, though sanitized for consumption in the public prints.  Printers, like Crouch, helped perpetuate slavery and the slave trade via the words and images that they allowed (and encouraged) advertisers to publish in their newspapers.

June 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Providence Gazette (June 5, 1773).

“He continues to carry on the Clothier’s Business in every part.”

Abner Thayer stocked a “Variety of very useful and necessary GOODS” at his store in Providence in the summer of 1773.  In an advertisement in the June 5 edition of the Providence. Gazette, he advised prospective customers that he “doth not think it necessary to give a long List of Particulars, as he hath a general Assortment.”  Furthermore, he “determines to be always furnished with such Articles as are most needed.”  The shopkeeper underscored that he “hath taken great Pains to adapt to the Wants of Town and Country.”

He also served colonizers in another way.  Thayer informed the public that he “continues to carry on the Clothier’s Business in every Part, and in the best Manner, at his usual Place.”  In the same paragraph, he declared that he “hath for Sale a great Variety of Dye-Stuffs” and “colours blue Yarn, so as the same shall be beautiful and durable.”  At a glance, modern readers may not realize that when Thayer invoked the “Clothier’s Business” he referred to processing textiles rather than producing garments.  The entry for “clothier” in the Oxford English Dictionary reveals the usages of the word in early America.

That entry defines a clothier as “one engaged in the cloth trade: (a) a maker of woollen cloth; (b) esp. one who performs the operations subsequent to the weaving (archaic); (c) a fuller and dresser of cloth (U.S.); (d) a seller of cloth and men’s clothes.”  This demonstrates the evolution of the meaning of the word over time, including the most common usage today.  Yet readers of the Providence Gazette did not expect Thayer to make or sell garments for men.  They understood that he processed textiles.  One of the examples provided by the OED, drawn from one of the most famous dictionaries published in America, makes this even more clear.  The entry for “clothier” from Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) states, “in English authors, a man who makes cloths.  In this sense, I believe, it is not used in the United States; certainly not in New-England.  In America, a man, whose occupation is to full and dress cloth.”  That Webster made a point about the meaning of “clothier” in New England further indicates how Thayer used the word to describe his services in an advertisement in the Providence Gazette.

When we consult eighteenth-century newspapers and other primary sources, I often have conversations with my students about how we must be cautious readers.  Just because some words look familiar to us today does not mean that colonizers used them in the same way we do.  Understanding primary sources requires knowledge of the broader context, not just the words on the page.  As part of those conversations, I introduce my students to the OED so they can explore and make assessments on their own as they do the research for their contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and other projects.

June 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-London Gazette (June 4, 1773).

“LONDON Coffee-House, Kept by THOMAS ALLEN.”

“THOMAS ALLEN’s Marine List.”

In the early 1770s, Thomas Allen operated the “LONDON Coffee-House” in New-London, Connecticut.  In an advertisement in that ran in the New-London Gazette in May and June 1773, he offered “genteel Entertainment … for Gentlemen Travellers.”  He also sold a variety of “Choice old Spirits by the Gallon” in addition to “Genuine” wines imported from Madeira, Faial, and Tenerife “By the Gal. or Quart.”  Presumably, he also served those wines and spirits as well as coffee, tea, and chocolate to “Gentlemen Travellers” and other patrons.

Like other coffeehouses, Allen’s establishment also served as a gathering place for merchants to conduct business and share information.  Allen likely subscribed to the New-London Gazette as well as newspapers printed in other colonies, making them available to patrons interested in all sorts of news and especially the shipping news that concerned networks of commerce that crisscrossed the Atlantic.

New-London Gazette (June 4, 1773).

In addition to that valuable service, Allen established himself as a purveyor of such information in the public prints.  Starting with the April 30 edition, the printer of the New-London Gazette supplemented the lists of ships “ENTERED IN” and “CLEARED OUT” of the customs house with “THOMAS ALLEN’s Marine List” that provided details about the location and progress of vessels.  Presumably, Allen spoke with captains when they arrived in port, then relayed the news to the printer, thus bolstering the kind of coverage offered by the newspaper.  The entry in the June 4 edition, for instance, included this news: “Capt. Newson in 21 Days from Nevis spoke with the following Vessels, viz. May 26th, Sloop Sally, Capt. Campbell, from Nevis, bound to Casco-Bay, Lat. 34 43. Long. 68 6.  May 29th, Ship Sally, Capt. Samuel Young, from Bristol, bound to Philadelphia, Lat. 38 10. Lon. 70. who had a number of Passengers on board.”  The “Marine List” also gave details about one other ship that Newsom encountered during the voyage from Nevis.  Not only merchants valued these updates; families of sailors did so as well.

Allen provided this service for more than fifteen years, bolstering his own reputation as a purveyor of shipping news.  The local newspaper benefited from his efforts, as did merchants and families who consulted “THOMAS ALLEN’s Marine List” in addition to the entries from the customs house.  The news that appeared in the public prints may have convinced some readers to visit Allen’s coffeehouse to see if they could glean more information from the proprietor, additional details that did not appear in the newspaper.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 4, 1773

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-London Gazette (June 4, 1773).