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

“Our Advertising Customers, are desired for the future to send their Advertisements by Saturday Sunset.”

Benjamin Edes and John Gill, printers of the Boston-Gazette, exercised their prerogative as proprietors of the newspaper to place some notices about its operation at the top of the first column on the first page of the January 24, 1774, edition.  Doing so, they hoped, increased the likelihood that the customers they addressed would see them and take note.  To that end, they enclosed their first notice within a decorative border.  The printers declared, “ALL Persons indebted for this Paper, whose Accounts have been above 12 Months standing, are requested to make immediate Payment.”  Printers often extended credit to subscribers.  Some of them remained delinquent for years.

In another notice, Edes and Gill instructed that “Our Advertising Customers, are desired for the future to send their Advertisements by Saturday Sunset.”  Rather than a decorative border, a manicule and italic font called attention to this notice.  Edes and Gill published the Boston-Gazette on Mondays, but ordinances in colonial Boston prohibited working on Sundays.  Sunset occurred at 4:52 in the afternoon on the day the printers published this announcement.  Though that time has been standardized for modern time zones, it was early enough in the day that those laboring in the printing office could set type and finish printing the newspaper in the evening.  John Adams suggests that Edes and Gill may not have always abided the prohibition on working on Sundays.  On Sunday, September 3, 1769, he wrote in his diary that he attended a “Charity Lecture” and then “Spent the Remainder of the Evening and supped with Mr. Otis, in Company with Mr. Adams, Mr. Wm. Davis, and Mr. Jno. Gill.  The Evening spent in preparing for the Next Days Newspaper – a curios Employment.  Cooking up Paragraphs, Articles, Occurences, &c. – Working the political Engine!”  Things were in motion at Edes and Gill’s printing office on Sundays, at least sometimes!  Yet in the early 1770s some colonizers even complained about work undertaken on Saturday evenings.  Announcing that they accepted advertisements until sunset on Saturdays may have been Edes and Gill’s way of indicating that they completed most of their work by that time while also holding firm that they could labor into the evening if they wished.  Although they would not have used the phrase, it gave them plausible deniability about any intentions of working on Sundays.

In a third notice, the printers teased an item that would appear in the next edition.  They acknowledged that they “receiv’d THE REMEMB’RANCER … intended for this Day’s Paper,” yet chose to delay publication for a week.  The piece “publickly reveals very marvellous Practices of his Excellency, at the last Session of the General Assembly.”  Edes and Gill chose to hold off on embarrassing the governor, Thomas Hutchinson, “till next Week, when the Members of both Houses will be more generally in Town.”  The printers may have hoped that the anticipation would yield more sales for the next issue of the Boston-Gazette, though their primary goal seemed to be that as many people as possible, especially those who served in the assembly, would read the piece when issues circulated the following week.  It appeared as the first item on the first page of the January 31 edition.

Rather than opening the January 24 edition with news, editorials, or advertisements submitted by customers, Edes and Gill instead tended to the business of operating their newspaper first and then published other content.  They called on delinquent subscribers to settle accounts, directed advertisers when to submit their notices, and previewed a juicy letter that would appear in the next issue, giving their own notices a prominent place on the page.