Hutchin’s Improved Almanack

September 25

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

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (September 25, 1775).

“Illustrated with a beautiful Plan of Boston, and the Provincial Camp.”

When fall arrived, it was time to market almanacs for the coming year.  It was an annual ritual in American newspapers from New England to Georgia.  Hugh Gaine, the printer of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, began advertising “HUTCHIN’s Improv’d: BEING AN ALMANACK … For the Year of our LORD 1776” on September 18, 1775, and then inserted his extensive notice in subsequent issues.  The almanac’s contents included the usual astronomical data, such as “Length of Days and Nights” as well as a schedule of the courts, a description of roads to other cities and towns, and “useful Tables, chronological Observations and entertaining Remarks.”  Gaine enumerated thirty-one of those items, such as a “Very comical, humorous, and entertaining Adventure of a young LADY that used to walk in her sleep,” an essay on the “evil Consequences of Sloth and Idleness,” and a “Method for destroying Caterpillars on Trees.”

If all of that was not enough to entice customers, Gaine made sure that they knew that the almanac was “Illustrated with a beautiful Plan of Boston, and the Provincial Camp.”  That proclamation led the advertisement, appearing immediately above the title of the almanac.  Gaine then devoted the greatest amount of space to describing the map: “13. A very neat Plan of the Town of Boston, shewing at one View, the Provincial Camp, Boston Neck, Fortification, Commons, Battery, Magazines, Charlestown Ferry, Mill Pond, Fort Hill, Corps Hill, Liberty Tree, Windmill Point, South Battery, Long Wharf, Island Wharf, Hancock’s [Wharf], Charlestown, Bunker’s Hill, Winter Hill, Cobble Hill, Forts, Prospect Hill, Provincial Lines, Lower Fort, Upper [Fort], Main Guard, Cambridge College, Charles River, Pierpont’s Mill, Fascine Battery, Roxbury Hill Lines, General Gage’s Lines, Dorchester Hill and Point, and Mystick River.”  As the siege of Boston continued, Daine realized that colonizers in Boston would be interested in supplementing what they read in newspapers and heard from others with a map that would help them envision and better understand recent events.

What was the source for the map?  According to the catalog description for the almanac by PBA Galleries, Auctioneers and Appraisers, the map, “titled a ‘Plan of Boston,’ details Boston’s Shawmut Peninsula and with a smaller inset of the greater Boston area.  Both maps appear to be based on the ‘New and Correct Plan of the Town of Boston and Provincial Camp,’ which appeared in the Pennsylvania Magazine for July, 1775.”  The image that Aitken marketed to spur magazine sales found its way into another periodical publication.  Another printer used it to generate demand for an item produced on his press.

Gaine also listed “11. The whole Process of making SALT PETRE, recommended by the Hon. The Continental Congress, for the making of which there is a Bounty now given both in this and the neighbouring Provinces” and “12. The Method of making Gun-Powder, which at this Juncture may be carried into Execution in a small Way, by almost every Framer in his own Habitation.”  The auction catalog further clarifies that the almanac contains “the Resolution of Congress, July 28, 1775 on the necessity of making gunpowder in the colonies, signed in print by John Hancock, with a recipe for gunpowder on the reverse of the map.”  More than ever, current events played a part in compiling the contents and then marketing almanacs.

“Plan of Boston,” in Hutchins Improved: Being an Almanack and Ephemeris … For the Year of Our Lord 1776 (New York: Hugh Gaine, 1775). Courtesy PBA Galleries, Auctioneers and Appraisers.

October 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (October 15, 1770).

“Hutchin’s Improved:  BEING AN ALMANACK … For the Year of our LORD 1771.”

By the middle of October 1770, advertisements for almanacs for 1771 began appearing in newspapers throughout the colonies.  Such notices were a familiar sight to readers of the public prints who encountered them every fall.  Just like the changing of the seasons, the appearance of advertisements for almanacs followed a similar pattern from year to year.  In the late summer and early fall printers first announced that they would soon publish almanacs for the coming year.  Those were usually short notices that listed little more than the titles that would soon become available.  As fall continues, the number and frequency of advertisements for almanacs increased, as did the length of advertisements for particular titles.  This continued into the new year before the advertisements tapered off in late January and early February.

Hugh Gaine’s advertisement for Hutchin’s Improved Almanack in the October 15, 1770, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury was one of the first of the lengthy notices in the fall of 1770.  It extended more than half a column, making it the longest advertisement in that issue.  In promoting the almanac, Gaine proclaimed that the “usual Astronomical Calculations” had been “laid down with as great Accuracy as in any Almanack in America.”  In addition, Hutchin’s Improved Almanack contained a variety of other useful items, including a calendar of “Court Terms,” a guide to “Post Roads and Stages through every Settled Part of the Continent,” and instructions for remedies “to preserve Health” and “to cure Disorders incident to the Human Body.”  Gaine devoted most of the advertisement to short descriptions of twenty “select Pieces, instructing and entertaining” that ranged from “Moral Reflections” to “Historical Remarks” to “entertaining Anecdotes, Similies, Aphorisms, [and] Epitaphs.”  Among the “Moral Reflections,” readers would find “Rules for preserving HEALTH in eating and drinking.”  Gaine opined that “An Observance of these Rules will bring us to Temperance.”  The “Historical Remarks” included “An Extract from Mr. Anderson’s History of the Rise and Progress of Commerce,” while the “entertaining Anecdotes” featured “A diverting Tale” of “The Sausage Maker raised to a Prime Minister” and “the Pastor and his Flock; a droll, but True Story.”

Almanacs accounted for a significant portion of popular print culture in eighteenth-century America.  Consumers from the most humble households to the most grand acquired almanacs each year.  Printers competed with each other for their share of the market, aggressively advertising their titles in newspapers.  In doing so, they sought to distinguish their almanacs from others and convince prospective customers that their version included the most extensive, most useful, and most entertaining contents.