What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Boston-Gazette (February 15, 1773).
“THE Persons who may incline to purchase PATTY HALL’s House … need not be afraid of the Neighbours.”
The feud between Patty Hall and her neighbors continued in the advertisements in the February 15, 1773, edition of the Boston-Gazette. The altercation first appeared in the public prints when Hall placed a notice offering her house for sale in the February 1 edition of the Boston-Gazette. She noted that her neighbors made “a great Bustle” in court about “a Piece of Land” associated with the property, but then “dropt the Matter.” That being the case, she assured “Any Person that inclines to Purchase, may depend that a good Title will be given.” Hall also accused her neighbors of various acts of vandalism and intimidation, including throwing stones at her.
Hall’s neighbors apparently read or heard about the advertisement. They did not wait a week to respond in the next issue of the Boston-Gazette. Instead, they placed notices in the next newspapers published in town, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy on February 4. Hall’s neighbors sarcastically mentioned the “Politeness” accorded to them before clarifying that the matter had moved to another court and requesting that public “suspend their Judgment” until “Evidences on both Sides are properly examined.” They also inserted their advertisement in the next issue of the Boston-Gazette on February 8, a week after Hall’s original notice. It ran immediately above a response from Hall. She described additional harassment she claimed that she experienced from her neighbors.
Having set the record straight once already, Hall’s neighbors did not feel the need to rush to publish a response to Hall’s latest advertisement. Instead, they waited for the next edition of the Boston-Gazette on February 15. In what they framed as a letter to the editors, Hall’s neighbors assured anyone “who may incline to purchase PATTY HALL’s House – with such a Title as she can give – need not be afraid of the Neighbours.” They asserted that knocking at all hours and other alleged torments “were never heard by the Neighbours” and concluded that “it was all done within Doors.” That being the case, they declared, Hall was in the best position to identify the real culprits. Her neighbors recommended that if anyone who purchased the house wished to avoid such intrusions that they “need not keep the same Company” as Hall.
Edes and Gill, the printers of the Boston-Gazette, may have enjoyed the argument between Hall and her neighbors. They almost certainly appreciated the revenue that their advertisements generated. In publishing those advertisements, Edes and Gill and the printers of other newspapers abdicated a small amount of editorial control to those who paid to purchase space in their publications. The advertisements carried news, of a sort, that would not have appeared among the articles and editorials that the printers selected to include elsewhere in their newspapers. Hall and her neighbors could have relied on rumors and gossip to malign each other, but they realized that advertisements gave them a much larger audience for presenting their grievances to the court of public opinion.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Boston-Gazette (February 8, 1773).
“MRS. HALL is sensible that the Advertisement in Thursday’s Papers was intended to injure her in the Sale of her House.”
The feud between Patty Hall and her neighbors continued to move back and forth between newspapers. It began when Hall inserted a notice in the February 1, 1773, edition of the Boston-Gazette. She accused five of her neighbors of conspiring to drive her out of her house on Hanover Street by making spurious claims in court before dropping the matter and simultaneously vandalizing the house and even throwing stones at her as she passed through her year. Hall did not give any reason that her neighbors felt such enmity, but she did declare that she could give “a good Title” to anyone who purchased the house.
Rather than waiting a week to respond in the next issue of the Boston-Gazette, Hall’s neighbors inserted a response in the February 4 editions of both the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy. They described themselves as “THE PERSONS mentioned with so much Politeness by Mrs. HALL in her Advertisement” and directed readers to “See Edes and Gill’slast Gazette.” They advised that the “Conduct of both Parties” would become apparent, “either to their Honor or Disgrace,” upon more extensive examination. In other words, they cautioned readers not to believe everything that Hall put into print. At the same time, they warned against trusting the title that Hall offered “until the same shall be determined in a due Course of Law,” clarifying that they had not dropped the case, as Hall indicated, but instead moved it to another court.
Hall had at least one thing in common with her neighbors. She did not wait to respond in the same newspaper that carried their notice. She did not allow them that much time to frame the narrative. Instead, she once again published an advertisement in the Boston-Gazette, this time in the February 8 edition. Her neighbors apparently decided to insert their advertisement in that newspaper as well. The compositor conveniently combined the two notices into a single advertisement that told a story for readers. The format, a short line instead of a full line separating the two notices, allows the possibility that Hall reprinted the advertisement to provide context for her response, but her reference to suspending further advertisements because she had “no Money to trifle with” suggests that she would not have taken on the expense of reprinting an advertisement she found so objectionable.
She certainly meant to acknowledge that “the Advertisement in Thursday’s Papers was intended to injure her in the Sale of her House.” She intentionally misunderstood the “Compliment to her Politeness,” stressing that she “least intended” any pleasantries because she “knew to whom she was speaking, and chose to address them in a Language they understood.” She adamantly asserted that she had “no Notion of treating Persons politely” when she suspected them of perpetrating the “dirty Actions” she described in her first advertisements as well as “daubing her Yard and Doors with the most nauseous Filth, beating at her Shutters with Axes and Clubs, and disturbing her with repeated Noises at all Hours of the Night.” She lamented that she gave her neighbors “no other Provocation” except her “Refusal to cut down Part of her House” until a court determined the true ownership of the land that portion of the dwelling occupied. Hall claimed that she welcomed a court decision because she was confident that it “will do her Justice, and act without Partiality.” Beyond the courts, she continued to use the public prints to excoriate her neighbors for their malicious behavior.
Both Hall and her neighbors expected that the public engaged with their version of events across multiple publications and through discussing what they read in one newspaper or another or what their acquaintances told them they had read or heard. As the adversaries waited for a legal decision from the court, they pursued another sort of vindication in the court of public opinion.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (February 4, 1773).
“The Conduct of the Parties from first to last will best appear … when the Evidences on both Sides are properly examined.”
Printers selected which items appeared among the news and editorials in their newspapers, yet colonizers exercised some amount of editorial authority when they published news in the form of advertisements. Consider and exchange between Patty Hall and her neighbors in two newspapers published in Boston in the first week of February 1773.
Hall initiated the exchange with an advertisement in the February 1 edition of the Boston-Gazette. Placing the notice for the purpose of selling a house, Hall seized the opportunity to name several of her neighbors and report that they “made a Complaint to the Selectmen, about a Piece of Land; and they laid it before the Grand Jury; and after making a great Bustle, dropt the Matter.” The matter being settled, Hall declared that the purchaser “may depend that a good Title will be given.” According to Hall, that was only the beginning of the trouble she supposedly had with her neighbors. She claimed that at the same time she “had her Windows broke, Spouts tore down, the Drane stopt,and frequently Stones thrown at all Parts of the House.” To make matters even worse, she “very nearly escap’d a great Stone thrown at her passing thro’ the Yard.” She suspected that her neighbors were directly responsible or “employ somebody to do it” and offered a reward to anyone “that will apprehend the Person or Persons concern’d.”
Boston-Gazette (February 1, 1773).
The neighbors that Hall named – “Constable Hale, James Bailey, Samuel Sloan, Retailer, Elizabeth Clarke and Nowell, and Deacon Barrett” – objected to the version of events that Hall published in the Boston-Gazette. Rather than wait a week to make their rebuttal in the next edition of that newspaper, they inserted their own notice in both the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy just three days later. They identified themselves as “THE PERSON mentioned with so much Politeness by Mrs. HALL in her advertisement, *” and directed readers to “* See Edes and Gill’slast Gazette.” They offered clarifications about the outcome of the “Bustle” in court, stating that when Hall “gave Notice that the Matter was dropt, she should have added,— “in order to be taken up at another Court.’” Unlike Hall, the neighbors considered the matter far from settled. They encouraged others “to suspend their Judgment both as to the Merits of the Cause and the Title … until the same shall be determined in a due course of law.” As for the other allegations made by Hall, her neighbors implied that she fabricated the story. “The Conduct of the Parties from first to last will best appear, either to their Honor or Disgrace,” they asserted, “when the Evidences on both Sides are properly examined.” In refusing the dignify Hall’s allegations with any more of a response, her neighbors suggested they had no merit.
Hall wished to frame the narrative of her troubles with her neighbors. Purchasing a paid notice in one of the local newspapers allowed her to do so. Similarly, those neighbors also bought advertising space to tell their side of the story. This allowed both parties to bypass the printer-editors of the Boston-Gazette, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, and the Massachusetts Spy to determine for themselves what kind of content the public read or heard about as colonizers discussed the altercation that appeared among newspaper advertisements that delivered all kinds of local news.
“In your Gazette of the 26th Ultimo, I observe and Advertisement signed by Alexander Wodrow.”
Colonizers placed newspaper advertisements to serve a variety of purposes. They hawked consumer goods and services. They described enslaved people who liberated themselves by running away and offered rewards for their capture and return. They called on debtors and creditors to settle accounts with the executors of estates. They offered real estate for sale. They notified readers about stray livestock to claim.
Some colonizers used advertisements to pursue feuds with others or to defend their reputations to the public. Such was the case with notices placed by Alexander Wodrow and William Love, both of Falmouth, in Alexander Purdie and John Dixon’s Virginia Gazette in November and December 1772. It began with a “letter” addressed to the printers but placed among the paid notices in the November 26 edition. Wodrow asked the printers “to acquaint the Publick that William Love, by the Connivance of David Kerr,” Wodrow’s former attorney, “has this Day in his Possession an accepted Note for near two Hundred Pounds, drawn by Kerr on Mr. Gavin Lawson, and accepted by Mr. Lawson, payable to William Love, and Company.” Furthermore, “the said Note was fraudulently obtained” and accepted by Lawson “inadvertently.” Wodrow did not specify his relationship to Lawson or his interest in the matter.
That did not matter to Love. What did matter was that his reputation had been impugned in the public prints. In response, he dispatched his own “letter” to the printers. It appeared among other paid notices in column with a header that read, “Advertisements,” in the December 10 edition. Love cited the Wodrow’s advertisement, directing the printers (and readers) to “your Gazette of the 26th Ultimo.” For those who had not seen the previous advertisement and did not have access to the newspaper from two weeks ago, Love provided a summary of Wodrow’s allegations. He then declared that “the said Note is still in my Hands.” To defend his reputation, he invited “any Persons who will give themselves the Trouble to inquire into the Matter of Mr. Gavin Lawson, or the Gentlemen of Falmouth” to consult with Love directly. Upon doing so, Love was convinced that they would “be satisfied that there was no Fraud done or intended in this Transaction.” Even if no readers went to “the Trouble” of contacting Love for more information, he did not allow Wodrow the sole power of framing their dispute in the public prints.
It was a convoluted story. A significant sum and, just as valuable, the reputations of several colonizers were on the line. Dressing up their notices as letters to the printers and purchasing space in a newspaper gave both Wodrow and Love an opportunity to air their grievances, warn others of a potentially fraudulent note, and defend their reputations to the broader public beyond their local community in Falmouth. Purdie and Dixon published updates from London, Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Williamsburg in the section of the newspaper devoted to news, but readers sometimes encountered accounts of local affairs, like the quarrel in Falmouth, among the advertisements.
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 this week?
New-York Journal (July 16, 1772).
“WATCHES, HORIZONTAL, REPEATING, or PLAIN.”
By coincidence or by design, the compositor made the feud between rival watchmakers James Yeoman and John Simnet difficult to overlook in the July 16, 1772, edition of the New-York Journal, placing their advertisements next to each other. The two had been sparring in the public prints for months, but their advertisements did not previously appear in such close proximity.
Yeoman devised a distinctive headline for his advertisement: “WATCHES, / HORIZONTAL, REPEATING, or PLAIN; / CLOCKS, / ASTRONOMICAL, Musical or / Plain.” He then asserted that “he can with Propriety declare himself a realManufacturer, having had the Government of a large Manufactory from its Infancy to its Maturity, one Hundred Miles from London.” In so doing, he answered allegations that Simnet made about Yeoman’s lack of skill and experience. Yeoman also proclaimed that he could supply “proper Testimonials … to prove the Assertion” that he managed a “large Manufactory” in England. A notation on the final line, “27,” indicated that the advertisement first appeared in issue 1527 on April 9.
For his part, Simnet had a history of mocking his competitors. In this instance, he appropriated Yeoman’s headline for his own advertisement: “WATCHES, / HORIZONTAL, REPEATING, or PLAIN; CLOCKS, / ASTRONOMICAL, MUSICAL.” He then insinuated that Yeoman greatly exaggerated his abilities, asking “IS any ingenious Artificer (or Spirit) within 100 Miles, capable of making either, or a Thing in Imitation of either?” The reference to “100 Miles” underscored that Simnet sought to twist the contents of Yeoman’s advertisement against his competitor.
By the time Simnet’s advertisement first appeared in the New-York Journal on July 2, readers were familiar with Yeoman’s notice, making it difficult to overlook the derision of the intentional replication and alteration of the original. Positioning the notices next to each other served Simnet’s purposes, even for readers who quickly scanned the advertisements and missed the interplay between notices when they previously appeared on different pages.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-Hampshire Gazette (June 29, 1770).
“A SQUIB—-To the Tune of Miss Dawson’s Hornpipe.”
In June 1770, watchmaker John Simnet was unrelenting in the criticism of rival Nathaniel Sheaff Griffith. For three consecutive weeks, he published advertisements featuring new insults in the New-Hampshire Gazette. For nearly a year and a half the two watchmakers traded barbs in the public prints, beginning almost as soon as Simnet set up shop in the colony, but their exchanges had previously been intermittent. Neither had previously directed so many advertisements at the other so quickly. Simnet likely incurred additional fees in choosing this manner of pursuing his vendetta against Griffith. Advertisers usually paid a flat fee for setting type and running notices for several weeks; inserting a notice once and replacing it with a different advertisement the following week created more work in the printing office. Auctioneers tended to run new advertisements with details about upcoming sales every week, but other purveyors of goods and services usually ran their advertisements for multiple weeks.
Simnet commenced this series of advertisements on June 15 with a two-part notice that first compared Griffith to a rat and then published one of his bills for the public to determine whether Griffith charged fair prices. In another two-part advertisement on June 22, Simnet reiterated the rat metaphor and supplemented it with a poem that denigrated both Griffith’s character and skills as a watchmaker. The advertisement in the June 29 edition of the New-Hampshire Gazetteagain had two parts. The first was fairly innocuous, deploying strategies that any watchmaker might have incorporated into an advertisement. It briefly stated, “WATCHES KEPT in REPAIR for Two Shillings and six pence Sterling per YEAR: Clean’d for thos who desire them done cheap, for a Pistereen, and Repairs in Proportion. By J. SIMNET: Parade.” It was in the second portion, “A SQUIB—-To the Tune of Miss Dawson’s Hornpipe,” that Simnet attacked Griffith. That poem was not nearly as clever as the one Simnet published the previous week. It mocked Griffith’s appearance and “foolish Face,” but did not mention his character nor the quality of his work. Yet it may have been all the more memorable as a means of repeatedly demeaning Griffith since Simnet provided instructions for setting it to music. Reader could sing or hum a bit to themselves, intentionally to see how Simnet’s lyrics fit the tune and unintentionally if the music got stuck in their heads. Rather than create an advertising jingle that made his own business more memorable, Simnet attempted to use music in a manner that encouraged the community of readers to repeatedly belittle his competitor.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-Hampshire Gazette (June 22, 1770).
“His Clocks with both Hands gives the Lye,
His Tongue ne’er speaks the Truth.”
After placing an advertisement in which he compared his rival to a rat, watchmaker John Simnet did not bother to wait for a response from Nathaniel Sheaff Griffith before escalating their feud once again. In the June 15, 1770, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette, Simnet placed an advertisement with two parts. The first portion included the rat metaphor and the second portion a copy of a bill that Griffith issued to one of his customers. Simnet called on “Judges” to insect the watch and assess whether the bill was reasonable before Griffith’s customer paid for the repairs and reclaimed his watch.
In the next edition, Simnet once again placed an advertisement in two parts. The first reiterated the rat metaphor and a reference to Griffith as a “rough Clockmaker.” The second portion was new; Simnet found new ways to denigrate Griffith in a short poem:
Near Portsmouth Stocks SHEEP G—ffi—h lives
(A Turkey legged Youth,)
His Clocks with both Hands gives the Lye,
His Tongue ne’er speaks the Truth,
Stand off, ye Pettyfogging Knaves;
This can you all out do,
Long NAT, can Filch us of our Time;
And of our Money too.
Although the poem was no great work of literature, it did include a couple of clever turns of phrase that simultaneously invoked measuring time and deficiencies in both Griffith’s character and skills as a watchmaker. According to Simnet, Griffith’s clocks did not keep accurate time, yet another way that the supposed liar deceived his clients; nobody could expect Griffith to deliver the truth via any means, not in conversation nor on the dial of his clocks. Simnet also accused Griffith of stealing from his clients in multiple ways. He stole their money when demanding payment for inferior work. He also stole their time in more than one fashion, through depriving them of knowing the correct time and also through wasting their time in dealing with him at all.
In the era of the imperial crisis that ultimately became the American Revolution, some colonists expressed their political views in advertisements that promoted their business endeavors. By paying to insert their notices in newspapers, they gained some level of editorial authority. Simnet and Griffith, however, did not leverage that authority to address current events. Instead, they used it to engage in a dispute that repeatedly unfolded before the eyes of readers of the New-Hampshire Gazette. Purchasing advertising space allowed colonists to express their views and have conversations … or engage in arguments … seemingly with little editorial intervention from the printers.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-Hampshire Gazette (June 15, 1770).
“If Rats could speak, they would declare their Sentiments.”
As spring turned to summer in 1770, the rivalry between watchmakers John Simnet and Nathaniel Sheaff Griffith got even more heated. In the June 8 edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette, Griffith escalated their feud by publishing an advertisement calling Simnet a mountebank as well as a novice and stranger to the trade. He had shown some restraint in taking several weeks to respond to an earlier advertisement in which Simnet had disparaged Griffith’s skill and stated that the watches he returned to customers “never had been properly repaired.” Simnet, usually the more aggressive of the two competitors, published his response in the next issue of the New-Hampshire Gazette, once again escalating the war of words.
In that advertisement, Simnet did not promote his own proficiency but instead leveled two attacks at Griffith. In the first, he compared Griffith to a rat scrounging for survival and expecting others to provide the sustenance he needed for no other reason that he needed it. “[I]f Rats could speak,” Simnet proclaimed, “they would declare their Sentiments, say they must eat, and we live by gnawing down what you endeavour to rear.” Simnet then declared that he tolerated his rival, “this Creature … with few Cloaths to cover his Flesh, and but very little Flesh to cover his Bones.” In this metaphor, Griffith was not even a good rat who managed “to eat the Fruits of others Labour.” All the same, Siment warned others to “take care” in their dealings with his competitor.
To that point in the advertisement, Simnet had not yet named Griffith, though readers of the New-Hampshire Gazettewould have been very familiar with the enmity the two watchmakers felt for each other. The compositor also helped readers make the connection by once again placing the two advertisements one after another. In the previous issue Simnet’s earlier advertisement came first, followed immediately by Griffith’s response. In the June 15 edition, Griffith’s advertisement appeared once again, this time with a response from Griffith underneath it so readers moved directly from to the other.
In making his second attack, Simnet did name the “rough Clockmaker” that readers already knew Simnet compared to a rat.” Simnet published a “Copy of a Bill by Nath’l. Sheaff Griffith, on Mr. Samuel Pickering of Greenland, for repairing his Watch.” Simnet asserted that “Mr. Pickering desires the Watch may be inspected by Judges, before he pays for it,” but “Griffith refuses, and now keeps it in his Possession.” Whatever the accuracy of that account, it suggested to readers of the New-Hampshire Gazette that Griffith did not want his lack of skill exposed to even greater scrutiny. To that end, he was in a standoff with a customer over the price he charged for repairing a watch. According to Simnet, Griffith expected Pickering to pay £1.4.11 without independent confirmation that he made appropriate repairs. He demanded that Pickering pay before he would return the watch. By publicizing that Pickering wished for “Judges” to examine Griffith’s work as well as the charges that appeared on the bill, Simnet further escalated his own dispute with the rival watchmaker by encouraging others to intervene.
Did this help or hurt Simnet in an era when advertisers rarely mentioned their competitors by name? It was bold enough that Simnet declared that “Most of those who profess this Employ in this Country, are rough Clockmakers.” Most artisans emphasized their own skill, stating that they were as proficient or better than others who followed their trade, but they usually did not denigrate the work performed by others as a means of enhancing their own status. Ever since he arrived in New Hampshire after pursuing his trade for more than two decades in London, Simnet had disparaged local clock- and watchmakers, starting with general comments and eventually targeting Griffith in particular. Readers of the New-Hampshire Gazette may have considered the ongoing feud between Simnet and Griffith amusing, but was it effective or ultimately too unseemly at a time when advertisements did not often incorporate insults and barbs directed at the competition? The true beneficiary of this series of advertisements may very well have been the printers of the New-Hampshire Gazette who earned additional revenues every time that Griffith or Simnet chose to publish a new volley.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-Hampshire Gazette (June 8, 1770).
“He is as great a Watch-Maker as he is a Mountebank.”
The feud between watchmakers Nathaniel Sheaff Griffith and John Simnet had been playing out in the New-Hampshire Gazette for more than a year when Griffith published a new advertisement in the June 8, 1770, edition. That advertisement further escalated the conflict, though Griffith reacted to a particularly antagonistic advertisement that Simnet first published three weeks earlier. Throughout most of their bickering in the public prints, the watchmakers engaged in innuendo but usually did not name each other. On May 18, however, Simnet asserted that “All who please to apply, may depend on being faithfully served, with such Watches as Mr. Nathaniel Sheaffe Griffith can make, and mending in general as perform’d by that Genius, without any Charge.” In other words, Simnet would fix for free any watches that his competitor further damaged in the process of attempting to repair them. That advertisement ran in the New-Hampshire Gazette for several weeks.
In response, Simnet no longer felt compelled not to name his rival. In his next advertisement he informed readers that he provided his services “at a much cheaper rate than the original Simnet, altho’ he has taken such repeated pains to inform the publick of his great skill and accuracy.” Griffith alluded to the series of advertisements Simnet published since arriving in the colony, but then he continued with a description that drew on encounters with Simnet beyond the pages of the New-Hampshire Gazette. Griffith asserted that Simnet went about “vainly flattering himself that the variety of his dress may induce people to believe he is as great a Watch-Maker as he is a Mountebank.” Yet Simnet was a charlatan in all things, according to Griffith, “inimitable in a Branch” of watchmaking “that he is a Novice and a Stranger to,” despite his pretensions.
As a further insult, Griffith copies the format of Simnet’s most recent advertisement, appending a nota bene in which he delivered another scalding critique in the form of a spurious compliment. “I desire to return my thanks to Simnet, Watch Maker, from London,” Griffith proclaimed, “for his good custom for the many Watches I mend and repair after they have been cruely butchered by him.” Griffith reversed the accusation Simnet made in his advertisement, suggesting that he actually had to repair those watches that Simnet damaged through his incompetence. Griffith likely intended that claim to further enrage his rival. He added a parting blow: “For after he is paid his price, I have mine paid the more generous.” Simnet’s customers, Griffith contended, were so frustrated that they gratefully paid Griffith to undo the damage done by the “Watch Maker, from London.”
Once again, the compositor recognized a good story, conveniently placing the two advertisements one after the other. Readers perused Griffith’s advertisements first and then immediately saw Griffith’s rejoinder. Even for those who did not require the services of either watchmaker, this spectacle likely provided entertainment as the war of words continued to escalate in the public prints.
