Benjamin Bucktrout

February 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What kinds of advertisements ran in the inaugural issue of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette 250 years ago today?

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 3, 1775).

“BENJAMIN BUCKTROUT, Cabinet maker, … STILL carries on that business.”

“To be sold … THIRTY Virginia born negroes, consisting of men, women, boys, and girls.”

Alexander Purdie launched his Virginia Gazette on Friday, February 3, 1775.  It was the third newspaper bearing that name printed in Williamsburg at the time.  John Pinkney published his Virginia Gazette on Thursdays and John Dixon and William Hunter distributed their Virginia Gazette on Saturdays.  As the imperial crisis intensified, a third Virginia Gazetteincreased access and dissemination of news and editorials (and advertisements) in the colony.

In early December 1774, Purdie and Dixon announced the dissolution of their partnership, with Dixon indicating that he would continue to publish that iteration of the Virginia Gazette with Hunter as his new partner and Purdie asserting that he would commence publication of another newspaper as soon as he attracted a sufficient number of subscribers.  He also solicited advertisers, realizing that paid notices accounted for an important source of revenue for any newspaper.

When he published the inaugural issue of his Virginia Gazette, it included seven advertisements that filled most of the last column on the final page.  Those numbers did not rival the amount of advertising in either of the other newspapers printed in Williamsburg that week, both of which had enough notices to fill an entire page, but it was a start.  Those initial advertisers signaled to others that they might consider advertising in Purdie’s newspaper a good investment.

Benjamin Bucktrout, a cabinetmaker, did not entrust his marketing efforts solely to Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.   He placed an identical advertisement in Dixon and Hunter’s newspaper the next day.  It likely enjoyed greater circulation in the more established Virginia Gazette, yet may have garnered greater notice by readers of Purdie’s Virginia Gazette as the first of only a few advertisements in that publication.

In addition to Bucktrout’s notice, one advertisement sought an apprentice to work in a store, two noted stray horses “TAKEN up” until their owners could be identified, and three concerned enslaved people.  Abraham Smith and Henry Lochhead presented “THIRTY Virginia born negroes, consisting of men, women, boys, and girls,” for sale.  Townshend Dade offered a reward for the capture and return of “a negro fellow named HARRY” who had liberated himself by running away from his enslaver the previous August.  Peter Pelham advised readers of “a runaway negro man named Goliah” who had been “COMMITTED to the publick jail” until his enslaver claimed him.  Advertisements about enslaved people represented a significant proportion of notices in each Virginia Gazette.  They amounted to nearly half of the advertisements in the first issue of Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.

July 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial newspaper 250 years ago today?

Jul 25 - 7:25:1766 Virginia Gazette
Virginia Gazette (July 25, 1766).

“Where likewise may be had the mathematical GOUTY CHAIR.”

What was a “mathematical GOUTY CHAIR”? The gouty chair was a precursor to the modern wheelchair (though what made this particular model “mathematical” remains unclear). In Furniture-Makers and Consumers in England, 1754-1851, Akiko Shimbo indicates that it is not exactly certain when gouty stools and gouty chairs first appeared: “the earliest example in published pattern books was Hepplewhite’s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (first edition, 1788).”[1]

Jul 25 - Gouty Chair
Gouty Chair (Unknown Maker, ca. 1800).  Victoria and Albert Museum.

Those who suffer from gout experience painful inflammation of the joints, notably in the hands and feet (and especially the toes), which would indeed make standing or walking difficult. Shimbo further indicates that elite men were especially prone to gout in the eighteenth century; the malady was associated with an increase in luxury. The term “gouty chair” was likely intended “to convey a luxurious and superior image.”[2]

That made the gouty chair ideal for Benjamin Bucktrout, CABINET MAKER, from LONDON,” to promote in his advertisement. Bucktrout arrived in Williamsburg in 1766; his advertisement was the first time his name appeared in any sort of public records in the colony. He seized upon the occasion to make a memorable first impression. Not only did he have the cachet of migrating from London, the cosmopolitan center of the empire, he also promised that he produced furniture “in the neatest and newest fashions.” What better way to demonstrate the fashionable aspects of his work than to construct gouty chairs, a product already linked to luxury and refinement? In highlighting this particular piece of furniture, he signaled to the local elite that he understood their concerns and was prepared to serve them well.

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[1] Akiko Shimbo, Furniture-Makers and Consumers in England, 1754-1851: Design as Interaction (Routledge, 2015). See chapter 4, “Forming Taste and Style: Consumers’ Needs and Participation.”

[2] Shimbo, Furniture-Makers and Consumers in England. See chapter 4.