What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-Hampshire Gazette (July 31, 1772).
“Allowing each passenger a small Bundle in their own Care.”
Advertisements in colonial newspapers aid in reconstructing transportation networks in early America. A series of advertisements by Jonathan Brown and Nicholas Brown, for instance, gave details of a new stagecoach route between New York and Boston that they established in the summer of 1772. They initially declared that they would undertake a “Trial” and if they “find Encouragement, they will perform the Stage once a Week.” That trial apparently achieved sufficient success for them to continue the venture. They continued to advertise in the July 30, 1772, edition of the New-York Journal.
By that time, John Stavers and Benjamin Hart had much more experience operating their own stagecoach service between Boston and Portsmouth. In an advertisement in the August 8, 1771, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, Stavers stated that he had been in business “for Ten Years past.” Stavers and Hart placed an advertisement in the July 31, 1772, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette to “Inform the Public, That their Carriages still continue to ply,” having survived a challenge posed by a newcomer who set up a competing service the previous summer. Thanks to Stavers and Hart and the Browns, colonizers could travel via stage between Portsmouth and New York, if they desired an alternative to sailing between the two ports.
In addition to providing their schedule, Stavers and Hart used their advertisement to promote various aspects of their service. They charged “the customary price of Three Dollars,” asserting it was a good bargain and “as low as the Fare for the same Distance in any Stage Coach in America.” They also advised prospective passengers that they needed to pay “half on engaging a passage, the other half at the last Stage, or on leaving the Carriage.” They claimed they asked for half in advance “to prevent Disappointment.” Such a means of securing a reservation worked in favor of both travelers and the stagecoach operators. Passengers paid for “All Baggage, Bundles, [and] Trunks … according to their Weight and size.” Stavers and Hart did not allow for any complimentary “checked items,” but they did permit “carryon items.” Each passenger could board the coach with “a small Bundle in their own Care.”
Stavers and Hart, like other stagecoach operators, sought to make travel appear attractive to prospective customers. They promised good customer service for passengers, pledging “all Favours acknowledged by their very humble Service.” In giving their schedule, they promoted the convenience of traveling via their stagecoaches. They also incorporated other appeals, proclaiming that they offered bargain prices and inviting passengers to board with personal items that did not require additional fees. Over time, the travel industry refined marketing strategies already in use during the era of the American Revolution.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
South-Carolina Gazette (July 30, 1772).
“WHO … can doubt of the amazing Effects of that powerful and invaluable Medicine?”
A feud between Charles Crouch, printer of the South-Carolina Gazette, and Powell, Hughes, and Company, printers of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, played out in the pages of their newspapers in the summer of 1772. This feud did not concern their work as printers, nor did it appear in editorials. Instead, they sniped at each other in advertisements hawking a popular patent medicine, “Dr. KEYSER’S famous PILLS.”
According to advertisements that frequently appeared in newspapers from New England to South Carolina, colonial printers often supplemented their revenues from newspaper subscriptions, advertising, job printing, books, and stationery by selling patent medicines. Doing so required no specialized knowledge of the cures. The printers merely needed to supply the directions that often accompanied the nostrums they peddled. In addition, many consumers were already familiar with the most popular patent medicines, the eighteenth-century equivalent of over-the-counter medications.
Powell, Hughes, and Company ran a lengthy advertisement for “Dr. Keyser’s GENUINE Pills” in the July 9 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette. They opened by stating that “numerous Trials have proved [the pills] to be the safest, best, mildest, and most agreeable Medicine ever discovered, for the Cure of the VENEREAL DISEASE, from the slightest Infection to the most inveterate State of that dreadful and almost unconquerable Disorder.” They provided a long history of the medicine and its efficacy, concluding with a guarantee “to return the Money, if a complete Cure is not performed, provided the Patient adheres to the Manner of taking [the pills], as is given in the printed Directions.”
In the next issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, distributed on July 14, Crouch positioned his own extensive advertisement for “A CONSIGNMENT” of patent medicines on the front page. The list of medicines began with “A FRESH PARCEL of Dr. KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS, With FULL DIRECTIONS for their Use in all CASES.” Rather than publish the history of that medicine in his advertisement, Crouch alerted readers that they could read “A NARRATIVE of the Effects of Dr. KESYER’s MEDICINE, with an Account of its ANALYSIS, by the Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences.” He further elaborated, “It were needless to trouble the public with more Encomiums on the Effects of this Remedy.”
That statement, as well as competition for customers, raised the ire of Powell, Hughes, and Company. Two days later, they updated their previous advertisement, inserting an introductory paragraph that directly addressed Crouch’s advertisement. The partners, “far from thinking ‘it NEEDLESS to trouble the Public with more Encomiums of the Effects of this Remedy,’ look upon it as their Duty to insert the following Particulars of Keyser’s invaluable Medicine, in order that the Afflicted in this Province, may, in some Respects be made acquainted with the Virtues of the most efficacious Medicine ever discovered, and know where to apply for Relief, without the Danger of having other Pills imposed on them instead the GENUINE.” Powell, Hughes, and Company implied that Crouch carried counterfeit pills before inserting their original advertisement in its entirety.
Crouch objected to that insinuation. In the July 21 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, he added a short note to his previous advertisement. Crouch now stated that he carried “A FRESH PARCEL of Dr. KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS, (perhaps the only REAL ONES that can be had in the Province at present) With FULL DIRECTIONS for their Use in all CASES.” He turned the accusation back to Powell, Hughes, and Company, suggesting that it was they, not he, who attempted to dupe the public with counterfeit and ineffective medicines.
That prompted Powell, Hughes, and Company to double down on their insistence that Crouch peddled counterfeits. On July 23, they expanded the new introduction of their advertisement, reiterating the “NEEDLESS to trouble the Public” quotation and adding a note about “the Danger of having a spurious Sort imposed on them, notwithstanding any forcible ‘PERHAPS’ to the Contrary.” Furthermore, they “assured” prospective customers that the pills they carried “were received from Mr. Keyser, therefore there can be no ‘Perhaps’ entertained of THEIR not being the GENUINE, unless it is by such who are naturally Obstinate and Conceited, without one good Quality to entitle them to be either.”
The back-and-forth continued in the next edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal. Crouch and his competitors carefully monitored what each said about the other in their new advertisements. Crouch placed “NEW ADVERTISEMENTS” on the first page of the July 28 edition, leading with a new advertisement for “Dr. KEYSER’s famous PILLS” limited to a single paragraph that focused primarily on the controversy that had been brewing for the past few weeks. He once again stated that he sold the pills and declared that “he really believes (without forcible making Use of the Word “PERHAPS”) they are the only REAL ONES that can be had in the Province at present.” For the first time, he named his competitors, noting that “it is asserted (with a Degree of Scurrility) to the Contrary, in the latter Part of the Introduction to an Advertisement for the Sale of Keyser’s Pills, by Powell, Hughes, & Co. in a Gazette of the 23d Instant, said to be printed by these People.
Crouch devoted the remainder of his advertisement to upbraiding his competitors and defending his reputation. “In regard to the mean, rascally Insinuations against men, contained in said Introduction,” the printer stated, “I am happy in knowing that they do not, nor cannot in the least AFFECT me, especially as coming from such Hands.” He then suggested, “I think it would have been much more to their Credit, to have endeavoured to convince the Public, in a Manner different from what they did, that my Surmise was wrong, respecting the Pills sold by them.” He concluded with an assertion that “as to my good or bad Qualities, they are submitted to Candour and Impartiality of the respectable Public, whose Favours I shall always make my chief Study to merit; without fearing the Malice or Baseness of any Individual.”
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
Powell, Hughes, and Company did not interpret that as an overture to make peace or change their tone. On July 30, they began with the “New Advertisements” in the South-Carolina Gazette by reprinting Crouch’s advertisement “From the South-Carolina GAZETTE, AND Country Journal, of July 28, 1772. [No. 348.]” in its entirety. They made sure that readers could examine the original, though they also added “(t b c t f.)” to the final line, a notation that signaled to the compositor to continue inserting the advertisement until instructed to remove it. In so doing, they implied that Crouch intended to publicly shame them indefinitely. Yet they felt no remorse. Instead, they implied that Crouch suffered from the effects of venereal disease himself, especially cognitive deterioration, composing his latest advertisement only after taking a pill he acquired from Powell, Hughes, and Company. “WHO,” they asked, “after perusing the foregoing masterly Piece, produced by a SINGLE Dose of Dr. Keyser’s GENUINE Pills, sold by POWELL, HUSGHES, & Co. … can doubt of the amazing Effects of that powerful and invaluable Medicine?” They further intimated that Crouch suffered from venereal disease by asking, “After so copious a Discharge by ONE Dose, what may not be expected from a SECOND, or should THAT Patient take a WHOLE BOX?” Powell, Hughes, and Company snidely asserted that Crouch’s mental faculties were so far gone due to venereal disease that a single dose managed to give him only a few moments of clarity but he needed much more medicine to cease ranting and raving.
Powell, Hughes, and Company compounded the insult in a short paragraph that commented on Crouch’s grammar, further imputing that the effects of venereal disease made it difficult for him to string together coherent sentences. “In the mean Time,” they proclaimed, “the Reader is desired to correct TWO egregious Blunder, by inserting FORCIBLY for forcible, and THOSE PEOPLE instead of these People. The Word RASCALLY may stand, as ONE distinguishing Mark of the happy Talents and Abilities of the ingenious Author, as a —.” Pettiness descended into other insults unfit to print in the newspaper.
These exchanges demonstrate that Crouch and Powell, Hughes, and Company did not peruse each other’s publications solely in search of news items to reprint in their own. They also paid attention to advertisements, especially when their competitors marketed ancillary goods, like patent medicines, to supplement their revenues. These printers found themselves in competition to sell “Dr. KEYSER’S famous PILLS.” Rather than pursue their own marketing efforts, they chose to take umbrage at the strategies deployed by the other. Many purveyors of patent medicines stated in their advertisements that they did not need to offer additional information because the public was already so familiar with the product. Crouch may or may not have intended such an observation as a critique of Powell, Hughes, and Company’s advertisement. Whatever his intention, that was enough to garner a response that further escalated into a feud between rival printers hawking patent medicines.
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.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 29, 1772).
“The Necessity of altering the Day of their weekly Publication.”
It last only two weeks. On July 15, 1772, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford shifted the publication day of their weekly newspaper, the Pennsylvania Journal, from Thursdays to Wednesdays. That meant they circulated the Pennsylvania Journal a day earlier than David Hall and William Sellers distributed the Pennsylvania Gazette. In a notice on the first page, they explained that “A Great number of our friends, thinking that the publication of two Papers on the same day was rather inconvenient to the public, have solicited us to alter ours from Thursday to Wednesday.” Whether or not any friends played a role in the decision, the Bradfords aimed to scoop their competitor among both subscribers and advertisers.
They managed to do so for two weeks. On July 29, Hall and Sellers altered their publication day, inserting a notice in their own newspaper to announce that the “Publishers of the PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, being under the Necessity of altering the Day of their weekly Publication from Thursday to Wednesday, think it their Duty, on the Occasion, to express their grateful Acknowledgments of the public Favour and Encouragement, continued to them for so long a Series of Years past.” The printers indicated that the Bradfords forced their hand, making it necessary to change “the Day of publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette to Wednesday, that they might have an equal Chance with the Printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, to avail themselves of the Intelligence by the Posts, and the other usual Channels of Conveyance.” That was the only way for Hall and Sellers to “exert their utmost Abilities to merit [the public’s] Approbation” and serve their readers.
Did this change come to the attention of the Bradfords before Hall and Sellers distributed a new issue on a Wednesday instead of a Thursday? Perhaps. On July 22, they moved their notice about shifting the publication day to the third page, interspersing it among other advertisements, but on July 29, the day Hall and Sellers altered the schedule for the Pennsylvania Gazette, the Bradfords moved their notice back to the top of the first column on the first page of the Pennsylvania Journal. If they had an inkling that the two newspapers once again appeared on the same day, they may have wished to underscore that their new publication day at least meant that they had not lost any ground to their competitor. A week later, the Bradfords dropped their notice after the public witnessed the other newspaper follow their lead by adjusting the publication schedule. Hall and Sellers continued publishing their announcement that the Pennsylvania Gazette matched the recent change by the Pennsylvania Journal.
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.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Connecticut Courant (July 28, 1772).
“BOOKS, imported directly from LONDON.”
Booksellers Smith and Coit took out a full-page advertisement in the July 28, 1772, edition of the Connecticut Courant. Or did they?
A headline that extended four lines ran across the top of the final page, advising readers that “The following BOOKS, imported directly from LONDON, are to be sold cheap for Cash, by SMITH and COIT, At their Store in HARTFORD.” The booksellers provided a list of authors and titles, arranged in four columns with one item per line. They further aided prospective customers in navigating the list by organizing it according to genre, providing headings for each category, and alphabetizing the entries under Divinity; Law; Physic, Surgery, &c.; Schoolbooks; History; and Miscellany. This design allowed Smith and Coit to distribute the advertisement separately as a broadside book catalog, if they placed an order for job printing with Ebenezer Watson, the printer of the Connecticut Courant.
Smith and Coit may have intended to run a full-page advertisement, but another notice also appeared on the final page, that one printed in the right margin on the final page. To make the advertisement that William Jepson placed in the previous issue fit in the margin, either Watson or a compositor in his printing office rotated the type perpendicular to the other contents of the page and divided the notice into five columns of five or six lines each. A common strategy for squeezing content into the margins, that saved the time and energy of completely resetting the type.
Jepson’s advertisement could be easily removed. Indeed, it did not appear on the same page as Smith and Coit’s advertisement in the next edition of the Connecticut Courant. Instead, the booksellers had the entire page to themselves, a true full-page advertisement. Did Watson make the adjustment of his own volition? Or had Smith and Coit complained that Jepson’s notice intruded into their advertisement, its unusual format distracting from the impression they hoped to make with a full-page advertisement?
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 (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
**********
Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
“J. BAILEY. Cutler. from Sheffield.”
In the early 1770s, cutlers in New York competed with each other not only for customers but also in producing elaborate images to accompany their advertisements in the city’s newspapers. It began in the spring of 1771 with Bailey and Youle, “Cutlers for Sheffield,” running an advertisement with a woodcut depicting more than a dozen items made and sold at their shop, enhancing their list of “surgeons instruments, … knives, razors, shears, and scissors.” Not long after, Richard Sause followed their lead with an advertisement featuring a woodcut depicting more than a dozen items available at his shop. Two items, a knife and a sword, had his name on them, suggesting that he marked his wares so consumers would recall who produced them and, if satisfied with the quality and durability, buy from him again. In that regard, Sause improved on the image distributed by Bailey and Youle, although his competitors may have also marked their cutlery even if the woodcut in the newspaper did not indicate that was the case.
When Bailey and Youle dissolved their partnership a year later, Youle retained the woodcut and modified it to remove any reference to his former associate. Not long after Youle disseminated that image in the public prints, Lucas and Shephard, WHITESMITHS and CUTLERS, From BIRMINGHAM and SHEFFIELD,” published their own advertisement with a woodcut showcasing many of the items they made and sold. Bailey apparently considered that strategy effective for attracting customers (or at least not losing them to his competitors) because he devised his own woodcut that enclosed “J. BAILEY. Cutler. from Sheffield” and several cutlery items within a decorative border. The copy of his advertisement gave his location as “the Sign of the Cross Swords, the Corner House opposite the Merchant’s Coffee-House.” A pair of crossed swords appeared at the center of the woodcut. A second woodcut appeared at the end of the advertisement, under a nota bene that advised that Bailey “has now for sale fullers shears.” The cutler used the additional image to distinguish his notice from those of his competitors. All three advertisements ran in the July 27, 1772, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (Bailey’s on the third page, Youle’s on the first page of the supplement, and Lucas and Shephard’s on the second page of the supplement). Given the prevalence of images in advertisements placed by his competitors, Bailey may have considered it imperative to get his own woodcut depicting his wares into circulation among consumers in New York.
Left: New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 4, 1771); Right: Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
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-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
**********
Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 27, 1772).
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (July 23, 1772).
“Genteel Accommodations, civil Usage, and good Attendance may be depended on.”
When Robert Benson took over operations of “COLE’S and the GREENLAND COFFEE-HOUSE, in Ball Court, Cornhill,” in London in 1772, he placed advertisements in newspapers published in Charleston, South Carolina. Why did Benson advertise his new enterprise to colonizers on the other side of the Atlantic? Nic Butler explains that “[t]housands of prospective emigrants first learned about the Carolina Colony and booked passage to that distant land at a small coffee shop in the heart of London. From the 1670s to the 1830s, the Carolina Coffee House in Birchin Lane served as the epicenter for conversations about the colony, its business opportunities, and its residents.”
Benson introduced himself to readers in South Carolina as “BOB, WAITER from the CAROLINA.” For some, this might have been a reacquaintance. Merchants who visited London may have met Benson on their travels. Similarly, the affable Bob may have interacted with colonizers who passed through the Carolina Coffee House when they migrated to South Carolina. Several other coffeehouses in Cornhill also served as meeting places for exchanging information about faraway places, including the Virginia Coffee House, the Jamaica Coffee House, the Jerusalem Coffee House, and the African Coffee House.
Benson encouraged colonizers in South Carolina to consider Cole’s and the Greenland Coffee House as alternatives to others in Cornhill. Building on his experience at the Carolina Coffee House, he assured readers that “Particular Attention will be given to all Bills, Letters, and Messages” left at the establishments he operated. In addition, for any “GENTLEMEN” planning to visit London, Benson promised “Genteel Accommodations, civil Usage, and good Attendance.” Those accommodations included suppers every evening as well as a variety of wines and liquors to purchase “Wholesale and Retail.”
Entrepreneurs in England rarely placed advertisements in colonial American newspapers. In this instance, Benson apparently believed that he could cultivate a clientele among residents of South Carolina who had occasion to travel to London. Even for those who remained in the colonies, Benson aimed to have Cole’s and the Greenland Coffee House become destinations for correspondence, hoping this would prompt friends and associates of colonizers in South Carolina to spend time (and money) at his coffeehouse.
Learn more about “The Carolina Coffee House of London” and other coffeehouses by reading or listening to Nic Butler on the Charleston County Public Library’s Charleston Time Machine.
