Who were the subjects of advertisements in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-York Journal (September 24, 1772).
“THE Publick are hereby requested not to trust Susannah Crane the Wife of me the Subscriber.”
“THIS is to inform the Publick, that I have been compelled to leave my Husband’s House.”
For four weeks in August and September 1772, Jeremiah Crane ran a “runaway wife” advertisement in the New-York Journal to inform the public “not to trust” his wife, Susanna, “on my Account … for I am determined to pay no Debts of her contracting.” He complained that “she has already run me very considerably in Debt,” forcing him to place the notice “to prevent my entire Ruin.” Similar advertisements frequently appeared in newspapers throughout the colonies, often deploying formulaic language as they described marital discord in full view of the public. Jeremiah took a harsher tone in his advertisement, not only accusing Susanna of “living and behaving herself in so scandalous and notorious a Manner” to justify a “publick Notice” but also accusing her of leading “the Life of a common Prostitute.” Even when they made insinuations about infidelity, husbands who placed “runaway wife” advertisements rarely leveled such accusations so explicitly. That Jeremiah took that approach testified to the tumult in the Crane household.
In most instance, frustrated husbands set the narrative, at least in the public prints. Wives could share their version of events via conversations and gossip, but usually lacked the resources to place their own notices in newspapers. Susanna, however, did run her own notice, declaring that she had been “compelled to leave my Husband’s House, in which I had long received the basest and most unmanly Usage.” She described a “Disposition naturally jealous, and often inflamed with Liquor,” suggesting that the problems in the Crane household did not originate with her. Without naming names, Susanna addressed the allegations made by her husband, stating that “he was excited by the Insinuations and base Aspersions of a Person at whose House he spends the best Part of his Time and Substance.” Jeremiah spent so much time away from his own home that he neglected his wife and her “poor Babes” by not providing “the most scanty Maintenance at Home.” According to Susanna, the problem was not her comportment, falsely represented by an acquaintance, but rather her husband spending too much time drinking and partaking in tales told by that acquaintance.
In those relatively few instances when wives did place their own advertisements, they almost always appeared in response to notices placed their husbands. Susanna, however, managed to publish her notice in the same issue in which Jeremiah’s advertisement first appeared. The compositor chose to place those notices together, perhaps to aid readers with a more complete story or perhaps in sympathy with Susanna. Either way, readers saw her rebuttal immediately following Jeremiah’s notice. In most instances when wives responded, their advertisements appeared separately, often on another page completely. That increased the likelihood that some readers perused only a husband’s side of the story. The placement of Susanna’s notice aided her in using the power of the press to defend her reputation against Jeremiah’s “churlish Disposition.”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
South-Carolina Gazette (July 30, 1772).
“WHO … can doubt of the amazing Effects of that powerful and invaluable Medicine?”
A feud between Charles Crouch, printer of the South-Carolina Gazette, and Powell, Hughes, and Company, printers of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, played out in the pages of their newspapers in the summer of 1772. This feud did not concern their work as printers, nor did it appear in editorials. Instead, they sniped at each other in advertisements hawking a popular patent medicine, “Dr. KEYSER’S famous PILLS.”
According to advertisements that frequently appeared in newspapers from New England to South Carolina, colonial printers often supplemented their revenues from newspaper subscriptions, advertising, job printing, books, and stationery by selling patent medicines. Doing so required no specialized knowledge of the cures. The printers merely needed to supply the directions that often accompanied the nostrums they peddled. In addition, many consumers were already familiar with the most popular patent medicines, the eighteenth-century equivalent of over-the-counter medications.
Powell, Hughes, and Company ran a lengthy advertisement for “Dr. Keyser’s GENUINE Pills” in the July 9 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette. They opened by stating that “numerous Trials have proved [the pills] to be the safest, best, mildest, and most agreeable Medicine ever discovered, for the Cure of the VENEREAL DISEASE, from the slightest Infection to the most inveterate State of that dreadful and almost unconquerable Disorder.” They provided a long history of the medicine and its efficacy, concluding with a guarantee “to return the Money, if a complete Cure is not performed, provided the Patient adheres to the Manner of taking [the pills], as is given in the printed Directions.”
In the next issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, distributed on July 14, Crouch positioned his own extensive advertisement for “A CONSIGNMENT” of patent medicines on the front page. The list of medicines began with “A FRESH PARCEL of Dr. KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS, With FULL DIRECTIONS for their Use in all CASES.” Rather than publish the history of that medicine in his advertisement, Crouch alerted readers that they could read “A NARRATIVE of the Effects of Dr. KESYER’s MEDICINE, with an Account of its ANALYSIS, by the Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences.” He further elaborated, “It were needless to trouble the public with more Encomiums on the Effects of this Remedy.”
That statement, as well as competition for customers, raised the ire of Powell, Hughes, and Company. Two days later, they updated their previous advertisement, inserting an introductory paragraph that directly addressed Crouch’s advertisement. The partners, “far from thinking ‘it NEEDLESS to trouble the Public with more Encomiums of the Effects of this Remedy,’ look upon it as their Duty to insert the following Particulars of Keyser’s invaluable Medicine, in order that the Afflicted in this Province, may, in some Respects be made acquainted with the Virtues of the most efficacious Medicine ever discovered, and know where to apply for Relief, without the Danger of having other Pills imposed on them instead the GENUINE.” Powell, Hughes, and Company implied that Crouch carried counterfeit pills before inserting their original advertisement in its entirety.
Crouch objected to that insinuation. In the July 21 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, he added a short note to his previous advertisement. Crouch now stated that he carried “A FRESH PARCEL of Dr. KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS, (perhaps the only REAL ONES that can be had in the Province at present) With FULL DIRECTIONS for their Use in all CASES.” He turned the accusation back to Powell, Hughes, and Company, suggesting that it was they, not he, who attempted to dupe the public with counterfeit and ineffective medicines.
That prompted Powell, Hughes, and Company to double down on their insistence that Crouch peddled counterfeits. On July 23, they expanded the new introduction of their advertisement, reiterating the “NEEDLESS to trouble the Public” quotation and adding a note about “the Danger of having a spurious Sort imposed on them, notwithstanding any forcible ‘PERHAPS’ to the Contrary.” Furthermore, they “assured” prospective customers that the pills they carried “were received from Mr. Keyser, therefore there can be no ‘Perhaps’ entertained of THEIR not being the GENUINE, unless it is by such who are naturally Obstinate and Conceited, without one good Quality to entitle them to be either.”
The back-and-forth continued in the next edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal. Crouch and his competitors carefully monitored what each said about the other in their new advertisements. Crouch placed “NEW ADVERTISEMENTS” on the first page of the July 28 edition, leading with a new advertisement for “Dr. KEYSER’s famous PILLS” limited to a single paragraph that focused primarily on the controversy that had been brewing for the past few weeks. He once again stated that he sold the pills and declared that “he really believes (without forcible making Use of the Word “PERHAPS”) they are the only REAL ONES that can be had in the Province at present.” For the first time, he named his competitors, noting that “it is asserted (with a Degree of Scurrility) to the Contrary, in the latter Part of the Introduction to an Advertisement for the Sale of Keyser’s Pills, by Powell, Hughes, & Co. in a Gazette of the 23d Instant, said to be printed by these People.
Crouch devoted the remainder of his advertisement to upbraiding his competitors and defending his reputation. “In regard to the mean, rascally Insinuations against men, contained in said Introduction,” the printer stated, “I am happy in knowing that they do not, nor cannot in the least AFFECT me, especially as coming from such Hands.” He then suggested, “I think it would have been much more to their Credit, to have endeavoured to convince the Public, in a Manner different from what they did, that my Surmise was wrong, respecting the Pills sold by them.” He concluded with an assertion that “as to my good or bad Qualities, they are submitted to Candour and Impartiality of the respectable Public, whose Favours I shall always make my chief Study to merit; without fearing the Malice or Baseness of any Individual.”
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 28, 1772).
Powell, Hughes, and Company did not interpret that as an overture to make peace or change their tone. On July 30, they began with the “New Advertisements” in the South-Carolina Gazette by reprinting Crouch’s advertisement “From the South-Carolina GAZETTE, AND Country Journal, of July 28, 1772. [No. 348.]” in its entirety. They made sure that readers could examine the original, though they also added “(t b c t f.)” to the final line, a notation that signaled to the compositor to continue inserting the advertisement until instructed to remove it. In so doing, they implied that Crouch intended to publicly shame them indefinitely. Yet they felt no remorse. Instead, they implied that Crouch suffered from the effects of venereal disease himself, especially cognitive deterioration, composing his latest advertisement only after taking a pill he acquired from Powell, Hughes, and Company. “WHO,” they asked, “after perusing the foregoing masterly Piece, produced by a SINGLE Dose of Dr. Keyser’s GENUINE Pills, sold by POWELL, HUSGHES, & Co. … can doubt of the amazing Effects of that powerful and invaluable Medicine?” They further intimated that Crouch suffered from venereal disease by asking, “After so copious a Discharge by ONE Dose, what may not be expected from a SECOND, or should THAT Patient take a WHOLE BOX?” Powell, Hughes, and Company snidely asserted that Crouch’s mental faculties were so far gone due to venereal disease that a single dose managed to give him only a few moments of clarity but he needed much more medicine to cease ranting and raving.
Powell, Hughes, and Company compounded the insult in a short paragraph that commented on Crouch’s grammar, further imputing that the effects of venereal disease made it difficult for him to string together coherent sentences. “In the mean Time,” they proclaimed, “the Reader is desired to correct TWO egregious Blunder, by inserting FORCIBLY for forcible, and THOSE PEOPLE instead of these People. The Word RASCALLY may stand, as ONE distinguishing Mark of the happy Talents and Abilities of the ingenious Author, as a —.” Pettiness descended into other insults unfit to print in the newspaper.
These exchanges demonstrate that Crouch and Powell, Hughes, and Company did not peruse each other’s publications solely in search of news items to reprint in their own. They also paid attention to advertisements, especially when their competitors marketed ancillary goods, like patent medicines, to supplement their revenues. These printers found themselves in competition to sell “Dr. KEYSER’S famous PILLS.” Rather than pursue their own marketing efforts, they chose to take umbrage at the strategies deployed by the other. Many purveyors of patent medicines stated in their advertisements that they did not need to offer additional information because the public was already so familiar with the product. Crouch may or may not have intended such an observation as a critique of Powell, Hughes, and Company’s advertisement. Whatever his intention, that was enough to garner a response that further escalated into a feud between rival printers hawking patent medicines.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-York Journal (June 13, 1771).
“James Sloan … hath thought proper to advertise me his Wife for absconding from him.”
In the wake of marital discord in the Sloan household, James placed an advertisement concerning his wife, Altye, in the June 13, 1771, edition of the New-York Journal. According to James’s version of events, his wife had “in many Respects misbehaved, and without any just Cause eloped from me, wasting and embezling my Substance.” James further accused Altye of “endeavour[ing] to run me in Debt.” Accordingly, he placed the advertisement “to warn all Persons not to trust or entertain her on my Account” because he would not pay any “Debt of her contracting since her Elopement.”
Runaway wife advertisements like this one appeared in eighteenth-century newspapers from New England to Georgia. They usually went unanswered, at least in the public prints. Husbands advanced narratives about what happened, but wives generally did not have the resources to publish their own version of events. That was not the case, however, for Altye Sloan. She ran her own notice that acknowledged her husband’s advertisement, suggesting that James had been prompted to tell a tale to the public by “some dissolute Persons like himself.” In turn, she offered a more accurate rendering of events, claiming that “she neither has embezzled his Substance, nor eloped from him.” Instead, James “turned her out of Doors” after “beat[ing] and abus[ing] her often Times.” As far as Altye was concerned, that amounted to “sufficient C[au]se to abandon such an insolent Person.” She concluded by proclaiming that she would not run her husband into debt and neither would she pay any of his bills.
The two advertisements ran one after the other in the June 13 edition of the New-York Journal. They did so again in the June 20 and 26 editions, before being discontinued. The compositor may have chosen to place them together for easy reference, but the notations on the final line of each advertisement suggest that Altye may have requested that her advertisement appear with her husband’s notice. The notations on the final lines corresponded to the issue numbers for the first and last times advertisements were supposed to run. They aided compositors in determining whether advertisements belonged in an issue. The “83 86” in James’s advertisement indicated that it first appeared in issue 1483 (June 6) and ran through issue 1486 (June 27). For Altye’s advertisement, “84 86” corresponded to first running in issue 1484 (June 13) and concluding in issue 1486 (June 27). According to the rates in the colophon, most advertisements ran at least four weeks. James’s advertisement did so, in issues 1483, 1484, 1485, and 1486, but Altye’s advertisement ran for only three weeks. She may have made special arrangements for a shorter run (and lower fees) that matched the remaining time her husband’s advertisement would appear. As part of the deal, she could have requested that their advertisements run one after the other.
Altye could not prevent her husband from advertising, but she apparently possessed the means to purchase space in the New-York Journal to tell her side of the story. Rather than allow her husband to control the narrative, she may have also requested that her notice appear with his in order to give readers a more complete story of what actually transpired in the Sloan household. Most so-called “runaway wives” did not have opportunities to leverage print to inform the public that it was actually husbands who “misbehaved” and they “eloped” to protect themselves from various kinds of mistreatment and abuse. Altye Sloan did publish her account of events, managing to have it inserted with her husband’s advertisement to increase the chances that readers would not see his version without the additional context she provided.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Connecticut Courant (September 25, 1770).
“My Husband has attempted by an Advertisement to ruin my Character.”
Advertisements warning against extending credit to runaway wives were a standard feature in American newspapers in the eighteenth century. The one that Benoni Griffen, Jr., inserted in the September 10, 1770, edition of the Connecticut Courant resembled so many others that appeared in newspapers from New England to Georgia. “Whereas Martha the Wife of me the Subscriber,” Griffen proclaimed, “hath for some Tome past, behaved herself in a very Disorderly Manner, by endeavouring to run me in Debt, THESE are Therefore to want all Persons not to Trust of Credit her on my Account, as I will pay no Debt she may Contract after this Date.” Like Griffen’s notice, most advertisements concerning runaway wives did not provide further details about the alleged “Disorderly” conduct.
Most also did not garner a response. Usually husbands had the last and only word in the public prints. Yet Martha objected to how Benoni described her to friends, acquaintances, and strangers in the pages of the Connecticut Courant. She inserted her own advertisement, more than twice the length of his, to set the record straight. Martha accused Benoni of attempting to “ruin my Character,” but she asserted that she could “produce the fullest Proof that my Conduct has been prudent and blameless, especially with Respect of running my Husband in Debt.” Furthermore, she had a very different tale to tell about which spouse had treated the other poorly. Martha complained that Benoni’s “Temper and Conduct and Disposition has been extremely Ill.” Indeed, he had abandoned her and “a Family of small Children” more than once. During his most recent escapade, he had been away for almost two years, leaving Martha and the children “in bad Circumstances.” When he finally appeared again was not a free man but instead “a bound Servant.” Martha found it irritating that Benoni warned against extending credit to her on his behalf because she and her father had so often paid off his debts. Benoni’s shenanigans became so notorious that the town’s selectmen intervened.
Martha did not expect that Benoni’s advertisement had influence anyone who actually knew the couple. “[W]here he and I are known,” she stated, “‘tis beyond his Power to injure my Character.” Yet not all readers knew Martha and Benoni. It was for the benefit of “Strangers” that she ran her own advertisement to dispute her husband’s version of events. He used the public prints to defame her. In turn, she inserted an advertisement in the same newspaper to defend her reputation. Martha and other women who absconded from their husbands and became subjects of newspaper advertisements asserted their will in a manner considered unbecoming of their sex, further compounding any offenses they supposedly committed within their households. Martha’s challenges to her husband’s authority, however, did not end there. She continued to exercise her own will, publishing an advertisement that portrayed Benoni as an unsavory character incapable of fulfilling his responsibilities as husband and head of the household.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Essex Gazette (August 28, 1770).
“Still believing the former Piece to be more agreeable to Truth than the latter.”
When Joseph Symonds, Joseph Hobbs, and Joseph Hobbs, Jr., placed an advertisement in the August 28, 1770, edition of the Essex Gazette, they depended on readers being familiar with a series of advertisements that previously appeared in that newspaper. In the first, Addison Richardson accused “an Apprentice Lad, named Samuel Hobbs” of running away and taking a box “containing sundry Articles of Cloathing.” Richardson had already recovered the box. He warned others “to be very cautious in having any Concern” with the apprentice.
In an unusual turn of events, Hobbs placed his own advertisement to respond. Usually runaways either did not have the resources to respond in print or chose not to draw additional attention to themselves by doing so. Hobbs, however, sought to set the record straight, declaring that he “was not bound” to Richardson or “under any Obligation to live with him any longer than we could agree,” that the box and most of its contents did not belong to Richardson, and that his purported master had not treated him well during “almost five Years Service.” Symonds, Hobbs, and Hobbs, all relations of the alleged runaway, signed a short addendum stating that they believed the young man’s account to be “real Truth” and encouraged that “the Publick will take no Notice.”
In turn, Richardson published yet another advertisement, this time masquerading as “SA——EL H—BBS.” That notice paralleled the format of the one placed by Hobbs, offering an alternate version of events that corrected what Richardson considered inaccuracies in the clarifications that Hobbs offered the public. Richardson-as-H—BBS also pointed out that “two Uncles and a Brother” of the apprentice might not be the most reliable witnesses in the dispute. In order to continue the parallel format, he concluded the advertisement with a short declaration about having “Reason to believe the Piece above to be real Truth” and signed it “A. RICHARDSON.”
Two weeks later, Symonds, Hobbs, and Hobbs placed an advertisement of their own accord. Just in case any readers were confused about whether Samuel Hobbs was responsible for the notice signed by SA——EL H—BBS, they proclaimed that it “was not put in by him, for he did not know any Thing of it.” They also reported that some accommodation had been reached: Mr. Richardson hath returned the Box, with what was in it, and offered to cloath [Hobbs] honorably if he will come and live with him again.” Seeing this as a satisfactory outcome, the uncles and brother decided to “forbear, and say no more,” though they opined that Richardson would “be very cautious how he advertises Runaways for the future.” As a parting shot, they stated that the advertisement by the real Hobbs was “more agreeable to Truth” than the one by Richardson-as-H—BBS, “and not merely because the Boy told us so neither.” Even after accommodation had been reached, these three men sought to clarify which version of events was more accurate.
Buying space in the local newspaper gave Richardson, Hobbs, and Hobbs’s relations opportunities to shape the narrative of what transpired between master and apprentice in the summer of 1770. Rather than working out their disagreements among themselves, they put their dispute on display before the general public, each attempting to convince the community that they were in the right and someone else behaved poorly. These advertisements amplified gossip and word-of-mouth reports of the discord between Hobbs and Richardson.
Who was the subject of an advertisement in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Essex Gazette (August 14, 1770).
“WHEREAS Addison Richardson has advertised me as a Runaway.”
When Addison Richardson advertised Samuel Hobbs as a runaway apprentice in the Essex Gazette in the summer of 1770, Hobbs took the extraordinary step of placing his own advertisement in response. In most similar situations, “runaways,” whether apprentices, indentured servants, enslaved people, or wives, did not possess the resources to publish their own advertisements or did not wish to call attention to themselves by doing so. As a result, masters, enslavers, and husbands controlled the narrative in the public prints. Yet Hobbs did manage to insert an advertisement that contested Richardson’s version of events in the August 7, 1770, edition of the Essex Gazette. His brother and two of his uncles attested to the “real Truth” of Hobbs’s depiction of what transpired with Richardson.
The aggrieved master was not amused by his apprentice’s advertisement. In the next issue, he ran a new advertisement in which he masqueraded as “SA——EL H—BBS.” He began by stating that “Addison Richardson has advertised me as a Runaway” and “I have told the Public one Story very contrary to Truth,” but “I now tell them another Story that is very agreeable to Truth.” Richardson as H—BBS then repeated each detail from Hobbs’s advertisement along with a clarification he considered the actual truth. For instance, “I told [the public] that I was not bound to him, but I was by the Rules of Justice, which the Public always looks upon as the strongest Obligation whatever.” In the original advertisement, Richardson accused Hobbs of stealing a box “containing sundry Articles of Cloathing,” but noted that he had recovered it. In his response, Hobbs stated that the box did not belong to Richardson, that the contents belonged to Hobbs except for “one Pair of Stockings full of Holes, and a Pair of Shirts which [Richardson] gave me,” and that Richardson did not provide him with adequate clothing during “almost five Years Service.” Richardson as H—BBS contested that narrative, offering this alternative: “I told the Public, that he had found me but one Shirt, which was very false, for I am very conscious he has found me five new Shirts since I lived with him, and a sufficient Quantity of all other Cloathing.” Richardson provided for H—BBS even though “I served him but very poorly for almost five Years.”
Richardson was equally unimpressed with the character witnesses who had testified to the “real Truth” of Hobbs’s advertisement. “As to the Conduct of the three that signed at the Bottom of my Piece,” Richardson as H—BBS opined, “ they say ‘We the Subsribers have Reason to believe the Piece above to be real Truth:’—What Reason? says the By-Stander: Why, say they, the Boy that run away from his Master told us so, and so it must be true; and that is all the Evidence they had.” To cast further doubt on the motives of these witnesses, Richardson as H—BBS requested that “the Public judge for themselves” if that was “sufficient Reason for two Uncles and a Brother to sign such a story.”
This new advertisement ended with a short statement of support by “A. RICHARDSON” for the version of events presented by “SA——EL H—BBS,” replicating the structure of Hobbs’s advertisement and deploying some of the same language. “I the Subscriber have Reason to believe the Piece above to be real Truth,” A. RICHARDSON declared before admonishing that he “still hope[s] the Public will hold Runaways in Contempt, and all their Abettors.”
The dispute between Richardson and his (alleged) apprentice played out in the public prints beyond a standard runaway advertisement. Both parties placed lengthy notices that impugned the honesty and character of the other in their efforts to convince others in their community which of them had indeed been wronged by the other. Most runaway apprentice advertisements went unanswered, but in this case both apprentice and master made further use of the press to present their version of events to the public.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Essex Gazette (August 7, 1770).
“Addison Richardson hath advertised me as a Runaway.”
Eighteenth-century newspapers carried advertisements for all sorts of “runaways.” Those runaways included enslaved people who liberated themselves from enslavers who held them in bondage, wives who “eloped” from their husbands to remove themselves from patriarchal authority (and often mistreatment) in the household, and apprentices and indentured servants who broke the terms of their contracts. Few of these advertisements garnered responses in the public prints. Even if they possessed the resources to place advertisements, enslaved people who liberated themselves had no reason to call additional attention to themselves. Aggrieved husbands usually declared that they would pay no debts on behalf of their absent wives, eliminating their ability to publish notices in response. Occasionally, some wives did find the means to run their own advertisements. Apprentices and indentured servants, like enslaved people who escaped, also avoided publishing responses to the advertisements that declared them runaways and requested aid in locating and returning them.
That made a pair of advertisements that ran in the Essex Gazette in the summer of 1770 especially notable. Addison Richardson first advertised Samuel Hobbs as a runaway on July 24. He claimed that the “Apprentice Lad” ran away and recommended that others “be very cautious in having any Concern with him.” Richardson also noted that Hobbs had “carried off a Box, containing sundry Articles of Cloathing,” but Richardson had since recovered the box and the stolen items. Richardson’s advertisement ran again on July 31. When it appeared for a third time on August 7, a response from Hobbs accompanied it. The compositor placed one notice after the other, making it easier for readers to follow the saga as it unfolded.
In an advertisement twice the length of the one that named him a runaway apprentice, Hobbs asserted that he “was not bound” to Richardson not was he “under any Obligation to live with him any longer than we could agree.” Hobbs suggested that Richardson had not lived up to whatever terms they had set, but if he had “fulfilled his Promise” then Hobbs “should not have left.” In response to the accusation of theft, Hobbs stated that neither the box nor the contents belonged to Richardson, except for “one Pair of Stockings full of Holes, and a Pair of Shirts, which he gave me.” Everything else in the box belonged to Hobbs, yet Richardson refused to return any of it. Hobbs also lamented that in “almost five Years Service” Richardson had not provided adequate clothing as was his responsibility. In response to Richardson’s advice that others be cautious in their dealings with Hobbs, he turned the tables by warning others to “be very cautious where they put out Children, especially poor fatherless ones, such as I am.”
To strengthen his credibility, Hobbs also included a short note from three men who endorsed his version of events. Joseph Symonds, Joseph Hobbs, and Joseph Hobbs, Jr., some or all of them probably relations to the alleged runaway apprentice, stated that they “have Reason to believe the Piece above to be the real Truth.” They asked that “the Publick … take no Notice of the Advertisement.” Quite possibly these supporters paid to insert Hobbs’s advertisement in the Essex Gazette.
Runaway apprentice advertisements rarely generated responses in print in eighteenth-century America, making this an extraordinary case of an alleged runaway defending his reputation, revealing mistreatment by his master, and marshalling the support of others who advocated on his behalf. Yet this was not the end of the exchange in the Essex Gazette. The following week Richardson published a response to Hobbs’s response. That will be the featured advertisement on August 14.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
South-Carolina Gazette (July 12, 1770).
“SIMON FRANKS, by an Advertisement … forth that I, MARGARET-JACOB-ENNER FRANKS, his Wife, eloped for him.”
On July 10, 1770, Simon Franks placed a short advertisement in the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal to warn others not to extend credit to his wife, Margaret. In it, Simon declared that Margaret “eloped from her said Husband, without any just Cause.” In turn, he ran the advertisement “to forewarn all Persons from trusting her, as I am determined to pay no Debts of her contracting.” Such notices frequently appeared in newspapers published throughout the colonies. Simon’s advertisement followed a familiar formula.
Such advertisements rarely garnered any sort of response in the public prints. Wives often “eloped” from their husbands, often as a result of abuses they suffered within the household and not, as Simon claimed, “without any just Cause.” Yet they rarely told their side of the story in newspaper advertisements of their own, in part because husbands exerted control over family finances and put purveyors of goods and services, including printers, on notice not to allow wives to make any charges. Margaret apparently had access to cash or friends intervened on her behalf. She did not even wait a week to publish her response in the next issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal. Instead, two days later her own advertisement, more than twice the length of Simon’s notice, ran in the South-Carolina Gazette.
Margaret referred readers back to her husband’s advertisement “in Mr. CROUCH’s last Paper” and provided a short summary of Simon’s accusations and instructions about cutting off her credit. She then went about setting the record straight, taking action in a way relative few “runaway wives” did in eighteenth-century America. She was determined “to shew the Public a true State of my supposed Elopement.” She explained that “my now being absent from him, was occasioned by his most cruel and inhuman Treatment to me.” She cataloged a series of abuses that stemmed from “his always getting in Liquor, putting me in Fear of my Life.” The “severe Threats” led to “Blows” and eventually to “turning me out of Doors, in the Dead of Night.” Even more shocking, this left Margaret and “a poor helpless Infant” from a previous marriage “exposed to the Inclemency of the Weather.” Her situation prompted Margaret to seek a “Peace Warrant” from a magistrate in order to “live from [Simon] undisturbed.”
According to Margaret, her husband did not tell the full and complete story. He attempted to cast her in an unfavorable light when her had been the one who had given “just Cause” for her to depart from his household. Formulaic runaway wife advertisements hinted at more complicated stories of marital discord; they did not narrate events from the perspectives of the wives. Margaret Jacob Enner Franks was one of the relatively few women to respond to such an advertisement in the public prints, defending her reputation and providing the community with a more complicated picture of what had occurred in the Franks household. In so doing, she shifted attention back to the misconduct of her husband.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-York Journal (November 30, 1769).
“WHEREAS by an Advertisement in the Philadelphia Papers …”
Did colonists read all of those advertisements that appeared in the pages of early American newspapers? Occasionally some of the advertisements help to answer that question. Consider an advertisement that ran in the November 27, 1769, edition of the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy and, later that week, in the November 30 edition of the New-York Journal. The notice acknowledged “an Advertisement in the Philadelphia Papers, of November 2, 1769” that described a runaway named Galloway and offered a reward for apprehending him. According to the notice in the New York newspapers, “a Person answering the Description of the above-named Galloway” had been jailed in the city. The notice instructed Galloway’s master to contact one of the aldermen, “who has the Goods that Galloway had stole, in his Possession.” Someone had indeed read the advertisements, at least those concerning runaway apprentices and indentured servants and their counterparts about enslaved people who escaped from those who held them in bondage. Such advertisements usually included a fair amount of detail, in this case enough to identify Galloway and the stolen goods. In addition to disseminating that information, this advertisement served as a testimonial to the effectiveness of inserting such notices in the public prints.
It also demonstrated that newspapers circulated far beyond the cities and towns where they were printed. This notice concerning a runaway described “in the Philadelphia Papers” appeared in two newspapers in New York, describing a suspected runaway jailed in New York. Newspapers from Pennsylvania found their way to New York … and residents of New York had a reasonable expectation that their newspapers circulated in Pennsylvania. Someone considered it effective to respond to an advertisement that originated “in the Philadelphia Papers” by placing a notice in the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy and the New-York Journal. Thanks to exchange networks devised by printers and abundant reprinting from one newspaper to another, the news items and editorials in colonial newspapers created a public discourse that extended from New England to Georgia. Yet conversations in those newspapers were not confined to news and editorials selected by printers. Advertisers sometimes engaged in their own conversations that moved back and forth from one newspaper to another, further contributing to the creation of imagined communities among readers in faraway places.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (November 13, 1769).
“My Character of an honest and industrious Woman can be asserted to all who may inquire.”
Runaway wife advertisements were a particular genre of paid notices that frequently appeared in eighteenth-century newspapers. In such an advertisement an aggrieved husband reported that his disobedient wife departed from the household without his permission. The husband warned others that he would not pay any debts contracted in his name by his wife. Some advertisements went into greater detail than others in recording the various offenses committed by runaway wives. No matter how elaborate, publishing such advertisements must have been just as embarrassing, if not more so, for husbands than wives. After all, it was a public confession that a husband had not been able to exercise patriarchal authority or maintain order in his own household. Instead, he turned to the community for assistance in disciplining his wife.
In the fall of 1769, John Kennedy repeatedly inserted a runaway wife advertisement in Green and Russell’s Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy. Dated “Bridgewater, Sept. 29, 1769,” it stated, “WHEREAS Margaret Kennedy, the Wife of me the Subscriber, has left my Bed and Board, and refuses to live with me:— This is to forwarn all Persons from trusting the said Margaret on my Account, for I hereby declare I will not pay one Farthing of her contracting from the Day of the Date hereof.”
Rarely did such notices generate a response, but occasionally wives did publish their own advertisements to address the accusations made by their husbands and defend their reputations. Margaret Kennedy did so in the November 13 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy. In an advertisement dated “Bridgewater, Nov. 10, 1769,” she expressed her dismay that she had been identified in “Green and Russell’s Weekly Paper as an Eloper from the Bed and Board of my Husband.” She did not acknowledge that her husband had placed the advertisement, but instead asserted that “an ill-minded Person” published an account that was “an absolute Falshood.” She also declared that she had never incurred any debt on his behalf, not “one Shilling Lawful Money.” Having been maligned in a newspaper that circulated well beyond Boston, she defended her reputation and references for anyone uncertain about which spouse to believe in the course of this public altercation. “[M]y Character of an honest and industrious Woman,” she declared, “can be asserted to all who may inquire it by a Number of my Friends in Boston, and the Community I belong to.”
Margaret met John’s advertisement with another act of resistance, one exceptionally visible to friends, neighbors, and strangers. His original advertisement continued to run in the November 13 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, appearing on the page following Margaret’s response. Readers now had both sides of the story in a single issue, witnessing the Kennedys’ marital discord play out in print, even if not in person.
