What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“All Gentlemen Seamen and Marines, willing to serve their Country … are desired to call on me.”
A variety of advertisements ran in the December 8, 1775, edition of the Connecticut Gazette. Some marketed consumer goods and services, one described an indentured servant who ran away, one offered a “convenient Dwelling-House for Sale,” and a couple concerned strayed livestock. The advertisement that appeared first after the news, however, was a recruiting notice. A thick black line helped to draw attention to it, though that visual element that signified mourning was part of the memorial to “Mrs. FAITH HUNTINGTON, the late amiable Consort of Col. JEDEDIAH HUNTINGTON of Norwich … and greatly beloved Daughter of the Honorable Governor [Jonathan] TRUMBULL,” the only governor who supported the American cause at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The memorial attributed Huntington’s death to the distress she experienced during her husband’s absence from their home while he dedicated himself to military service, declaring that the “Authors of American Oppression and the public Calamity, are accountable for her death.” That assertion may have helped rally readers to respond to the recruiting notice that appeared immediately after the memorial. “All Gentlemen Seamen and Marines, willing to serve their Country under the Direction of the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, in the glorious Cause of LIBERTY,” it proclaimed, “are desired to call on me at New-London, where suitable Encouragement will be offered for said Service.” Dudley Saltonstall signed the notice.
Who was Dudley Saltonstall? The finding aid for the Dudley Saltonstall Papers at the Penobscot Marine Museum notes that Saltonstall “sailed as a privateer during the Seven Years’ War. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, he was one of the first men commissioned by Connecticut as a Navy captain.” His brother-in-law, Silas Deane, a delegate to the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental Congress, recommended Saltonstall. He also had a career as a slave trader. In 1779, he had command of an expedition “sent to dislodge the British from Castine, Maine.” The Penobscot Expedition resulted in failure, the entire American fleet lost, and Saltonstall court martialed and dismissed from the Continental Navy. Although Saltonstall is now best known for the Penobscot Expedition, at the time he placed this recruiting notice in the Connecticut Gazette he was putting together a crew for other ventures. A few months later, he sailed for the Bahamas to acquire gunpowder. The fleet captured Nassau, but only after the governor moved most of the gunpowder.