November 19

November 19, 2022January 25, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update George Washington, Mourning Borders, Real Estate, Rind's Virginia Gazette, William Nelson

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

*Virginia Gazette* [Rind] (November 19, 1772).

“A TRACT of six hundred acres, including about two hundred of cleared land.”

George Washington possessed a “TRACT of six hundred acres … lying on the north side of Rappahannock river, opposite to the lower end of Fredericksburg” that he wished to sell, rent, or exchange “for back lands in any of the northern counties” of Virginia in the fall of 1772. To that end, he ran advertisements in the Virginia Gazette published by Alexander Purdie and John Dixon and the Virginia Gazette published by William, calling on interested parties to “enquire of Col. Lewis in Fredericksburg” or himself in Fairfax.

Thick black lines appeared on either side of Washington’s advertisement in the November 19 edition of Rind’s Virginia Gazette, but those lines had nothing to do with the advertisement itself. Instead, those lines adorned all four pages of that issue, separating columns of news and advertising on each page. Readers recognized them as mourning borders, a common practice among eighteenth-century printers upon the deaths of prominent and influential people. When readers first glimpsed the front page of the newspaper, they would have known that it contained news about the death of someone important. In addition to the black borders between the columns, Rind also inserted thick black borders into the masthead. Similar borders helped readers find news of the death of “the Honourable WILLIAM NELSON, Esquire, President of his Majesty’s Council of Virginia” when they turned to the second page. Those borders ran above and below the announcement of Nelson’s death. In contrast, a shorter item about the death of William Templeman, a merchant in Fredericksburg, did not feature mourning borders above and below, only to the sides like the rest of the contents of that edition. Many readers in Williamsburg, the capital of the colony and the site of the printing office, would have heard the news before receiving the newspaper, but for readers at a distance the mourning borders immediately alerted them to peruse the issue for a certain kind of news.

In that issue of the Virginia Gazette, the news of Nelson’s death had an impact on the appearance of Washington’s real estate notice and every other advertisement. Even readers who had previously heard the news could not read any of the notices without encountering a reminder of that significant event.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 19, 1772

November 19, 2022January 18, 2023 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.

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Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (November 19, 1772).

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New-York Journal (November 19, 1772).

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*South-Carolina Gazette* (November 19, 1772).

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*Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette* (November 19, 1772).

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*Virginia Gazette* [Purdie and Dixon] (November 19, 1772).

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November 18

November 18, 2022November 14, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Apology, John Elwell, Marcey Elwell, Pennsylvania Gazette, Response to Advertisement, Runaway Wife

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Gazette (November 18, 1772).

“I AM very sorry for advertising my Wife.”

Marital discord in the Elwell household spilled over into the public prints in the fall of 1772. In a notice dated October 20, John Elwell of “Salem County, West New-Jersey” revealed some of those difficulties to the readers of the Pennsylvania Gazette. His advertisement ran a week later in the October 28 edition, stating that “MARCEY ELWELL, my Wife, hath eloped from me, and I am apprehensive that she will run me in Debt.” Accordingly, he placed the notice “to forewarn all Persons not to trust her on my Account, as I am determined not to pay any Debts of her contracting, after the Date hereof.” Elwell used formulaic language that appeared in many similar advertisements published throughout the colonies. As in almost every other instance, the notice told only a portion of the story without any commentary from the wife who reportedly “eloped” from her husband. Only in rare instances did women publish rebuttals.

Marcey Elwell was not one of those wives who found the resources to run her own advertisement, but a short time later her husband apparently had a change of heart. In a notice dated November 2, he rescinded his previous statement. “I AM very sorry for advertising my Wife,” he wrote, “it being done through the Heat of Passion and Inconsideration; which I now retract.” It took longer for that advertisement to reach the printing office in Philadelphia than the initial one. The updated notice ran in the November 18 edition, more than two weeks after John wrote it. By that time, news that the Elwells reconciled may have spread via word of mouth in their local community. The second newspaper notice served as an update and conclusion for the broader public, alerting shopkeepers, artisans, and others that they could once again do business with Marcey. Although John did not discuss the particulars in either advertisement, the second notice may have also been part of his penance in convincing his wife to return to him. The husbands who placed such advertisements sought to shape the narratives about what occurred in their households, though readers knew that the wives had their own perspectives about what happened. Marcey’s side of the story did not appear in print, but her husband did make a rare public acknowledgment that it was he who had given in to “the Heat of Passion and Inconsideration.” Few wives received such apologies in the public prints.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 18, 1772

November 18, 2022November 4, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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

*Pennsylvania Journal* (November 18, 1772).

November 17

November 17, 2022November 18, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Categories of Merchandise, Choice, Discount, Easy to Navigate, Format, Headers, Samuel Gordon, South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal

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

*South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (November 17, 1772).

“A large and valuable Assortment of Goods.”

Samuel Gordon promoted the “large and valuable Assortment of Goods” he sold at the “IRISH LINEN WARE-HOUSE” in an advertisement in the November 17, 1772, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal. Contrary to the name of his store, Gordon’s inventory extended far beyond textiles. To aid prospective customers in perusing his notice, he identified more than two dozen categories of merchandise, including “MILLINARY,” “SHOES,” “HOSIERY,” “CHINA,” “GLASS,” “LOOKING-GLASSES,” “STATIONARY,” and “PEWTER.” Each of those categories appeared in capitals, indented to form a new paragraph, and followed by a short description or list of goods. The format likely made Gordon’s advertisement easier for readers to navigate than others that featured dense blocks of text. Alexander Gillon’s advertisement, for instance, occupied a similar amount of space and included a similar number of items, but nothing about the format differentiated any of the goods from others.

In contrast, Gordon deployed short passages that invited prospective customers to engage with the various kinds of merchandise he stocked. For “HATS,” he had a “choice of mens fine fashionable hats, felt ditto, ladies riding ditto.” He did not go into greater detail, but instead encouraged readers to imagine the choices and then visit his store to see for themselves. The “STATIONARY” items included a “great choice of pocket-books, quills, wax, wafer, paper of different qualities, and a complete set of large books, viz. ledger, journal, and waste-book.” Gordon composed a longer blurb for “CUTLERY,” mentioning a “great choice of knives and forks, ditto in cases, razors, ditto in cases, … carving-knives, pen-knives,” and related items. He repeatedly used the word “choice” to signal to prospective customers that they ultimately made decisions according to their own taste and budget rather than settling for whatever happened to be on the shelves. Similarly, he used variations that included “large assortment,” “different sorts,” “large quantity,” and “variety.” Many blurbs concluded with “&c.” (an abbreviation for et cetera), suggesting that far more choices awaited those who entered Gordon’s store.

Gordon did not rely on choice alone in marketing his wares. He also offered a discount to “Merchants who may want any of the above articles.” He extended credit, while promising a “discount of Ten per cent” to merchants who paid their accounts in January. Gordon likely intended that the carefully formatted list of wares would spark interest and then the discount in the nota bene would seem like too good of a bargain for merchants to ignore. The design of the advertisement suggests that Gordon carefully considered his marketing strategy rather than simply publishing an announcement that he had imported goods for sale.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 17, 1772

November 17, 2022November 4, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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

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*Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (November 17, 1772).

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November 16

November 16, 2022January 25, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Furrier, John Siemon, John Siemon and Company, New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, Woodcut, Woodcut in Multiple Newspapers

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

*New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (November 16, 1772).

“SABLE MUFFS and TIPPETS.”

When furrier John Siemon returned to New York in the fall of 1772 after having spent several months in Philadelphia, he announced his intention to remain in the busy port with advertisements in at least two of the newspapers published in the city, the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and the New-York Journal. (Unfortunately, the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy has not been digitized, making it more difficult to consult.) Siemon inserted identical copy in the two newspapers, first in the New-York Journal on November 12 and then in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury on November 16, though the compositors in the printing offices made different decisions about the format of the advertisements.

Despite differences in typography, an image of a muff remained consistent between the notices in the two newspapers. Upon examining digitized editions, it appears that the printing offices used the same woodcut, which suggests that Siemon invested some effort in having that woodcut transferred from one printing office to another. He may have retrieved it himself or he may have made arrangements with the printers to exchange the woodcut. Either way, that resulted in some inconvenience in the printing offices, especially since Siemon’s advertisement did not run just once. A notation at the end of his advertisement in the New-York Journal, “58 61,” indicated that he initially intended for the notice to run for four issues from “NUMB. 1558” to “NUMB. 1561.” According to the colophon, that was a standard run: “Five Shillings, four Weeks.” The advertisement actually ended up running through “NUMB. 1566” on January 7, 1773, for a total of nine consecutive weeks.

In contrast, Siemon’s advertisement ran in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury for only four weeks. After the first insertion, the image no longer adorned the notice, further evidence that the furrier commissioned only one woodcut rather than one for each printing office. After moving the woodcut from one printing office to another and back again when he first began advertising in the middle of November, Siemon may have decided that he did not have the time to oversee its transfer between the two printing offices twice a week. Alternately, the printers may have made the decision for the furrier, determining that adding and removing the woodcut from type already set each time they took an issue to press was too disruptive. Either way, Siemon likely had to settle for the image appearing in his advertisements the first time they ran in each newspaper, drawing attention to his return to New York, and then continuing in only one of those publications.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 16, 1772

November 16, 2022November 11, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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

*Boston Evening-Post* (November 16, 1772).

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*Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (November 16, 1772).

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*Pennsylvania Packet* (November 16, 1772).

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November 15

November 15, 2022January 19, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Forged Pass, Giles Samuel Sr., Masters of Vessels, Ned an Enslaved Man who Attempted to Liberate Himself, Runaway Slave, Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon]

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

*Virginia Gazette* [Purdie and Dixon] (November 12, 1772).

“NED, a Mulatto Fellow belonging to me, intends procuring a Passage in some Vessel or other to get out of the Colony.”

Alexander Purdie and John Dixon generated significant revenue for the Virginia Gazette by publishing advertisements about enslaved people. The November 12, 1774, edition, for instance, carried fourteen such advertisements. Five of them presented enslaved men, women, and children for sale. The remainder concerned enslaved people who attempted to liberate themselves by running away from the colonizers who held them in bondage. Four of the advertisements provided description of fugitives seeking freedom and offered rewards for their capture and return, including one about Edith who escaped from her enslaver “upwards of two Years ago.” Jailers published four other advertisements in which they described Black men “COMMITTED” to their jails and called on their enslavers “to pay Charges, and fetch [them] away.”

The final advertisement also concerned enslaved people who attempted to liberate themselves, but it did not document an attempt already made. Instead, Giles Samuel, Sr., sought to preemptively foil any plans made by Ned, “a Mulatto Fellow belonging to [him].” The enslaver confided that he had “great reason to believe” that Ned “intends procuring a Passage in some Vessel or other to get out of the Colony.” Samuel believed that Ned had been working toward that goal by “endeavouring to obtain a Pass” in order that he “may pass for a Freeman” and make good on his escape. In response, the enslaver made a declaration that appeared in many advertisements that described enslaved men and women who liberated themselves: “I hereby caution all Masters of Vessels from carrying him off at their Peril.” By “Peril,” Samuel did not mean that Ned posed any danger but rather that the enslaver would invoke laws designed to punish anyone who assisted enslaved people in liberating themselves. Colonizers understood something that the phrase “liberating themselves” does not fully capture. Black men and women who liberated themselves by running away and remaining hidden or beyond the reach of their enslavers often did so with the aid of family, friends, and others in extended communities.

That made some enslavers all the more vigilant. Samuel suspected that Ned already had a plan in motion. Rather than wait for the enslaved man to run away and then run advertisements, Samuel issued a warning to anyone who might aid him in acquiring a forged pass or leaving the colony. In so doing, he deployed the power of the press to maintain his authority over the enslaved man, one more factor that worked to the advantage of enslavers in the era of the American Revolution.

November 14

November 14, 2022January 25, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Baltimore, Baltimore Coffee House and Tavern, Pennsylvania Chronicle, Sarah Chilton, Stagecoach

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

*Pennsylvania Chronicle* (November 14, 1772).

“BALTIMORE COFFEE-HOUSE and TAVERN.”

In the fall of 1772, William Goddard proposed publishing a newspaper in Baltimore as soon as he recruited enough subscribers. Robert Hodge and Frederick Shober also announced their intention to establish a newspaper in Baltimore. Hodge and Shober left the city just a couple of months later. Goddard did not take the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser to press until August 1773. Until then, the town did not have its own newspaper. Instead, residents relied on the Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, and the various newspapers published in Philadelphia as their local newspapers.

That meant that advertisers in Baltimore sent their notices to printing offices in other towns. Goddard, the printer of the Pennsylvania Chronicle, may have determined that Baltimore could support its own newspaper in part as a result of the number of advertisements he received from that town. The November 14, 1772, edition of the Pennsylvania Chronicle, for instance, carried several advertisements that concerned Baltimore, including two on the front page. In one, Sarah Chilton invited prospective patrons to the “BALTIMORE COFFEE-HOUSE and TAVERN,” an establishment she recently opened in a “large and commodious brick house” and kept stocked with “excellent liquors and other necessaries.” In another, John Gordon described Robert Lewis, an indentured servant who ran away before his contract ended, and offered a reward for his capture and return to Gordon’s residence on Gay Street in Baltimore. Recognizing both Lewis’s mobility and the reach of the Pennsylvania Chronicle, Gordon adjusted the award depending on whether Lewis was “within ten miles” of Baltimore, “out of the county,” or “out of the province.” A third advertisement promoted a “STAGE from the city of Philadelphia to Baltimore-Town” and provided a schedule, including the transfers between the “stage-waggon” and the “stage-boat,” for travel in both directions.

Even if Baltimore had its own newspaper in 1772, each of these advertisements would have been of interest to many readers of the Pennsylvania Chronicle in Philadelphia and other towns. The coffee house and the stage, however, also testified to the growth of Baltimore as a commercial center that had the potential to support its own newspaper, especially if a publisher could enlist merchants and shopkeepers to advertise their wares and other residents to submit the various kinds of notices that comprised a significant portion of the content of newspapers published in other cities and towns.

	April 18 \| The Adver… on March 31
	April 17 \| The Adver… on August 29
	April 3 \| The Advert… on June 24
	April 16 \| The Adver… on March 13
	Loyalist Trails 2024… on April 12

The Adverts 250 Project

An Exploration of Advertising During the Era of the American Revolution, 250 Years Ago This Week

Month: November 2022

Slavery Advertisements Published November 19, 1772

Slavery Advertisements Published November 18, 1772

Slavery Advertisements Published November 17, 1772

Slavery Advertisements Published November 16, 1772