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

“Lists of Public Officers; Members of the Commons House of Assembly; Days for holding Courts in South-Carolina and Georgia.”

Charles Crouch, the printer of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, also published almanacs.  Most newspaper printers did so.  Almanacs, those popular pamphlets, represented an important revenue stream for any printing office, yet publishing them could be a tricky business.  Printers aimed to produce enough copies to meet demand, but not so many that they had a significant number of leftovers that cut into their profits.

As January 1774 neared its end, Crouch seemed to have a surplus of “THOMAS MORE’s ALMANACK, for the Year 1774” that he needed to move out of his printing office on Elliott Street in Charleston.  On January 25, he ran an advertisement that offered the almanacs for sale “Wholesale and Retail, with good Allowance to those who take a Quantity.”  In other words, he offered a discount to shopkeepers, peddlers, and others who bought in volume.  He placed the notice at the top of the center column on the first page, enhancing its visibility in that issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  The introduction to the advertisement proclaimed, “Just published,” but that probably was not the case.  Crouch previously inserted the same advertisement as the new year approached.  As was common practice, he likely inserted the notice once again, type already set, without making revisions.

With each passing day, some of the contents became obsolete, including “the Sun and Moon’s Rising and Setting,” “Length of Days and Nights,” and “Judgment of the Weather.”  Other items, however, remained relevant.  Crouch relied on these “useful Particulars” in marketing the almanac.  Its pages contained “Lists of Public Officers; Members of the Commons House of Assembly; [and] Days for holding Courts in South-Carolina and Georgia.”  For those who might have occasion to travel to other colonies by land rather than by ship, the almanac included “Descriptions of the Roads throughout the Continent.”  Throughout their advertising campaigns, printers highlighted the various contents of the almanacs they published and sold.  Each year, the “useful Particulars” beyond what many described as the “usual Astronomical Calculations” (though Crouch did not happen to use that phrase) became increasingly important in marketing almanacs in January, February, and March.