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

“Thomas Russell, Taylor from Boston … has opened Shop in Watertown.”

Benjamin Edes, a Patriot printer, moved the Boston-Gazette to Watertown following the battles at Lexington and Concord.  He was not the only colonizer on the move during the siege of Boston at the beginning of the Revolutionary War.  General Thomas Gage, the governor, and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress negotiated an agreement that allowed Loyalists to enter the city and Patriots and others to depart.  Each could take whatever effects they could transport, except for firearms and ammunition.  Many residents of Boston left the city for other towns and cities, some of them placing advertisements to introduce themselves to their new communities and announce their occupations to prospective clients and customers.  In the late spring and summer of 1775, the description “from Boston” took on new meaning.

While some of those refugees headed to other colonies, Thomas Russell, a “Taylor from Boston,” moved only a short distance to Watertown.  Upon arriving, he placed an advertisement in the Boston-Gazette to inform “his Town and Country Customers, That he has opened Shop in Watertown, opposite Mr. Stutson’s, Hatter, near the Bridge.”  Although framed as an update for his current customers, Russell’s advertisement also signaled to all readers that he considered himself a “Steady Friend to America,” as Edes described a correspondent in the column to the left of the notice, rather than a Tory who embraced the protection of British regulars and supported the policies enacted by Parliament.  Just above that piece, Edes relayed an account from New York about a colonizer taken into custody “who it is said had been privately inlisting men to serve under General Gage, against their country.”  Russell, in contrast, had refused to remain in Boston and lend any kind of support to the general and his officers or the residents who approved of them.  Instead, he hoped that his “Town” customers who had also departed the city would seek his services in Watertown.  Similarly, he hoped that “Country Customers,” whether they previously hired him or not, would visit his shop.