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

“Brown Bread with Liberty, will please more, than white with Slavery.”

No advertisements appeared in the October 3, 1775, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette, though the printer, Daniel Fowle, inserted a notice addressing why that was the case.  “The only Apology the Publisher can make for this Day’s Paper,” he stated, is that he could not procure any other.”  He referred to the size of the broadsheet.  The newspaper usually consisted of four pages with three columns on each page, but since hostilities commenced at Lexington and Concord Fowle’s paper supply had been disrupted.  Many issues consisted of only two pages, including the one from the previous week.  Despite having fewer pages, the masthead for the September 26 edition featured an additional note that proudly exclaimed, “This Paper compleats the 19th Year of the New-Hampshire GAZETTE, AND HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.”  The newspaper began its twentieth year with a two-page edition that had only two columns on each page.  Given the limited space, Fowle published news and excluded advertisements.

Fowle hoped that the problem “may be remedied another Week,” but “if not; brown Bread with Liberty, will please more, than white with Slavery.”  Like many other printers, he had been a consistent supporter of the American cause.  Even so, he added his “hope [that] the present unnatural Contest will soon be determine, and governmental Affairs operate in the good old Way.”  In the fall of 1775, most colonizers still sought a redress of grievances from Parliament.  Within a year, however, the Continental Congress would declare independence and the war that started at Lexington and Concord would not end until 1783.  Those “governmental Affairs” would never again “operate in the good old Way.”  Fowle did, however, manage to acquire paper for the next issue of the New-Hampshire Gazette.  The October 10 edition once again had advertisements, including one from Mrs. Hooper, a milliner, and another insertion of John Williams’s invitation to his “House of Entertainment … at the Sign of the SALUTATION.”  It was not the last time, however, that Fowle would experience a disruption in his paper supply during the war.