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

“THE Publisher of this Paper being determined to remove to Boston during the Course of next Week.”

In the October 21, 1776, edition of the Boston-Gazette and Country Journal, Benjamin Edes announced his intention to return to Boston.  For more than a year, Edes had been printing the Boston-Gazette in nearby Watertown.  For two decades, Edes and John Gill published the Boston-Gazette in Boston, acquiring the newspaper from Samuel Kneeland and distributing their first issue on April 7, 1755.  During the imperial crisis, the Boston-Gazette gained a reputation for supporting the American cause.  Edes and Gill printed their final issue on Apri 17, 1775.  Two days later, the Revolutionary War began with the battles at Lexington and Concord.  Edes and Gill suspended publication of the Boston-Gazette.  At the time, every other newspaper in Boston ceased or suspended publication or moved out of the city.  Isaiah Thomas, for instance, moved the Massachusetts Spy to Worcester.  During the siege of Boston, Edes and Gill dissolved their partnership.  Edes relocated to Watertown, where the Massachusetts Provincial Congress met, and continued printing the Boston-Gazette there on June 5, 1775.  He retained the title and numbering following a suspension that lasted nearly two months.

After the British evacuated from Boston in March 1776, Edes and the Boston-Gazette remained in Watertown for more than half a year.  In late October, the printer ran advertisement announcing that he was “determined to remove to Boston during the Course of next Week.”  He hoped to maintain as many subscribers as possible, yet he also requested that “all those it will not accommodate to continue [as] his Customers there, to settle their arrears” to keep his ledgers in order.  Edes did not manage to “remove to Boston” within the week, but he did make it there within two weeks of running his notice.  The October 28 edition of the Boston-Gazette was the last one to feature “Printed by BENJAMIN EDES, in WATERTOWN” in the masthead.  Keeping to the weekly publication schedule, he printed the next issue in Boston on November 4, 1776.

Since December 21, 1719, the Boston-Gazette had been printed in Boston.  Initially, it had been printed by James Franklin and published by William Brooker.  The newspaper changed hands several times over the next five decades, but it remained in continuous publication.  It was one of the few American newspapers that did not suspend publication while the Stamp Act was in effect, yet the outbreak of hostilities caused Edes and Gill to dissolve their partnership and, after a brief hiatus, Edes continued the newspapers in Watertown.  The war continued, but Edes prepared to return the Boston-Gazette to Boston in late October 1776.