What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“A NEW WEEKLY PAPER ENTITLED The FREEMAN’s JOURNAL, OR New-Hampshire GAZETTE.”
A year after the battles at Lexington and Concord, Benjamin Dearborn issued “PROPOSALS, FOR PRINTING BY SUBSCRIPTION … A NEW WEEKLY PAPER ENTITLED The FREEMAN’s JOURNAL, OR New-Hampshire GAZETTE.” Dated April 20, 1776, the subscription proposals appeared in the April 26 edition of the Essex Journal, printed in Newburyport, Massachusetts, though they may have circulated separately as well. Dearborn intended to publish the Freeman’s Journal in Portsmouth, making it the only newspaper printed in the colony since Daniel Fowle suspended the New-Hampshire Gazette earlier in the year. The printer asserted that “As soon as a sufficient number of Subscribers appear, the first number will be publish’d.” A month later, he distributed the first issue on May 25.
The title of the Freeman’s Journal made the editorial stance clear. So did the explanation that Dearborn gave for establishing the newspaper: “As the Publisher determines to use his utmost efforts to serve the PUBLIC, and the GLORIOUS CAUSE they are so ardently, so unitedly engaged in, he flatters himself he shall meet with their friendly encouragement.” He took on this service despite the “extraordinary expences which necessarily attend the Printing Business at this time,” simultaneously asking prospective subscribers to “excuse the publication of half a sheet, sometimes,” when “accidents … prevent supplying our kind customers with a whole sheet.” During the first year of the war, shortages of paper, fears of impending attacks by British forces, post riders arriving behind schedule, and other “accidents” disrupted publication of the newspapers in New England and beyond.
The “CONDITIONS” in Dearborn’s subscription proposals outlined the expectations for the printer and subscribers. A subscription cost “Eight Shillings Lawful Money per year, (exclusive of postage),” with half due immediately and the other half due in six months. Newspaper printers often extended generous credit to subscribers, but circumstances did not permit Dearborn to do so for the Freeman’s Journal. He pledged, “Advertisements impartially inserted at the customary price,” though he did not specify what that was. He apparently expected that prospective advertisers knew the going rate for running notices in newspapers in the region. He did declare that advertisements had “to be paid on receiving them.” The printer did not allow any credit for advertisements.
New issues would circulate “every Monday morning” for as long as “the post arrives on Fridays.” That allowed time for Dearborn to peruse other newspapers to select items to reprint in the Freeman’s Journal, sift through his own correspondence, and collaborate with others who received letters containing news. The printer would collate “all authentic domestic intelligence worth notice; together with the most material Extracts from the Southern and other papers.” He also solicited “[i]nteresting, instructive, and entertaining Poetry Speculations,” presumably for “Poet’s Corner,” a standard feature in many colonial newspapers, that he would publish “gratis” with “grateful acknowledgments for the favour.”
Dearborn accepted subscriptions at his printing office in Portsmouth. John Mycall, the printer of the Essex Journal, also gathered subscriptions at the printing office in Newburyport. Dearborn also expected that “most of the Printers on the Continent” would forward any subscriptions they received, signaling to the public that he was part of an expansive network that exchanged news for the benefit of “the PUBLIC, and the GLORIOUS CAUSE.” Despite the upheavals of the war (or perhaps because of them), Dearborn and other printers established new newspapers during the summer of 1776.