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

“Sundry Advertisements, Articles of Intelligence, &c. omitted for want of room.”

On July 19, 1776, yet another printer informed readers that some items did not appear in that issue of his newspaper due to lack of space.  This time it was John Mycall in the Essex Journal and New-Hamnpshire Packet, published in Newburyport, Massachusetts.  He informed readers of “Sundry Advertisements, Articles of Intelligence, &c. omitted for want of room.”  Six days earlier, the Providence Gazette carried a similar notice: “[Advertisements omitted will be in our next.]”  A day before that, Timothy Green, the printer of the Connecticut Gazette, pledged that his newspaper “digested every material Occurrence that is come to Hand” even though it consisted of “only a Half Sheet Paper this Week.”  In each instance, the newspapers carrying those notices printed the Declaration of Independence for subscribers and other readers to examine for themselves.

In this case, the Declaration of Independence appeared as the first item on the first page of the Essex Journal, followed immediately by “A PROCLAMATION, For a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer” adopted by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in Watertown on July 4, 1776.  By July 19, almost every other newspaper published in New England had printed the Declaration of Independence, making the text of the document available to Mycall via an exchange network of printers.  Except for Solomon Southwick and the Newport Mercury, no printers adjusted their weekly publication schedule or published a supplement or extraordinary issue to disseminate the Declaration of Independence.  As a result, the founding document sometimes ran where space was available on the second or third page and other times had a prominent spot on the front page.  It seemingly depended on when a printer received a copy compared to when the next issue went to press.  The placement of the Declaration of Independence on the first page of the July 19, 1776, edition of the Essex Journal suggests that Mycall had a copy far enough in advance that he could have chosen to publish a supplement or extraordinary issue but instead opted to make it part of the standard issue.  The amount of space required to do so meant less room for “Sundry Advertisements, [and] Articles of Intelligence.”

The same day, Alexander Purdie made a curious and quite different decision about publishing the Declaration of Independence in his Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg.  Rather than print the entire document, he published an “Abstract from the minutes of the General Congress, of Thursday the 4th instant, declaring the United Colonies free and independent states.”  Purdie promised that the Declaration of Independence “will be published at full length in next week’s Gazette,” but he did not explain why he chose not to publish it in that issue.  The “Abstract” ran on the second page.  Purdie had enough space to include the entire document if he left out other “Articles of Intelligence” or “Sundry Advertisements.”  Instead, he explained that the “first part of the declaration is a recapitulation of injuries,” referring to the grievances against the king, “and it concludes as follows.”  The final three paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence ran in the center column on the second page of Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.

When they acquired copies of the Declaration of Independence, printers made decisions about when to publish it and whether to displace other content to make the document available to the public.  In most cases they did not deliver news of independence.  That spread via word of mouth more quickly than printing presses, but the proliferation of printed copies of the Declaration of Independence in American newspapers allowed the public to engage with the rationale and results for themselves.