December 31

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

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Georgia Gazette (December 31, 1766).

“A LARGE and NEAT ASSORTMENT of superfine broad cloths.”

Inglis and Hall frequently advertised in the Georgia Gazette. Among Savannah’s shopkeepers, this partnership often placed the most extensive commercial notices in the local newspaper, making their marketing familiar to readers. Although they sometimes experimented with the format of their advertisements, most of the time Inglis and Hall took a fairly conservative approach to the strategies they deployed.

Today’s advertisements, for instance, included several of the most common appeals to consumers made throughout the eighteenth century. Inglis and Hall promoted “A LARGE and NEAT ASSORTMENT” of goods recently imported from England. Listing dozens of items potential customers could expect to find when visiting their shop. In addition, Inglis and Hall noted that these new arrivals supplement “their former assortment,” prompting readers to recollect previous list advertisements that enumerated their merchandise. In so doing, Inglis and Hall made an appeal to choice. Potential customers did not have to accept whatever goods the shopkeepers happened to have in stock. Instead, they could make their own selections to suit their tastes and budgets.

The retailers acknowledged both of those aspects of the shopping experience as well. They concluded their advertisement by promising to sell all of their merchandise “on the most reasonable terms.” Appeals to price were common in the eighteenth century, though they often received as little elaboration as in today’s advertisement. Such appeals became a standard part of boilerplate advertisements, yet shopkeepers dared not omit pledges to low and competitive prices. Potential customers came to expect such reassurances.

Appeals to fashion or taste could also be fleeting or expansive, depending on the advertisement. Today’s advertisement took the former approach when it listed some of the less utilitarian goods for sale: “fashionable Roman tea-urns, tea kettles, coffee pots, and waiters, pewter plates, water dishes, and measures.” Ultimately, customers had to decide for themselves whether Inglis and Hall actually carried “fashionable” housewares that testified to their taste and that they desired to show off to visitors, yet the advertisement helped to shape their expectations.

Today’s advertisement was not especially innovative in 1766, but that did not make it dull or lacking in marketing strategy. Inglis and Hall incorporated an array of standard advertising strategies to attract customers to their shop. They announced that they stocked new goods, noted the origins of their wares, and made appeals to choice, price, and fashion. Ingis and Hall depended on marketing techniques that advertisers throughout the colonies generally agreed were effective.

Summary of Slavery Advertisements Published December 25-31, 1766

These tables indicate how many advertisements for slaves appeared in colonial American newspapers during the week of December 25-31, 1766.

Note:  These tables are as comprehensive as currently digitized sources permit, but they may not be an exhaustive account.  They includes all newspapers that have been digitized and made available via Accessible Archives, Colonial Williamsburg’s Digital Library, and Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers.  There are several reasons some newspapers may not have been consulted:

  • Issues that are no longer extant;
  • Issues that are extant but have not yet been digitized; and
  • Newspapers published in a language other than English (including the Wochentliche Philadelphische Staatsbote).

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Slavery Advertisements Published December 25-31, 1766:  By Date

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Slavery Advertisements Published December 25-31, 1766:  By Region

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Slavery Advertisements Published December 31, 1766

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.

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Georgia Gazette (December 31, 1766).

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Georgia Gazette (December 31, 1766).

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Georgia Gazette (December 31, 1766).

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Georgia Gazette (December 31, 1766).

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Georgia Gazette (December 31, 1766).

December 30

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

dec-30-12301766-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

“Those who … left Breeches to clean, are requested to call for them.”

Most advertisements for consumer goods and services attempted to convince potential customers to make purchases, to participate in the consumer revolution taking place around them. On occasion, however, shopkeepers and artisans placed advertisements requesting that customers actually take possession of the goods that belonged to them. Two such advertisements appeared in the December 30, 1766, issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.

In the first, Alexander Caddell, a “Breeches-maker and Glover,” announced that he planned to return to London. He called on business associates and former customers to settle their accounts, but he also informed anyone who “left Skins to be manufactured for Breeches” to retrieve them. Similarly, those who “left Breeches to clean” had two months to pick them up. Otherwise, Caddell planned to sell them.

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

In another advertisement, Edward Weyman noted that he had “in his Possession sundry Looking-Glasses belonging to different Persons” who had entrusted him with silvering them. He called on the owners to “pay the Charges” and “take them away.” Like Caddell, he threatened to sell them, though he allowed six months, rather than two, for the owners to recover their property from his shop.

In both cases, the advertisers had provided services but presumably had not yet been paid. Selling items that had been abandoned by their owners, after giving sufficient notice that they planned to do so, became a method for receiving payment for their services through a different means.

This situation also illuminates one of the convoluted routes for delivering goods to consumers. Many eighteenth-century advertisements featured new goods that moved along a simple path from producer to retailer to consumer. The breeches that Caddell threatened to sell and the looking glasses that Weyman threatened to sell, however, did not traverse such a simple trajectory. Instead, these used goods had multiple owners, multiple sellers, and rather complicated provenances. The consumer revolution occurred not only because buyers and sellers valued and exchanged new goods but also because they developed markets for used wares, sometimes as an expediency when the original owners neglected to reclaim possessions left in the care of shopkeepers and artisans.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 30, 1766

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.

dec-30-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal-slavery-1
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).  [Partial advertisement due to digitization error within database.]

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

December 29

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

dec-29-12291766-newport-mercury
Newport Mercury (December 29, 1766).

“Dentifrice … will preserve the Teeth.”

John Baker, a surgeon dentist, had recently arrived in Newport. Since potential local clients did not know him, he offered a variety of assurances and references in his advertisement. To demonstrate his qualifications, he noted that he had “given sufficient Proof of his superior Judgment, in this Art, to the principal Nobility, Gentry, and others, of Great-Britain, France, and Ireland, and other principal Places in Europe; also to some Hundreds in the Town of Boston.” In his bid to attract clients among “the Gentry” of Newport, he underscored that the better sort in cities throughout Europe had already entrusted him and been pleased with the results. Still, any charlatan might make claims about his vaunted clientele on the other side of the Atlantic. Boston, on the other hand, was nearby, making it much more difficult to exaggerate the reputation he had earned there.

Baker’s concern for his reputation extended to a product he sold, a patent medicine “called Dentifrice,” in addition to the services he offered. The itinerant surgeon dentist made several claims about what his “infallible” Dentifrice would accomplish. Because it was “quite free from any corrosive Preparation,” the Dentifrice “will restore the Gums to their pristine State; will preserve the Teeth, and render them perfectly white; will fasten those that are loose, and prevent them from further Decay.” To protect his reputation and to make sure that customers purchased the correct product, Baker and his agent in Boston provided “proper Directions” along with each pot of the Dentifrice. Each pot was “seal’d up with his Coat of Arms” to prevent tampering or fraud. Baker’s coat of arms was also printed “in the Margins of the Directions” so customers could compare it to the seal and verify the authenticity of the product for themselves.

John Baker offered several services – cleaning and filling teeth and making and repairing artificial teeth – but the surgeon dentist realized that merely advertising those services might not be sufficient to attract clients when he arrived in Newport. In the absence of having established a reputation locally, he promoted the reputation he had earned in other cities and provided other means for certifying the products that he sold.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 29, 1766

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.

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Boston Evening-Post (December 29, 1766).

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Boston Post-Boy (December 29, 1766).

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Boston Post-Boy (December 29, 1766).

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New-York Mercury (December 29, 1766).

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New-York Mercury (December 29, 1766).

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South Carolina Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South Carolina Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South Carolina Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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Supplement to the South Carolina Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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Supplement to the South Carolina Gazette (December 29, 1766).
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Supplement to the South Carolina Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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Supplement to the South Carolina Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

 

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 29, 1766).

December 28

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

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Supplement to the New-York Journal (December 27, 1766).

“A Variety of Books and Stationary.”

Like many other colonial American printers, John Holt inserted his own advertisements into the newspaper he published. The two-page supplement to the New-York Journal from December 27, 1766, for instance, included three advertisements for “the Printing-Office near the Exchange.” None of them included Holt’s name, but that may have been less important than providing sufficient direction for current and prospective customers to make their way to Holt’s printing shop. Besides, many readers likely would have already known Holt as “the Printer at the Exchange.” For those who did not, the masthead of regular issues of the New-York Journal proclaimed that it was “PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JOHN HOLT, NEAR THE EXCHANGE.”

Each of Holt’s advertisements in the December 27 issue addressed a different aspect of his business. One attempted to drum up new business, succinctly announcing “A Variety of Books and Stationary, to be sold at the Printing-Office near the Exchange.” Between subscriptions and advertisements, publishing the New-York Journal generated revenue, but Holt, like many others in his occupation, also acted as bookseller. This yielded an additional flow of income to keep the entire operation running.

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Supplement to the New-York Journal (December 27, 1766).

Another advertisement solicited supplies necessary for the New-York Journal to continue publication. “READY MONEY,” it announced, “given for clean Linen RAGS, of any Kind, at the Printing-Office near the Exchange.” Printers throughout the colonies frequently placed such notices. They printed their newspapers on paper made of linen. Rags were essential to their business; they were recycled and reused as paper. Holt placed this particular advertisement in the upper right corner of the second page. Except for the masthead, it included the largest font in that issue, increasing the likelihood that readers would see and take note of it.

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Supplement to the New-York Journal (December 27, 1766).

Holt’s third advertisement addressed prior operations of his business as well as its future. In the final issue of the New-York Journal for 1766, he called on former customers to settle accounts: “ALL PERSONS who are a Year or more indebted for this Paper, and all who are on any other Account indebted to the Printer at the Exchange, are earnestly requested immediately to discharge their Accounts.” Once again, similar notices appeared in newspapers printed throughout the colonies. Subscribers notoriously fell behind in paying for their newspapers. Printers extended credit for subscriptions, advertisements, and job printing of various sorts as well as the books and stationery they sold. In designing the layout for this supplemental issue, the crafty Holt placed this advertisement second, immediately after a notice listing the winning numbers for a recent lottery. He may have hoped to capture readers’ attention as they eagerly examined nearly two columns of winning tickets and moved directly to the next item.

The December 27 supplement of the New-York Journal included relatively little news. Of its six columns, only the third and fourth were given over to news items. Holt devoted the remainder of the supplement to advertising, including three advertisements that either promoted his own printing shop or saw to its general maintenance.

December 27

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

dec-27-12271766-providence-gazette
Providence Gazette (December 27, 1766).

“JUST IMPORTED, AND TO BE SOLD AT THE CHEAPEST RATE FOR CASH, BY Thompson and Arnold.”

Thompson and Arnold’s advertisement for “a fresh and general Assortment of English and India GOODS” filled the entire final page of the December 27, 1766, issue of the Providence Gazette. It was not the first full-page advertisement that appeared in that publication: shopkeepers Joseph and William Russell ran a full-page advertisement on November 22, five weeks earlier, and inserted it almost every week since then. The Russells’ oversized advertisement ran on November 29 and December 13 and 20. Except for the December 6 issue of the Providence Gazette, a full-page advertisement on the final page became a regular feature of that publication.

Thompson and Arnold’s full-page advertisement was not the first of its kind, but that did not mean that it lacked significance. At the very least, purchasing the entire final page bolstered the shopkeepers’ prestige, but it also demonstrated that they paid attention to the marketing strategies deployed by their competitors and adopted them to promote their own enterprises. (Keep in mind that Thompson and Arnold previously experimented with oversized advertisements that resembled trade cards, rather than broadsides. Some of their competitors adopted this form in subsequent issues.) Running a full-page advertisement could have been a gimmick limited only to the Joseph and William Russell, a stunt that quickly dissolved into obscurity. The Russells’ advertisement, however, was not merely ephemeral. Other entrepreneurs experimented with the same form. Sarah Goddard and Company, the printers, also may have encouraged regular advertisers to upgrade to full-page advertisements. Clearly both advertisers and the printers of the Providence Gazette engaged with the possibilities offered by the full-page advertisement, a broadside distributed as the final page of the port’s weekly newspaper. In the first issue of 1767, shopkeeper James Green joined the ranks of local retailers who invested in full-page advertisements.

I have not yet had the opportunity to examine subsequent issues of the Providence Gazette published in 1767 too see how long full-page advertisements continued to appear, but I will continue to track this aspect of that newspaper as the Adverts 250 Project progresses through the new year. I do not know exactly what to expect, given the eagerness to experiment with oversized advertisements of various sorts exhibited by Sarah Goddard and Company. That being said, full-page advertisements did not become a staple of marketing notices in American newspapers in the second half of the eighteenth century. Indeed, most historians of both printing and advertising date the origin of full-page advertisements to the middle of the nineteenth century. Even though full-page advertisements did not become a standard feature of newspapers in the 1760s, those that appeared in the Providence Gazette – promoting the businesses of several different retailers – comprise a milestone of innovation and experimentation with marketing that merits additional investigation.

December 26

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

dec-26-12261766-new-hampshire-gazette
New-Hampshire Gazette (December 26, 1766).

“CROWN (Coffee-House.)”

Isaac Williams launched a new venture for the new year, a “COFFEE-HOUSE, at the lower end of Queen Street, in Portsmouth,” New Hampshire. Based on the description of the Crown in his advertisement, Williams sought to operate an establishment similar to those in London, other cities throughout England and continental Europe, and major port cities in the North American colonies. The London Coffee House, for instance, opened in Philadelphia in 1754, a little over a decade earlier.

Eighteenth-century coffeehouses tended to be homosocial environments, gather places for men to conduct business, talk politics, socialize, and gossip. Williams invited “Gentlemen on Business” to visit his coffeehouse, noting that they would find there “the freshest Intelligence that is possible to be had.” The proprietor and staff likely provided some of this “Intelligence,” as did the array of patrons who assembled there, but a good amount of “the freshest Intelligence” probably derived from newspapers. In addition to the New-Hampshire Gazette, Williams likely supplied copies of major and minor newspapers from throughout the colonies as well a variety of publications from London and other parts of the Atlantic world.

Williams did not promote his coffeehouse merely as a place for merchants to negotiate deals and settle accounts. He also portrayed it as a destination for the “Entertainment” of his clients. Indeed, when the proprietor listed the reasons to visit his coffeehouse, the word “PLEASURE” appeared in capital letters, while “Business” did not. In addition to coffee, he served “PUNCH, WINE, BEER, &c. &c. &c.” Eighteenth-century patrons would have read “&c. &c. &.c” as “etc. etc. etc.” and imagined a variety of spirits. Williams catered to men looking to have a good time with friends, associates, and acquaintances.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, may not have been as big or as bustling as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Charleston in the 1760s, but it was a still a busy port city in its own right. Accordingly, local entrepreneurs launched businesses, such as the Crown Coffee House, that offered services and, more generally, experiences that paralleled those that could be found in larger cities.