Connecticut Gazette

August 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Connecticut Gazette (August 23, 1776).

“The Advertisement … against Elenor Fairfield … is Unjust and Cruel.”

It was a rare instance of a wife accused of abandoning her husband in a newspaper advertisement publishing a response.  In the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth century, American newspapers carried notices now known as “runaway wife” advertisements.  Using standardized language and a familiar format, husbands alleged that their wives misbehaved and left them without cause.  In turn, the husbands warned merchants, shopkeepers, and others not to extend credit to the women who fled from their households and from the authority they were supposed to exercise there.  In most instances, the wives did not have the resources to publish their own version of events, but occasionally advertisements contradicting the stories told by husbands did appear.

Connecticut Gazette (July 26, 1776).

The July 26, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Gazette carried William Fairfield’s advertisement for the first time.  In it, he proclaimed that his wife, Elenor, “has without Just cause Denied my bead and bord” in Woodstock.  In turn, he ran the notice “to forbid all persons Harbouring or trusting or concealing of her things which she hath unjustly carry of or traiding with hir on my account for I will not [pay] one farthing of hir Debt She may cantract.”  Like most other advertisements, Fairfield’s notice ran multiple times, giving readers in New London, Woodstock, and other towns several opportunities to see it.

Fairfield likely expected to have the last and only word in the public prints, but eighteen of his neighbors decided that would not be the case.  They published their own notice in response to “the Advertisement in the Connecticut Gazette, Number 663, against Elenor Fairfield the Wife of William Fairfield, of Woodstock.”  The considered his advertisement “Unjust and Cruel,” explaining that “her leaving of him, was from his Cruelty.”  Then they went into even more detail, revealing much more than William included in his advertisement.  Elenor resorted to “swearing the Peace against him … for her own Safety.”  According to her friends and neighbors, “18 credible Persons in the Neighbourhood where she has long lived,” the fault belonged entirely to William because Elenor was “a dutiful Wife when used with Humanity, a kind and tender Mother, [and] a good Neighbour [who] sustains a good Character.”  Unfortunately, she had become “abject and miserable by her Husband’s misconduct.”  It was out of “Justice to her injured Character” that her friends and neighbors ran their own advertisement about what had occurred in Woodstock.

Seven men and eleven women signed that advertisement.  The men’s names appeared first in one paragraph, followed by the women’s names in a separate paragraph.  That testified to the men’s authority, especially in interacting with other men, but readers could not ignore the women who also affixed their names.  Some readers, especially women, may have had greater trust in the women who defended Elenor.  After all, circles of female friends and acquaintances in Woodstock likely interacted with Elenor more often than most men in the community and had greater awareness of how her husband treated her and the discord in the Fairfield household.  That did not mean that men did not witness mistreatment, but rather that women often had greater access to the everyday experiences of other women.

August 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Connecticut Gazette (August 16, 1776).

“A DIALOGUE ON THE Slavery of the Africans.”

Newspapers published during the era of the American Revolution contributed to the perpetuation of slavery. Throughout the colonies and the new nation, newspapers regularly carried advertisements that presented enslaved people for sale or offered rewards for the capture and return of enslaved people who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers.  News items and editorials also stoked fear of enslaved people to justify keeping them in bondage.

On occasion, however, the public prints carried advertisements, news, or editorials that advocated for the liberty of certain enslaved people or emancipating all enslaved people.  In April 1776, for instance, an advertisement announced that “DICK (a Negro) … [was] now made free from Slavery by the Charity of the People” of Middletown, Connecticut, “and by virtue of his Freedom, has Liberty to procure the necessaries of Life by his own Industry, as other free born Subjects have.”  In June 1775, William Henshaw published an advertisement on behalf of the Committees of Correspondence in Worcester County, Massachusetts.  Upon receiving a petition from “the NEGROES in the counties of Bristol and Worcester,” the Committees of Correspondence passed a resolution stating that “we abhor the enslaving of any of the human race, and particularly of the NEGROES in this county.”  They pledged to “use our influence” to aid in efforts for “emancipating the NEGROES.”  They applied the rhetoric of the American Revolution to the literal enslavement of Africans and African Americans instead of considering only the figurative enslavement of colonizers.

In the summer of 1776, Judah P. Spooner published and sold A Dialogue, Concerning the Slavery of the Africans: Shewing It To Be the Duty and Interest of the American Colonies to Emancipate All Their African Slaves at his printing office in Norwich Connecticut.  The book included “an ADDRESS to the Owners of such Slaves.”  The author, Samuel Hopkins, a Congregationalist minister in Newport, dedicated the volume “to the Honorable the Continental Congress.”  Like the Committees of Correspondence in Worcester County, Hopkins recognized the contradictions inherent in revolutionary rhetoric that espoused liberty for colonizers but did not include calling for the abolition of slavery.

That an advertisement for A Dialogue, Concerning the Slavery of Africans appeared in the August 16, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Gazette did not mean, however, that Timothy Green, the printer of that newspaper, endorsed anything that Hopkins wrote about slavery.  In the previous issue, Green published an advertisement that described Sy, “a Mustee Fellow,” and offered a reward to “Whoever takes up said Negro, and secures him, or returns him to his Master.”  Similarly, Spooner, the printer of both the Norwich Packet and A Dialogue, Concerning the Slavery of Africans, published a similar advertisement about “a Negro MAN Servant, named FORTEN,” in the August 5 issue and regularly generated revenue by printing other advertisements about enslaved people.  Even as Hopkins attempted to use the power of the press to advocate for abolition, enslavers and printers continued perpetuating slavery with the advertisements they published.

July 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , ,

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

Connecticut Gazette (July 12, 1776).

“We have been obliged to issue only a Half Sheet paper this Week; in which, however, is digested every material Occurrence that is come to Hand.”

Newspapers published during the era of the American Revolution usually consisted of four pages created by printing two pages on each side of a broadsheet and then folding it in half.  Due to paper shortages, some issues occasionally had only two pages, one on each side of a half sheet.  The July 12, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Gazette had only two pages, but apparently factors other than disruptions in the paper supply led Timothy Green, the printer, to make that decision.  In a note to readers at the top of the first column on the first page, he advised, “[In order to expedite some necessary Business for the Government, we have been obliged to issue only a Half Sheet Paper this Week; in which, however, is digested every material Occurrence that is come to Hand.]”  Green did not mention the impact that had on advertisements, unlike John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, who inserted a notice in his newspaper the following day that “[Advertisements omitted will be in our next.]”  Green found space to publish four advertisements, whereas he filled an entire page with advertising in the previous issue.

The printer undersold the contents of that issue of the Connecticut Gazette when he claimed that he “digested every material Occurrence that is come to Hand.”  It carried updates from Charleston, South Carolina; the provincial congress in North Carolina; Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia; Philadelphia; New York; Boston and nearby Watertown in Massachusetts; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Gibraltar by way of London.  That issue also carried a few brief items of local news from New London.  Yet none of that was the most significant news that the Connecticut Gazette carried.  Near the top of the second column on the second page, Green printed the Declaration of Independence, making the Connecticut Gazette the first newspaper in New England to disseminate that momentous document to its readers.  Unlike other news, the Declaration of Independence had not been “digested” to fit in the limited space available on the half sheet that Green resorted to publishing that week.  Instead, he printed the Declaration of Independence in its entirety.  The nation’s founding document was a “material Occurrence” indeed!  Its placement in the middle of the second page does not necessarily indicate that Green did not consider the Declaration of Independence significant.  Instead, he likely set the type and integrated the document into his newspaper as soon as he acquired a copy. The first page may have already been printed by that time.  For eighteenth-century printers and readers, where an item appeared on the page of a newspaper did not necessarily signal the importance associated with it but rather the realities of the printing technology of the period.

June 7

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Connecticut Gazette (June 7, 1776).

“A distracted Man!”

Peter Spencer sought the public’s assistance in locating his son Abner.  He placed an advertisement in the June 7, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Gazette because Abner “absented himself from his father’s house” in East Haddam “about 8 weeks ago.”  This does not seem to have been a case of any sort of discord that resulted in a rebellious son running away from the obedience demanded by his father.  Instead, the headline described Abner as “A distracted Man,” suggesting that he had cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities.  Somehow, Abner had “absented himself” from the care of his father’s household.

Spencer published an alert, just as Elizabeth Fales of Walpole, Massachusetts, had done in the summer of 1774 when Jonathan Fales, a “Non Compos Mentis” man, “did … leave his House and Family … and has not been Home since.”  Fales offered a reward to anyone “so kind to a distress’d Woman as to bring him home (without abusing him) or give Information that he may be found.”  Similarly, Spencer promised a “good and just reward” to “any person who may find this my son, either to confine him and send me word, or bring him home to me.”  To help identify Abner, his father described him as “about 25 years old, middling stature,” and wearing a “dark brown coat, blue jacket, a pair of blue & white streaked woollen trowsers, and a check’d linnen cap.”

Spencer’s advertisement about Abner happened to appear immediately below James Rogers’s notice offering a reward for the capture and return of a “Mustee Fellow named SY,” also “about 25 Years of Age,” who had liberated himself by running away from his enslaver in March.  Rogers provided a lengthy description of Sy, even noting that he took a fiddle with him, and warned that “Masters of Vessels are forbid to carry off said Slave.”  These notices that ran one after the other both concerned missing persons, yet the advertisers who placed them had very different purposes in doing so.  Rogers aimed to use the power of the press to return a young man to slavery, while Spencer treated his advertisement as a means of disseminating news that was exceptionally important to a household responsible for providing care for a son who needed their support.  One young man would benefit if the advertisement was successful, while the other certainly would not.

April 12

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

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

Connecticut Gazette (April 12, 1776).

“The LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE … situated on the Post-Road leading to NEW-YORK.”

In the spring of 1776, Thomas Allen announced his plans to open the “LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE” in New Haven.  He previously operated a similar business, advertising it in the New-London Gazette in the summer of 1773, but apparently that establishment closed at some point during the years that the imperial crisis intensified.  Now he acknowledged “the Want of Place for the Reception, Ease and Quiet of my old Friends and Customers,” those “Gentlemen Travellers” who previously stayed with him, and decided to open a new coffeehouse “At the House lately occupied by Capt. Freeman Crocker, on JORDAN PLAIN, adjoining the Brook, very pleasantly situated on the Post-Road leading to NEW-YORK, over the Rope-Ferry, and within 2 Miles and 3/4ths of NEW-LONDON Court-House.”  Allen expected that such a convenient location would attract patrons.

He also emphasized the amenities available at new London Coffee-House, especially “the best of Liquors … at the usual reasonable Prices.”  He resorted to an appeal that he used in his advertisement from 1773: with a wink and a nod, he listed a variety of spirits he stocked “For the Benefit of the Sick and Weakly.”  Those unfortunate souls could purchase “Choice Genuine LONDON MADEIRA,” “Old MALAGA,” “Red PORT,” and other drinks “by the Bottle or smaller Quantity.”  In a nota bene, Allen informed local farmers and fishermen that a “generous Price will be given … for all Sorts of Fresh Provisions.  Also for fresh Salmon, Trout, Fish, [and] Lobsters.”  That notice provided a preview of the quality and variety of food that customers could consume along with their beverages as they enjoyed a leisurely respite from their travels.

Allen first ran his advertisement on March 29, alerting the public that his new establishment would open on April 10.  It appeared in two consecutive issues before the coffeehouse opened, likely inciting anticipation among some of those “Gentlemen Travellers” who had bestowed “many Favours” on Allen through their patronage of his former endeavor.  Once the new enterprise opened, he ran the advertisement once again as a means of welcoming patrons and encouraging readers who had not yet visited to experience the coffeehouse for themselves.

April 5

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , , ,

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

Connecticut Gazette (April 5, 1776).

“DICK (a Negro) … is now made free from Slavery by the Charity of the People.”

It was an unusual advertisement about an enslaved person that ran in the April 5, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Gazette.  In the decade prior to the colonies declaring independence from Great Britain, more than thirty thousand advertisements about enslaved men, women, and children ran in American newspapers.  Almost all of them belonged to one of two categories: buying and selling enslaved people or capturing and returning enslaved people who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers.  In the first category, most notices offered enslaved people for sale, though some offered to hire them out by the month or year and others sought to purchase enslaved people.  In the second category, most advertisements described enslaved people who liberated themselves and offered rewards for their capture and return with a smaller number giving descriptions of Black people confined to jails and workhouses on suspicion of running away and asking their enslavers to claim them and pay expenses.  The April 5 edition of the Connecticut Gazette carried an advertisement about “a Melatto Fellow named SY” who liberated himself from Joshua Powers and another that offered to sell “A Negro Man Servant, at a very reasonable Price.”

It also featured a notice “to inform the Public, That … DICK (a Negro) was of late a Servant to Mr. Stephen Bacon, of Middletown, but is now made free from Slavery by the Charity of the People, and by virtue of his Freedom, has Liberty to procure the necessaries of Life by his own Industry, as other free born Subjects have.”  The advertisement did not go into detail about the circumstance of Dick receiving his freedom, though it suggested that residents of Middletown took up a collection to purchase him from Bacon.  During the era of the American Revolution, some colonizers in New England recognized the enslavement of African, African American, and Indigenous people as inconsistent with the rhetoric of freedom that they embraced concerning their own experiences within the British Empire.  In the spring of 1775, for instance, Black people in the counties of Bristol and Worcester “petitioned the Committees of Correspondence for the county of Worcester … to assist them in obtaining their freedom.”  According to a notice in the June 21 edition of the Massachusetts Spy, the colonizers who gathered for a county convention passed a resolution stated that “we abhor the enslaving of any of the human race, and particularly of the NEGROES in this country.”  Accordingly, “whenever there shall be a door opened, or opportunity present for anything to be done toward the emancipating the NEGROES; we will use our influence and endeavour that such a thing may be effected.”

Stephen Bacon of Middletown, Connecticut, did not seem to share those sentiments.  Perhaps members of his community did not either, but at the very least they apparently formed some sort of bond with Dick that prompted them to seek his freedom.  The announcement that ran in the Connecticut Gazette came with a caveat.  The men who placed it, Zaccheus Higbe and Joseph Graves, cautioned that “all or any Person or Persons that do or shall Trade, Bargain, or make Contract with [Dick], will be liable themselves to bear all the loss that he or they do sustain by so doing.”  Higbe and Graves did not specify what role, if any, they played in Dick becoming free, nor did they indicate their primary motivation for placing the advertisement.  Was it to aid Dick in asserting his new status?  Or to caution anyone who might do business with him that Bacon was no longer ultimately responsible for Dick’s “own Industry”?  Whatever their intention, the advertisement in Connecticut Gazette supplemented other documents testifying to his freedom that Dick almost certainly safeguarded in society where enslavement continued.

March 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Connecticut Gazette (March 29, 1775).

“FREEBETTER’s New-England ALMANACK, To be Sold by T. GREEN.”

Timothy Green, the printer of the Connecticut Gazette, needed something short to complete the first column on the last page of the March 29, 1776, edition of his newspaper.  Most of the column consisted of news from Williamsburg, Philadelphia, New York, and Providence, but those updates did not quite fill the column.  He seized the opportunity to insert an advertisement for “FREEBETTER’s New-England ALMANACK” available at his printing office in New London.  It was late to advertise an almanac.  After all, one quarter of the year already elapsed, yet readers would still find many of the contents useful or entertaining.

Throughout the colonies, advertisements for almanacs usually began appearing as fall arrived.  They increased in number and frequency as the new year approached before tapering off during the winter months.  When they had surplus copies, some printers continued advertising their almanacs into March, though they often ran less elaborate notices than those they used to promote the popular pamphlets when they first came off the press.  Green, for instance, ran a much longer advertisement for “FREEBETTER’s New-England ALMANACK, For the Year of Our LORD, 1776,” in December 1775, encouraging readers to acquire their copies before the new year began.  That advertisement featured an overview of the contents, including reference material like “Feasts and Fasts of the Church of England; Time of High-Water [or high tide]; Courts; Roads; [and] useful Tables” and “useful and entertaining Pieces” like “A cheap, easy, and tried Remedy for the Bloody Purging” and an essay “On the Folly of those who vex themselves with fruitless Wishes.”

Green devoted much more space in his newspapers to the advertisement he ran in early December than to the one in late March.  He likely realized that he had much better prospects for selling almanacs before the first of the year, yet he still thought he had a chance to make some sales in early spring.  Still, the placement and length of his latest advertisement suggests that he decided to insert it, at least in part, because he needed to fill the space at the bottom of a column and not solely because he prioritized marketing the remaining copies of the almanac.

March 1

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

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

Connecticut Gazette (March 1, 1776).

“Such has been the Demand for this Pamphlet, that eight Editions of it have been printed.”

Timothy Green, the printer of the Connecticut Gazette in New London, updated his advertisement for a local edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense that he jointly published with Judah P. Spooner, his brother-in-law and former apprentice who ran a printing office in Norwich.  A week earlier, Green announced the imminent publication of the pamphlet in short advertisement: “To-morrow will be published, and sold by the Printer hereof, and by J.P. Spooner in Norwich; COMMON SENSE; ADDRESSED TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.”  Green hoped to incite a sense of anticipation among prospective customers.

Once he had copies available for sale at his printing office in New London, Green ran a more extensive advertisement, one that resembled advertisements in other newspapers placed by publishers and booksellers who sold editions published in Philadelphia, New York, and Providence.  In addition to the title of the pamphlet, the advertisement listed the “following interesting SUBJECTS” that Paine covered, replicating section headings that included “Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession” and “Thoughts on the present State of AMERICAN Affairs.”  Since Paine remained anonymous at that time, the advertisement stated that the pamphlet was “WRITTEN BY AN ENGLISHMAN.”  Green also included the epigraph, two lines of “Liberty,” a poem by James Thomson, that appeared on the title page of the first edition and in advertisements for that and other editions.

In general, Green did not generate new copy for his advertisement for this edition of Common Sense, but he did add an original note at the end: “Such has been the Demand for this Pamphlet, that eight Editions of it have been printed in different Colonies, in the Course of a few Weeks only.”  For those who had not heard about the incendiary pamphlet and the bold ideas that Paine presented, Green hoped that its popularity in other places would convince them not to miss reading it for themselves by purchasing a local edition.  His tabulation of “eight Editions” suggested that he closely examined the advertisements in newspapers printed in other cities and towns delivered to his printing office as part of a network for sharing information and reprinting content from newspaper to newspaper to newspaper.  Green did not peruse just the news accounts and editorials.  He apparently took note of the competing editions published in Philadelphia and local editions advertised in other places.  Bringing attention to such demand, he reasoned, would spur sales of a local edition of Common Sense in New London.

February 23

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

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

Connecticut Gazette (February 23, 1776).

“Sold by the Printer hereof … COMMON SENSE.”

On February 23, 1776, Timothy Green, the printer of the Connecticut Gazette, announced the publication of yet another local edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.  He joined other printers in publishing, advertising, and disseminating the incendiary political pamphlet far beyond Philadelphia, where Robert Bell published and advertised the first edition on January 9.  Since then, Bell produced an unauthorized second edition and Paine worked with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, on an expanded new edition (and they engaged in a public argument about the competing editions in the Pennsylvania Evening Post and other newspapers published in Philadelphia).  The Bradfords also informed readers that a German edition was in the works.  In addition, they indicated that they would fill an order from Virginia for one thousand copies.  It did not take long for William Green, a bookseller and bookbinder in New York, to advertise copies of Bell’s first and second editions.  John Anderson, the printer of the Constitutional Gazette in New York, soon marketed the first local edition published beyond Philadelphia.  By the middle of February, John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, advised readers that his local edition would hit the market within a week.

That edition went on sale at the same time that Green released a local edition in New London.  According to the advertisement, Judah P. Spooner, his brother-in-law and former apprentice who operated a printing office in Norwich, sold the pamphlet there as well.  The imprint on the title page suggested that Green and Spooner collaborated as publishers, but Spooner did the printing: “Philadelphia: Printed.  Norwich: Re-printed and sold by Judah P. Spooner, and by T. Green, in New-London.”  Green gave their advertisement a privileged place in the Connecticut Gazette, placing it immediately after updates from Hartford.  That made it difficult for readers to miss.  He did not, however, include elements that often appeared in advertisements for other editions in other newspapers, such as the list of section headers that outlined the contents or the epigraph from “Liberty,” a poem by James Thomson.  Lack of space may have prevented Green from publishing a more elaborate advertisement, though he may have considered the buzz around Common Sense sufficient to sell it once prospective customers knew where to purchase a local edition.

January 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Connecticut Gazette (January 12, 1776).

“(Advertisements omitted will be in our next.)”

Instead of the usual four pages, the January 12, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Gazette consisted of only two pages.  Most issues of colonial newspapers had four pages, created by printing two pages on each side of a broadsheet and folding it in half.  Timothy Green, the printer of the Connecticut Gazette, had only enough paper that he was forced to condense the contents to a half sheet, one page printed on each side.  He certainly was not the only printer to experience a disruption in his paper supply during the first year of the Revolutionary War.

Green acknowledged the situation with a note that appeared at the top of the first column on the first page: “[The want of Paper obliges us to issue only a Half Sheet this Week: In which, however, is digested every material Article that is come to Hand.]”  In other words, subscribers and other readers did not need to worry that they missed important news because Green did not have enough space to print it.  Instead, he carefully undertook his duties as an editor to include everything of importance received in the printing office since the previous week’s issue of the Connecticut Gazette.  The small font for news items, smaller than the font used for advertisements, also allowed Green to squeeze a significant amount of content into just two pages.

Connecticut Gazette (January 12, 1776).

What about the advertisements?  Only three paid notices appeared in that issue, one for “Journeyman NAIL SMITHS” immediately below the printer’s note on the first page and two more at the bottom of the final column on the second page.  The printer concluded the issue with a brief note: “(Advertisements omitted will be in our next.)”  Green assured advertisers, especially those who paid in advance of publication, that the Connecticut Gazette would indeed disseminate their notices.  In this instance, however, he prioritized the needs of subscribers (many of whom did not make timely payments) and other readers (who did not pay the printer at all) over advertisers (who comprised an important revenue stream).  It was a careful balancing act for all colonial printers as they served multiple constituencies simultaneously.  For this issue, Green considered keeping subscribers and the rest of the public informed about “The King’s SPEECH, to both Houses of Parliament, October 26, 1775,” and news from London, Philadelphia, New York, Newport, Worcester, and Watertown (where the Continental Army continued the siege of Boston) more important than publishing many of the advertisements submitted to his printing office.