Daily Advert Update

June 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (June 5, 1776).

“A NEW SYSTEM OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE.”

Robert Aitken’s advertisement for “A NEW SYSTEM OF MILITARY DISCIPLINE, FOUNDED UPON PRINCIPLE,” filled half a column on the first page of the June 5, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette.  It featured an introduction to the work, an overview of the contents, and an address “To the PUBLIC.”  It was the newest military manual among the proliferation of such works published in the colonies, especially in Philadelphia, in 1775 and 1776.

In the introduction, Aitken, a printer and bookseller, announced the publication and sale of the book, giving the title and listing the author as “A GENERAL OFFICER.”  That matched the title page, though historians have identified Richard Lambart, the Earl of Cavan, as the author.  Aitken promoted some of the material aspects of the manual: “Printed with a new type, on a good paper, in one octavo volume.”  His advertisement reiterated the price printed on the title page: “Price in boards One Dollar, bound Ten Shillings.”

Many newspaper advertisements for books reproduced lengthy subtitles or a list of contents that appeared on the title page.  This manual, however, had a separate table of contents on the final page.  Aitken reformatted that table of contents into a paragraph about each chapter.  He aimed to demonstrate to prospective buyers the various subjects covered, perhaps hoping that seeing the topics associated with the “duty of the Corporal,” “the “Duty of the Serjeant,” and the “Duty and instructions of the Adjutant” would entice “young officers” with little practical experience.  In addition to those chapters, the manual included a chapter on dress, arms, and accoutrements and a chapter on the “exercise as it is to be performed by signal or word of command from the major or from any other officer.”

The address “To the PUBLIC” required a little more work on the part of the printer, though Aitken did not compose it by himself.  Instead, he went through the preface, selected key passages from the General Officer’s descriptions of the purpose of each chapter in the manual, and made minor revisions to string them together into a summary of what readers would encounter when they put the New System of Military Discipline to use.  Aitken did add a final paragraph that he apparently wrote as a final appeal to prospective customers: “This work is written upon a new plan, and is peculiarly adapted for the use of young officers, shewing the particular duties of each, and the most easy method of training their men in order to become expert soldiers.”

As the war continued, Aitken believed that a market existed for yet another military manual, though he did not consider that enough that merely announcing its publication would yield sales.  Instead, Aitken designed his advertisement to boost existing demand as colonizers prepared for an uncertain future.

June 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (June 4, 1776).

“Impowering the Directors to remove the books and effects of the said company.”

Andrew Robeson had an urgent message for members of the Library Company of Philadelphia.  In an advertisement in the June 4, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, he informed them that a “General Meeting” held on May 30 lacked a quorum for undertaking the important business of “impowering the Directors to remove the books and effects of the said company” if circumstances warranted.  The directors apparently anticipated a possible attack on Philadelphia and occupation of the city by British forces.  If such an event did occur, they wanted to see to the safety of the Library Company’s books.  As Robeson explained in the call to the meeting that ran in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on May 28, the directors sought the advice of the members to “determine on the place where the [books and effects of the Library Company] shall be deposited in case any future event should render that measure necessary.”

Robeson, the secretary of the Library Company, lamented “the number of members met not being competent to the passing of a law” or a motion giving the directors the authority to make such decisions.  Instead, those present “agreed to adjourn until Thursday the sixth day of June … when the members are requested to attend either in person or by proxy, to the consider of the propriety” of the matter.  He hoped that a new round of advertisements and the increasing urgency of the situation would convince members to attend or arrange for others to cast votes on their behalf.  To improve the chances of achieving a quorum at the next meeting, Robeson also inserted the notice in the June 1 edition of thePennsylvania Ledger, the June 3 edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, and the June 5 editions of the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal.  He did not run the notice in Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote, but it did appear in every other newspaper printed in Philadelphia at the time.  Robeson hoped that such a proliferation of notices would bring the meeting to the attention of members and convince them to attend.  The directors exercised good foresight in making contingency plans.  The following year, British forces began an occupation of the city on September 26, 1777, and remained until the spring of 1778.

June 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Norwich Packet (June 3, 1776).

“Good Wool-Cards, by the dozen or single Pair, on very reasonable Terms.”

Readers who perused the June 3, 1776, edition of the Norwich Packet from the first page to the last page first encountered advertisements on the third page, starting with a notice from Ebenezer Loomis, “CARD-MAKER.”  That Loomis’s advertisement appeared first was likely an accident rather than a deliberate decision made by the compositor or an arrangement made by the advertiser when he submitted the copy to the printing office.  After all, Loomis’s notice did not have such a privileged place when it ran at the bottom of a column in the next issue of the Norwich Packet.  The compositor placed it where it would fit.

No matter where his advertisement appeared in the newspaper, Loomis wanted readers to take note of the product he made and the service he performed in support of the American cause.  Not every purveyor of goods and services used their occupation as a secondary headline to draw attention to their advertisements, but the “CARD-MAKER” did so and increased the visibility of his venture for readers who might not otherwise pause to read the paragraph that followed.  Those who wanted to know more learned that Loomis “carries on the Business of Card-Making, in all its Branches … in Norwich-Town” when they read the short paragraph below the headlines that gave his name and occupation.  Those “Wool-Cards” were small paddles with fine wire teeth used to separate and straighten the fibers, making wool easier to spin.  They were essential tools for producing textiles, an endeavor that gained in economic and political significance due to nonimportation agreements adopted during the imperial crisis and the disruptions caused by the Revolutionary War.  The eighth article of Continental Association, for instance, declared that “we will, in our several Stations, encourage Frugality, Economy, and Industry; and promote Agriculture, Arts, and the Manufactures of this Country, especially that of Wool.”  That meant more than raising sheep.  It also meant producing equipment, such as cards, spinning wheels, and looms, for processing wool and making textiles.  Loomis did his part in that effort, making and selling “good Wool-Cards, by the dozen or single Pair, on very reasonable Terms.”

June 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

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

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (June 1, 1776).

“This Gazette … though small, contains all the material Intelligence that came to Hand this Week.”

The June 1, 1776, edition of John Dixon and William Hunter’s Virginia Gazette looked different than previous issues and opened with an explanation from the printers.  That newspaper usually consisted of four pages of three columns each with a large masthead at the top of the first page.  In addition to the title, date, names of the printers, and issue number, the usual masthead declared that the newspaper contained “THE FRESHEST ADVICES, BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.”  Another line in the masthead proclaimed, “IN CIVITATE LIBERA LINGUAM MENTEMQUE LIBERAS ESSE DESERE” or “In a free state, there should be freedom of speech and thought.”  For a final layer, an advertisement for subscriptions, paid notices, and job printing ran across the bottom of the masthead.  An image depicting the arms of the monarch, similar to the one previously used by Alexander Purdie in the masthead of his Virginia Gazette, appeared in the center of Dixon and Hunter’s standard masthead.

The latest edition of their newspaper, however, consisted of four pages with two columns per page on a smaller sheet.  Rather than a masthead with five layers of text serving different purposes, a streamlined masthead gave the title on one line and the date, number, city, and names of the printers on the second line.  No image appeared in that masthead.  Subscribers could not help but notice that Dixon and Hunter’s Virginia Gazette had a new size and format.  Anticipating what kinds of reactions that might cause, the printers opened with a notice to readers: “THE Printers humbly hope that the present Scarcity of paper will sufficiently apologize for the Size of this Gazette.”  They tried to mollify their customers, asserting that the June 1 edition, “though small, contains all the material Intelligence that came to Hand this Week.”  They did not, however, make any sort of acknowledgment that some advertisements may have been omitted for lack of space.  “A considerable Supply of Paper is daily expected from NEW YORK and PHILADELPHIA,” the printers explained before ending with a promise.  “When it arrives, our Customers shall be served as formerly.”  It was not the first time during the Revolutionary War that colonizers in Virginia did not have access to as much news and advertising in the public prints as they had come to expect.  In January 1776, for instance, John Pinkney, the printer of another Virginia Gazette, ran an advertisement in Dixon and Hunter’s newspaper to explain that he missed an issue due to “a Disappointment in receiving Paper from the Northward.”  Dixon and Hunter faced the same challenge.  The following week they still did not have a new supply of paper, but they doubled the number of smaller pages to eight to serve their readers and their advertisers.

June 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Freeman’s Journal (June 1, 1776).

“RAN AWAY … a NEGRO MAN, named Seneca.”

Benjamin Dearborn published the first issue of the Freeman’s Journal or New-Hampshire Gazette on May 25, 1776.  In a note that followed his address to readers, he “requested that those who would have advertisements, &c. [including letters and poetry] inserted in this paper will send them” to the printing office in Portsmouth “before the Post arrives, (which is on Friday afternoon) as it’s proposed to publish the paper on Saturday mornings.”  Several advertisers heeded those instructions.  The following week the second issue of the Freeman’s Journal featured more than half a dozen advertisements, a good start for a printer seeking to establish multiple revenue streams for his new newspaper.

Samuel Hall of Portsmouth was among those advertisers.  He published a notice that described Seneca, a “NEGRO MAN” who liberated himself by running away from his enslaver, and offered a reward for his capture and return.  Such advertisements encouraged readers to engage in surveillance of Black men and women to determine whether they matched the descriptions that appeared in the public prints.  In this case, Hall included Seneca’s age and height, noting as well that he was “a stout thick sett fellow.”  Readers might also recognize him by the clothing that he wore and took with him, including “two coats, one red the other blue; one blue pea Jacket; … 2 pair leather breeches; 2 pair worsted, and 2 pair yarn stockings; [and] a mill’d cap turn’d up with fur.”  In addition, Seneca “talks good English.”  Hall intended for all those details in aid in identifying the fugitive from slavery.

Enslaved men and women liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Advertisements describing Black men and women who emancipated themselves in this way began appearing in newspapers soon after the Boston News-Letter commenced publication in 1704.  Seneca likely knew of other enslaved people who escaped from slavery by fleeing from their enslavers.  He may have taken advantage of the disruptions caused by the Revolutionary War to increase his chances of evading detection.  At the same time Seneca made his decision, Dearborn set about a new venture made possible in part by the war, establishing a newspaper called the Freeman’s Journal.  The title made a political statement about liberty on the eve of the colonies declaring independence, yet in the second issue Dearborn joined every other American newspaper printer, Patriots and Tories, who generated revenues and played a role in perpetuating slavery by publishing advertisements about enslaved people.

May 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy (May 31, 1776).

“A Press, in all probability will be continued, and a public Paper regularly printed each week.”

A notice “To the SUBSCRIBERS for THOMAS’s Massachusetts-Spy” in the May 31, 1776, edition informed that that “this week’s paper compleats the twelve month with most of the Subscribers.”  With the period for an annual subscription coming to an end, Isaiah Thomas “earnestly begs his good Customers would settle with him as soon as possible.”  That was even more imperative because the printer “proposes removing to Boston.”  Thomas had not intended to settle in Worcester.  In the winter and spring of 1775, he advertised plans to open a printing office in that town and set up a junior partner to oversee the business there, including publishing Worcester’s first newspaper.  Events in Boston, however, prompted Thomas to flee to Worcester and run the printing office himself.  He left shortly before the battles at Lexington and Concord and continued printing the Massachusetts Spy in Worcester during the siege of Boston.  After British forces evacuated the city on March 17, 1776, he contemplated returning to Boston.

What did that mean for Worcester?  Thomas expressed appreciation “to all those who have encouraged him in his business the year past” and declared that he “is willing to do what lays in his power towards continuing a Printing-Office in Worcester.”  With most of the annual subscriptions for Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy coming to an end, he needed to assess demand for continuing to publish a newspaper there.  To that end, he requested that “all those who incline to take papers from this town, and support the press, … would give in their names by Friday the 6th day of June.”  At that time, he would publish a handbill “for the Subscribers” with more information and collect subscription fees not yet paid.  Whether the printing office and Worcester’s first local newspaper closed depended on how many subscribers made a commitment to supporting the venture.  “[I]f a sufficient number of Subscribers appear, to continue and support the publication of a news-paper in this Town,” Thomas advised, “a Press, in all probability will be continued, and a public Paper regularly printed each week.”  With the May 31 edition, the printer suspended publication of the newspaper, yet his notice gained that “sufficient number of Subscribers” that three weeks later William Stearns and Daniel Bigelow distributed a new issue on June 21.  They altered the title from Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy to the Massachusetts Spy.  Two years later, Thomas returned to Worcester, resumed his role as printer, and changed the title back to Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy.

May 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , ,

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

Continental Journal (May 30, 1776).

“Proposing to furnish the public with a News-Paper of Intelligence every THURSDAY.”

It was the third newspaper established in New England in just over a week.  Robert L. Fowle distributed the first of the “occasional HAND-BILLS” that became the New Hampshire Gazette in Exeter on May 22, 1776.  Three days later, Benjamin Dearborn published the first issue of the Freeman’s Journal in Portsmouth.  Finally, on May 30, John Gill presented the Continental Journal to readers in Boston and beyond.  Daniel Fowle had suspended his New-Hampshire Gazette in January or February, leaving the colony without any newspaper, so readers likely welcomed the new publications that gave them easier access to news and editorials about current events and forums for disseminating advertising than depending on newspapers from Massachusetts.  After the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, some printers in Boston discontinued or suspended their newspapers and others moved their newspapers to other towns.  That included Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers of the Boston-Gazette.  They dissolved their partnership and Edes printed the newspaper in Watertown during the siege of Boston and continued there for many months after British forces evacuated Boston.  Only recently had Samuel Hall moved the New-England Chronicle from Cambridge into Boston.  That made the Continental Journal only the second newspaper published in the city when Edes decided that he once again wished to “furnish the public with a News-Paper of Intelligence,” though he claimed that he “complied with the solicitation of his Friends” in pursuing the venture.

Printers often included an address to the public in their subscription proposals when they announced their plans to publish a newspaper or inserted a message to readers in the first issue.  In his notice “TO THE PUBLIC,” Gill kept it simple by declaring that he “chooses to omit all pompous representations and promises … and only engages his utmost fidelity in collecting and printing the newest and best accounts of things that can be obtained.”  With many years experiences printing the Boston-Gazette, he could rely on his reputation among prospective subscribers.  Gill also outlined the “TERMS” for subscribers.  The Continental Journal cost eight shilling per year, “one half to be paid at entrance, the other at the end of the first six months.”  That was a common model among newspaper printers.  He also advised, “Advertisements inserted at the customary price,” but did not specify that price.  The printer did instruct advertisers that their notices were “to be paid on receiving them.”  Like many other newspaper printers, he depended on advertising revenue.  The printing office accepted advertisements until two o’clock on Wednesdays (and later only “in cases of necessity”), allowing time to set type and print the newspaper in time to distribute it to subscribers on Thursdays.  The Continental Journal met with success, continuing throughout the war and closing in 1787 when Massachusetts imposed a tax on advertisements.

May 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (May 29, 1776).

“THE TRUE INTERSEST OF AMERICA IMPARITALLY STATED.”

An advertisement for a new political pamphlet, The True Interest of America Impartially Stated, in Certain Strictures on a Pamphlet Intitled Common Sense, ran on the first page of the May 29, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette. According to Thomas R. Adams, “only two pamphlet-answers to Common Sense appeared” after the publication of Thomas Paine’s influential pamphlet on January 9, 1776.[1]  In March, Robert Bell, the printer of the first edition of Common Sense and subsequent unauthorized editions in Philadelphia, printed, advertised, and sold “PLAIN TRUTH; addressed to the INHABITANTS of America, containing Remarks on a late Pamphlet intituled COMMON SENSE.”  At the same time, Samuel Loudon, a printer in New York, advertised the imminent publication of “The Deceiver unmasked, or Loyalty and Interest united; In answer to a Pamphlet, entitled, COMMON SENSE.”  However, Loudon never sold that pamphlet because Patriots destroyed almost all the copies.  That made True Interest the second pamphlet directly responding to Common Sense available to the public.

Charles Inglis, a minister at Trinity Church in New York and a Loyalist who later became the first Anglican Bishop of Nova Scotia, published the pamphlet anonymously, just as Common Sense and Plain Truth had been published anonymously.  Inglis presented a stronger rebuttal than the arguments in Plain Truth, but he did so too late to have much impact on the debate over declaring independence.  Adams notes that “True Interest (traditionally regarded by historians as a much more effectual reply to Common Sense [than Plain Truth]) did not appear until nine days before Richard Henry Lee actually introduced his resolution for independence in the Congress.  Clearly, Inglis’s pamphlet came too late to play any part in shaping opinion.”[2]  That was not for lack of effort on the part of James Humphreys, Jr., the printer of True Interest, in marketing the pamphlet.  In addition to the advertisement in the May 29 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, he inserted an advertisement in his own Pennsylvania Ledger on June 1, giving it a privileged place as the first item in the first column on the first page.  That might have helped in finding a market for the pamphlet among Loyalists and perhaps others curious about the pamphlet’s contents or eager to refute it.  It did well enough that Humphreys printed a second edition, but True Interest still did not have the influence that Inglis hoped as the Second Continental Congress considered declaring independence.

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[1] Thomas R. Adams, “The Authorship and Printing of Plain Truth by ‘Candidus,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 49, no. 3 (1955): 230.

[2] Adams, “Authorship and Printing of Plain Truth,” 234.

May 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Evening Post (May 28, 1776).

“TO be SOLD, a NEGRO BOY, about four or five years of age.”

Advertisements placed for a variety of purposes appeared in the May 28, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Hyns Taylor, an upholsterer, and Ameia Taylor, a milliner and mantuamaker, once again offered their services.  Charles Eddy offered a reward for the return of a lost “RED MOROCCO LEATHER POCKET BOOK” and the papers it contained.  Andrew Robeson, the secretary of the Library Company of Philadelphia, called on members to attend a meeting later in the month.  Mary Jenkins advertised a vendue or auction of household goods and furniture.  An anonymous advertiser sought a buyer for “a NEGRO BOY, about four or five years of age, who had had the smallpox and measles,” instructing interested parties to “Inquire of the printer.”

That advertisement appeared immediately below one for a wet nurse and above one selling hay, undifferentiated from any of the paid notices in that issue of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  News items in that issue concerned the war and meetings of provincial congresses or conventions held in other colonies.  A unanimous resolution from North Carolina, for instance, stated, “That the Delegates for this colony in the Continental Congress be empowered to concur with the Delegates of the other colonies in declaring independency, and forming foreign alliances, reserving for this colony the sole and exclusive right of forming a constitution and laws for this colony.”  A unanimous resolution, this one from Virginia, declared, “That the Delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body TO DECLARE THE UNITED COLONIES FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependance upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great-Britain.”  Readers were thinking about their own freedom as they perused the advertisement offering “a NEGRO BOY, about four or five years of age,” for sale.

That was one of countless juxtapositions of liberty and enslavement in American newspaper published during the era of the Revolution.  Jordan E. Taylor notes that “was not unusual.  Many newspaper notices for enslaved people appeared alongside high-minded essays about politics and news of revolutions at home or abroad.”[1]  That did not seem as jarring to eighteenth-century readers as modern readers, he explains, because newspapers “provided a model of the mental compartmentalization that Americans needed to embrace in order to avoid recognizing their own hypocrisy and complicity.  …  Vertical and horizontal lines divided these items, drawing distinctions and signaling difference.  In this mapping of the public consciousness, newspaper printers assured readers that the topics were unrelated.”[2]  The business of the slave trade and the business of advertising enslaved people for sale continued to thrive during the era of the American Revolution.  The same newspapers that were engines of liberty for Patriots simultaneously played a significant role in perpetuating slavery.

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[1] Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704, 1807,” Early American Studies 18, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 314-315.

[2] Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer,” 291.

May 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

A New Hampshire Gazette (May 27, 1776).

“Occasional HAND-BILLS, to contain all the interesting and important Intelligence of the Country.”

A broadsheet bearing the title A New-Hampshire Gazette carried only two advertisements.  A notice from Robert L. Fowle, the printer filled half of the first column on the first page.  A brief advertisement, only three lines, completed the final column on the other side of the sheet.  It announced, “A few Copies of Common Sense, and sundry other Pamphlets, BLANKS, &c. &.c &c. sold at the Printing-Office in Exeter.”

A New Hampshire Gazette (May 27, 1776).

The notice, dated at “Exeter, May 22, 1776,” informed the public that Fowle “removed his Printing-Office from Boston, to this Town, the present CAPITAL of the Colony of New-Hampshire.”  He solicited job printing and advertisements, though he may have meant broadsides and handbills rather than newspaper notices since he had concerns about the prospects of establishing a “regular News-Paper in the present disord’d Times” because “it is presum’d [it] would not be properly supported.”  Instead, he proposed printing and distributing “occasional HAND-BILLS, to contain all the interesting and important Intelligence of the Country” if “this and the near Towns will take off a few Hundred Copies weekly.”  Fowle planned to charge three pence for each handbill-newspaper “with an Allowance” or appropriate discount for “any suitable Person or Persons that will take them by the Hundred weekly, and ride round the Country.”  In addition, he requested that the “Innholders in this Colony … put up this Advertisement in their Houses” to help publicize the proposed handbill-newspapers.

Fowle indicated that the “following Articles [were] the last Advices from England” and another of the “occasional HAND-BILLS” “perhaps will appear next Monday.”  In his monumental History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820, Clarence S. Brigham states that Fowle established his New-Hampshire Gazette with a prospectus in the form of a handbill on May 22, 1776, with another handbill “promised for May 27, although no copy has been located.”  The first regular issue of the New-Hampshire Gazette, or, the Exeter Morning Chronicle, Brigham continues, appeared on June 1, “was numbered vol. 1, no. 3, and referred to the two ‘Hand-Bills’ previously published.”  That issue and most subsequent ones were “single sheets and without the name of the publisher in the imprint.”[1]

I believe that Brigham misidentifies the handbill-newspaper in the collections of the collections of the American Antiquarian Society as the first of the handbills rather than the second.  The date on Fowle’s notice, May 22, appeared immediately below the masthead, but that entire notice likely had been reprinted without revision from the first handbill-newspaper.  The “Fresh Advices” that followed on the first page relayed news from Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, not “the last Advices from England.”  The news on the other side of the sheet had “EXETER, May 27th, 1776,” for the dateline, though some of that content relayed “Advices by Friday’s Post from Boston.”  With news dated May 27, this handbill could not have been printed on May 22.  In addition, May 27 was a Monday, the day that Fowle indicated “another [handbill-newspaper] perhaps will appear.”  All this evidence suggests that no copy of the first handbill-newspaper has been located.  The known copy should be properly dated as May 27, 1776.

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[1] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 454.