What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“I have no connection with said SUMNER.”
Charles Willis needed to correct an error. An advertisement in the February 13, 1775, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy proclaimed that “SUMNER and WILLIS … CARRY on the Sail-Making Business in all its Branches.” It gave their location and listed prices. Yet Willis had no knowledge of this partnership. Rather than wait for the next issue of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy on February 20, he submitted his own advertisement to the Massachusetts Spy for inclusion in its February 16 edition.
“WHEREAS an Advertisement appeared in Messrs. Mills & Hick’s paper of Monday last, notifying the Public, that SUMNER & WILLIS carried on the SAIL-MAKING business together,” the aggrieved Willis asserted, “This is to acquaint my Friends and the Public, that I have no connection with said SUMNER, that the advertisement abovementioned was published without my knowledge or consent, and was a gross imposition upon CHARLES WILLIS.” The sailmaker was angry as he set the record straight. Readers of the Massachusetts Spy, on the other hand, may have been mildly amused by the drama that unfolded in the public prints. After all, a dispute between sailmakers could have been a welcome distraction from the hardships they encountered while the harbor remained closed to commerce because of the Boston Port Act.
Willis likely visited or contacted Mills and Hicks’s printing office about the offensive advertisement. It did not appear a second time, though the standard fee for advertisements provided for inserting them in three consecutive issues. Willis’s advertisement, for instance, ran in the Massachusetts Spy twice more before it was discontinued. Willis opted not to run a similar notice in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, the newspaper that carried the original “SUMNER and WILLIS” advertisement. That could have been because he did not wish to invest any more money on such notices in the public prints, yet it also suggests his confidence in the circulation of the Massachusetts Spy and ensuing conversations inspired by its contents, both news and advertisements. Advertising in just one newspaper sufficiently clarified that “SUMNER and WILLIS” were not indeed partners in the “Sail-Making Business.”