Maryland Gazette

July 4

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

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

Maryland Gazette (July 4, 1776).

“RUN AWAY … [a] negro fellow named WILL.”

On July 4, 1776, the delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted to approve a revised version of a declaration of independence written by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and others appointed for that task.  In the 250 years that have passed since that momentous event, the document they approved has become known as the Declaration of Independence and July 4 has been celebrated as the day the colonies, now states, declared their independence from Great Britain.  Celebrations and commemorations of that event often overlook other declarations of independence made on July 4, 1776.  On that day, American newspapers published more than half a dozen advertisements concerning enslaved people who declared their independence by running away from their enslavers.

Maryland Gazette (July 4, 1776).

The Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, carried two such notices.  In one, Alexander Ogg of Calvert County offered a reward for the capture and return of Will, a “negro fellow” who liberated himself three weeks earlier on June 10.  Ogg described what Will wore when he departed, but he also reported that “‘tis probable he may alter his dress” to avoid detection.  In so doing, Ogg acknowledged that Will was clever as well as courageous.  In the other advertisement, Anne Gaither of Annapolis sought the return of “a negro fellow named FLANDERS.”  She mentioned that he “has been used to go by water,” indicating that he had experience working on boats or ships just like many other enslaved men who lived on or near the Chesapeake Bay.  Gaither also reported that Flanders “has no toes,” though she did not elaborate on that detail.  Flanders, no doubt, would have told a much more robust story about who he was and what he had experienced if given the opportunity.

New-York Journal (July 4, 1776).

Enslaved people in southern colonies were not the only ones who liberated themselves by running away at the same time that the Continental Congress voted to declare independence.  The New-York Journal carried Jacob Wilkins’s advertisement regarding “a negro man named JACK” who liberated himself from his enslaver on June 20.  Jack “carried off with him his master’s gun, fitted for, but without a bayonet, and a grenadiers broad sword, brass mounted.”  Wilkins suspected that Jack made his way out of the city and was “sculking in the country, or among the troops, where several of his colour have been observed to be very fond of his company.”  The many disruptions caused by the war presented opportunities for enslaved people to free themselves by fleeing from their enslavers.  To help readers recognize Jack, Wilkins gave his age, “about 35 years,” and mentioned some distinguishing physical characteristics.  Having been “born in Guinea,” Jack had “his country’s marks” or ritual scarring “across the middle of his forehead, [and] towards his nose.”  At some point, he “lost one of his under fore teeth.”  During his enslavement, Jack learned to speak “broken English.”  He also developed valuable skills: he “understands something of the brass founders business, [and] can handle the file very well.”  Many enslaved people were skilled artisans.  Wilkins lamented that Jack “will endeavour to pass for a freeman.”  Jack made himself a free man with his decision to escape from Wilkins.

New-York Packet (July 4, 1776).

The New York Packet carried another advertisement, this one regarding “a Negro Man, named BEN,” placed by John Taylor of “New Germantown, Hunterdon county, West Jersey.”  Ben liberated himself on June 5 and had evaded capture for a month.  Taylor focused primarily on describing Ben and his clothing, noting the young man’s height, age (“twenty-two years old”), and a left leg “considerably larger than the other, with a large scar on the small of said leg.”  Ben wore a blue coat, red jacket, black breeches, and “calf skin shoes, [with] a pair of carved silver buckles,” though he also took another coat and jacket, “a fine shirt with ruffles at the bosom, a pair of woollen trowsers, [and] a half worn wool hat” in a bag “marked I.T. near the mouth.”  Given a chance to write about himself, Ben certainly would have chosen to a tell a different story than the one that Taylor relayed.  If readers detected a young black man carrying a bag with his former enslaver’s initials, Taylor offered a reward for securing him in any jail until he could retrieve him.

Continental Journal (July 4, 1776).

The Continental Journal, published in Boston after the siege of that city ended, carried two advertisements about enslaved people who liberated themselves.  Silas Atkins described Cloe, “a Negro Woman” who was “likely gone in the Country, as she took her best Cloaths and left her old.”  Atkins gave Cloe’s age (“37 Years’), provided a physical description, and noted that she “speaks good English,” all characteristics that would aid readers in identifying her.  Cloe had been gone since the middle of June.  Atkins promised that anyone who “will take up said Negro, or give information where she may be found, shall have Four Dollars for their Trouble” as well as any expenses they incurred. In a nota bene, he added a standard warning that appeared in many such advertisements: “All Persons are hereby cautioned not to conceal, harbour or carry off said Negro, as they would avoid all trouble.”  The “trouble” would not come from Cloe but rather from legal action undertaken by Atkins.

Continental Journal (July 4, 1776).

The other advertisement in the Continental Journal concerned “a Negro Man named CATO, about twenty-five Years of Age,” who liberated himself from Andrew Mitchel of “Balstown [Ballston], in the County of Albany, about 5 Weeks ago.”  Mitchel described Cato’s features and clothing, but he did not provide other details.  He devoted nearly as much space to the network of associates who agreed to aid him by holding Cato until he could retrieve him if a reader managed to capture him.  Those seeking the reward could deliver Cato “to Capt. Daniel Hubbard of Pittsfield, [Massachusetts], or Mr. Thomas Luttridge at Albany Ferry, or J. GILL, Printer in Queen Street, BOSTON, or secure him in any Goal [Jail]” and notify Mitchel.  In a nota bene, the enslaver reported that Cato “was seen one day last Week at Lanesborough [in western Massachusetts], and is a sly Rogue, and whoever takes him, is desired to be careful of him.”  Mitchel meant “sly Rogue” as an insult, not intending to compliment Cato on the ingenuity and perseverance he expected the young Black man to demonstrate in attempting to escape if captured.

New-England Chronicle (July 4, 1776).

One more advertisement in a newspaper published in Boston, the New-England Chronicle, identified an enslaved man who liberated himself by running away from his enslaver.  This one concerned Sam, “a Negro man” who escaped from John Hunter of Londonderry, New Hampshire, in late June.  Hunter did not know Sam’s age, estimating that he was “30 or 40 years old,” but he did know that Sam “has been 19 years from Africa” and in that time learned to speak “good English.”  Readers might recognize Same from his “upper fore teeth” that stuck out or by the “light crimson-coloured coat” that he wore.  Hunter inserted a nota bene with a warning like the one that appeared in Atkins’s advertisement about Cloe: “All masters of vessels are hereby desired not to harbour, conceal or carry off said Negro, so as to avoid the Penalty of the Law.”  Hunter included an evocative phrase when he said that Sam “has been 19 years from Africa.” What kind of stories would Sam have told about his own life and his decision to liberate himself after so many years of bondage?

The men who gathered in the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) to declare independence from Great Britain are often called the founders of the nation, yet they were not the only ones who envisioned freedom from oppression.  They were members of a founding generation that included soldiers and farmers, women and youth, and many others from diverse backgrounds who contributed to the American cause.  Will, Flanders, Jack, Ben, Cloe, Cato, and Sam were all founders as well.  They made their own declarations of independence during the era of the American Revolution and their former enslavers published those declarations of independence on July 4, 1776.  Will, Flanders, Jack, Ben, Cloe, Cato, and Sam joined countless other enslaved men and women who seized their liberty during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.  Those courageous and resilient men and women sought freedom long before the American Revolution and continued seeking freedom long after the American Revolution.  Their stories matter and must be told alongside the stories of other founders as we celebrate and commemorate 250 years of independence.

For other stories of enslaved people liberating themselves originally published on July 4 during the era of the American Revolution, see:

April 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (April 11, 1776).

“JAMES, a mulatto slave, … took on abrupt leave of his overseer.”

Thomas Jones of Patapsco Neck in Baltimore County made a significant investment in his efforts to recover James, “a mulatto slave” who liberated himself by running away in the spring of 1775.  James “took on abrupt leave of his overseer” on March 29 “and has not yet returned” by the time Jones composed an advertisement on April 3.  It first ran in the Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, in the April 13 edition and then appeared in nearly every issue for the next year.  The notice made its forty-second appearance in the April 11, 1776, edition.  That was also the last time that it ran.  While that may have been because someone finally captured James and returned him to bondage, the timing suggests that after a year the enslaver gave up.

Frederick Green, the printer of the Maryland Gazette, did not list the advertising fees in the colophon in 1776, but four years earlier Anne Catharine Green and Son did: “ADVERTISEMENTS of a moderate Length, are inserted the First Time, for 5s. and 1s. for each Week’s Continuance.”  If the son continued charging the same fees when he operated the press after the death of his mother, that meant that Jones paid five shillings for having the type set and the space the advertisement occupied in the April 3, 1775, edition and then another shilling for each of the forty-one subsequent insertions.  Overall, that amounted to two pounds and six shillings.

The investment made by Jones meant revenue for the printing office.  The colophon from 1772 that listed the advertising fees also gave the annual subscription fee: twelve shillings and six pence per year.  The forty-six shillings that Jones spent on his advertisements almost covered four subscriptions.  He was prepared to spend even more to recover James, offering “TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD … if he should be taken up out of the province, or 60 miles from Baltimore town in the province, and brought home; five pounds of at the distance of 40 miles, three pounds if 20, and forty shillings [or two pounds] if 20 miles; with reasonable travelling expence.”  Whether or not Jones had to pay out a reward, he did have to pay Green for publishing the advertisement.  The notice concerning James helped pay for the dissemination of other news in the Maryland Gazette during the first year of the Revolutionary War.

November 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (November 9, 1775).

“All work sent home as soon as done by the return of post.”

After his partnership with Abraham Claude ended, watchmaker Charles Jacob opened his own shop in Annapolis in the fall of 1775.  He placed an advertisement in the Maryland Gazette in hopes that “his former customers in town and country will favour him with their custom,” though he also intended for the notice to draw the attention of new customers.  Mentioning both his partnership with Claude and the clientele they had established demonstrated to prospective new customers that Jacob had the experience to serve them well.  In addition, he pledged “constant application to his business” or, in other words, an industriousness that customers would find more than satisfactory.

For the convenience of customers who lived outside Annapolis, Jacob provided an eighteenth-century version of mail order service.  In a nota bene, he stated that “orders from the country shall be strictly observed, and all work sent home as soon as done by the return of the post.”  In other words, he gave the same attention to watches sent to him to clean or repair as if the customer had visited his shop.  He did not give priority to customers who resided in Annapolis, nor did he delay returning watches to their owners when he finished working on them.  Prospective customers did not need to worry that their watches might end up sitting on a workbench or tucked away in a drawer and forgotten while Jacob attended to other projects.  Instead, he ran an orderly shop.

Jacob may have occupied the same location where he and Claude previously kept shop.  In their earlier advertisements, including one in the October 1, 1773, edition of the Maryland Gazette, they gave their address as “opposite Mr. Ghiselin’s, in West-Street.  In his new advertisement, Jacob declared that he “has just opened a shop next to John C. Lindsey’s tavern, and facing the late R. Ghiselin, in West-street.”  A familiar location may have helped him retain some of the customers that frequented the shop when he ran it in partnership with Claude.

October 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (October 19, 1775).

“WANTED immediately, a number of hands who are acquainted in the different branches of the manufacture of fire arms.”

In the late summer and early fall of 1775, Isaac Harris took to the pages of the Maryland Gazette with a call for “a number of hands who are acquainted in the different branches of the manufacture of fire arms.”  The timing of Harris’s advertisement, dated August 23, coincided with a new stage of the imperial crisis that started more than a decade earlier when Parliament attempted to regulate trade with the colonies following the conclusion of the Seven Years War.  The crisis had intensified at various moments, including passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 and imposition of duties on certain imported goods via the Townshend Acts in the late 1760s.  Events in Boston had often fueled the crisis, including the Boston Massacre in March 1770 and the destruction of tea by dumping it into the harbor in December 1773.  Parliament responded with the Coercive Acts, including the Boston Port Act and the Massachusetts Government Act, to punish the unruly Patriots, yet colonizers in other places believed that they could also be subject to similar treatment.

Yet only recently had hostilities commenced when Harris composed his advertisement and submitted it to the printing office in Annapolis.  News of the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the ensuing siege of Boston, the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, and the appointment of George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army inspired colonizers to make preparations to defend their liberties.  Harris may have been among their ranks as he set about making firearms in Maryland.  He offered “good wages” to workers with experience in any aspect of producing firearms, paying them “according to their proficiency and industry, either by the piece or time.”  In addition, he thought that “good locksmiths, or other neat filers, will be soon handy in making several parts of gun locks.”  Colonizers with experience in other occupations could apply their skill to this endeavor.  Harris also sought indentured servants to join this enterprise, offering to hire them or “purchase their times of service [from] their masters.”  According to his advertisement, Harris planned to make a significant investment in acquiring the labor to support what he called “the necessary business” of making firearms.  Readers almost certainly made a connection between Harris’s plan to make firearms and the events that continued to unfold in Massachusetts.

July 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (July 13, 1775).

“An English servant man … intended to Boston to general Gage, who he understood would protect all servants who came to him.”

William Allein of Lower Marlborough in Calvert County turned to the Maryland Gazette to seek assistance in recovering an enslaved man and an indentured servant in the summer of 1775.  He ran two advertisements in the July 13 edition, one concerning Mial, an enslaved man who became a fugitive for freedom at the beginning of May, and Slude, an “English servant man” who “WENT away” in early July.  Allein expected newspaper readers to observe strangers to assess whether they matched the descriptions he published, offering rewards to those who participated in securing Mial and Slude and returning them to him.

Allein gave a physical description of Slude, including recent injuries (“his thumb and middle finger on his left hand fresh cut” and “a sore heel which occasions him to limp at times”) that could make him easier to recognize, and detailed the clothing that Slude wore or took with him.  His “North country dialect” also distinguished the indentured servant.  According to Allein, Slude was “by trade a sawyer, though he pretends to be a gardener and weaver.”  He would engage in other subterfuge as well, changing his name and traveling by night to avoid detection.

Compared to many of his counterparts who placed other advertisements for runaway indentured servants, apprentices, and convict servants and enslaved people who liberated themselves, Allein was well informed about where Mial and Slude were likely headed.  “I have heard that [Mial] proposed going towards Alexandria in Virginia,” Allein declared.  As for Slude, “I understand that … he intended to Boston to general Gage, who he understood would protect all servants who came to him.”  Current events influenced Slude when he planned the route for making his escape; he apparently relied on rumors, hoping for their veracity.  Word of the battles at Lexington and Concord and the ensuing siege of Boston quickly spread throughout the colonies, as did news of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Yet not all the news was always accurate, not even the accounts printed in newspapers.  The confusion created openings for men like Slude to embrace the reports that they wanted to believe.  In the end, however, Mial may have been more successful in eluding Allein than Slude was.  The advertisement describing Mial ran for many weeks, but the notice about Slude appeared only once.  The indentured servant heading to Boston may have been recognized and captured shortly after it appeared, prompting Allein to discontinue the advertisement.  If Mial made it to Virginia and managed to avoid capture until November, he might have joined Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, when he issued a proclamation that offered freedom to enslaved people and indentured servants “appertaining to Rebels” if they joined “His MAJESTY’s Troops” in “reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty.”

June 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (June 29, 1775).

“THE manufactory of snuff of various sorts is now carried on by me at this place.”

On the eve of the American Revolution, Richard Thompson attempted to establish a market for snuff produced in Virginia.  In “The Beginnings of Tobacco Manufacture in Virginia,” Jacob M. Price argues that “there is not even a hint of a local manufacture” of snuff in Virginia from the middle of the 1730s through the late 1760s.  Most of the snuff came from Great Britain with  occasional “bottles, boxes, and kegs of snuff … appear from time to time in notices of arriving cargoes from Antigua, Boston, New York, and Salem.”  According to Price, Thompson “moved his business from Bladensburg [Maryland] to the falls of the Potomac and tried to crash the Virginia market in 1772,” placing a lengthy advertisements in the October 8 edition of William Rind’s Virginia Gazette.  “Little more is known,” Price continues, “of this early Maryland industrial pioneer and of his seemingly premature efforts to introduce a ‘patriotic’ tobacco and snuff manufacture into the Chesapeake.”[1]

An advertisement in the June 29, 1775, edition of the Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, reveals that Thompson continued to produce snuff at “George-town, on the Potowmack” at that time.  The “manufactory of snuff of various sorts is now carried on by me at this place,” Thompson proclaimed, “where I can furnish it either in wholesale or retail, at reasonable rates.”  In addition, Thompson had “manufactured tobacco for sale, viz. shag and saffron, and shall shortly begin and continue to manufacture it in all the different forms, if I receive proper encouragement.”  According to the date on the advertisement, Thompson first asked for that encouragement on December 27, 1774, no doubt hoping that the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement devised by the First Continental Congress in response to the Coercive Acts, created favorable conditions for snuff produced in the colonies.  Patriotic colonizers had an obligation to support his enterprise, to give him that “proper encouragement,” but they did not have to settle for a product inferior to snuff produced elsewhere in the colonies.  In a nota bene, Thompson declared, “I will now say, and with some degree of confidence, that at present I have by me, (and shall continue to make) as good snuff as is manufactured on this continent.”  Even if his business got off to a rocky start, as Price suggests, Thompson asserted that he made improvements over time.  He composed his advertisement less than a month after the Continental Association went into effect (and a notation, “3m,” indicated that it would appear in the Maryland Gazette for three months), yet apparently decided that the time was right to revive it more than six months later after learning of the battles at Lexington and Concord.  Those battles and the events that followed meant that friends of the American cause, after all, had even more reason to support his endeavor.

**********

[1] Jacob M. Price, “The Beginnings of Tobacco Manufacture in Virginia,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 64, no. 1 (January 1956): 9, 12, 14.

April 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (April 13, 1775).

“JOURNAL of the whole proceedings of the continental congress.”

An advertisement by William Aikman, a bookseller and stationer in Annapolis, in the April 13, 1775, edition of the Maryland Gazette proclaimed, “JUST PUBLISHED, And to be sold … JOURNAL of the whole proceedings of the continental congress” and “An essay on the constitutional power of Great Britain over the colonies.”  While Aikman no doubt sold those items, they had not been “JUST PUBLISHED,” nor had he published them.

Readers understood that “JUST PUBLISHED” did not always mean that an item was hot off the presses; sometimes that phrase was a vestige of an advertisement originally composed and disseminated weeks or months earlier and printed once again without revisions.  Readers also understood that “JUST PUBLISHED, and to be sold by” did not necessarily mean that the retailer was also the publisher, merely that the retailer sold an item that had been published by someone, somewhere.  Keeping that in mind yields a better understanding of the production and dissemination of the items that Aikman advertised.

Although printers in many towns, including Anne Catharine Green and Son in Annapolis, produced and advertised local editions of the Extracts from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental Congress in the weeks after the First Continental Congress concluded its meetings in Philadelphia near the end of October 1774, only two printing offices published the complete Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress in the following months.  William Bradford and Thomas Bradford printed an edition in Philadelphia, as did Hugh Gaine in New York.  Aikman most likely stocked and advertised the Bradfords’ edition, especially considering that they also printed John Dickinson’s Essay on the Constitutional Power of Great-Britain over the Colonies in America in 1774.  Gaine did not publish a New York edition of that volume.

Aikman’s advertisement also stated that he carried “a variety of the latest political pamphlets,” but he did not list additional titles.  Perhaps he followed the lead of James Rivington in New York and tried to profit from selling pamphlets “on both sides, in the unhappy dispute with Great-Britain.”  As the imperial crisis reached its boiling point in April 1775, Aikman took to the pages of the Maryland Gazette to hawk two items published by the Bradfords in 1774 that became more timely and relevant as well as the “latest political pamphlets” that provided even more for colonizers to consider as they learned about and participated in current events.

March 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (March 30, 1775).

“He shall continue a publication of this GAZETTE.”

On March 30, 1775, the colophon for the Maryland Gazette stated, “ANNAPOLIS: Printed by FREDERICK GREEN,” for the first time.  In the previous issue, it read, “ANNAPOLIS: Printed by ANNE CATHARINE GREEN and SON.”  Anne Catharine Green had been publishing the newspaper since April 16, 1767, upon the death of her husband, Jonas.  She commenced a partnership with her son, William, in January 1768, but it ended with his death in August 1770.  In January 1772, she commenced another partnership, that one with another son, Frederick.  When she died on March 23, 1775, he became the sole publisher.

On that occasion, he inserted his own notice in the Maryland Gazette, placing it first among the advertisements in the March 30 edition.  Frederick “inform[ed] his customers and the public, that he shall continue a publication of this GAZETTE.”  He offered assurances of his editorial strategy, pledging that “impartiality, candour, and secrecy, shall govern his conduct.”  Through “diligence and application,” he intended to make the newspaper “instructive and entertaining to his readers.”  To that end, “All pieces of a public nature, which may merit attention, and be thought conducive to the welfare and happiness of the community, will be thankfully received, and inserted gratis.”  As had been the case when he worked alongside his mother, the printer needed to cultivate relationships with readers who would supply content to fill the pages of his newspaper.

Maryland Gazette (March 30, 1775).

Elsewhere on the same page, Frederick ran a death notice in memory of his mother.  Thick black borders appeared above and below it, a common practice readily recognized as a sign of mourning.  “Last Thursday Morning,” the notice reported, “departed this Life, Mrs. ANNE CATHARINE GREEN, relict of the late Mr. JONAS GREEN, Printer to the Province.”  Her son remembered her “mild and benevolent Disposition,” declaring that “for conjugal Affection, and parental Tenderness” she was “an Example to her Sex.”  He did not elaborate on the service she provided to Annapolis and the rest of the colony.  Throughout most of her tenure as printer, the Maryland Gazette had been the only newspaper published in Maryland.  Anne Catharine Green was one of several women who ran printing offices in colonial America during the imperial crisis that culminated in a war for independence.  Along with Margaret Draper, Sarah Goddard, and Clementina Rind, she contributed to the dissemination of news and shaping of public opinion as momentous events occurred.

March 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (March 16, 1775).

“WE have perused the manuscript copies of your book … and think it a work of public utility.”

Thomas Ball, a schoolmaster in Annapolis, had an entrepreneurial spirit.  He wrote and distributed subscription proposals for “THE POCKET ASSISTANT,” a reference manual that included a “CONCISE table for buying and selling any commodity … at any rate,” “Comprehensive tables of simple interest,” a “table of time, shewing the number of days between any two in the year, or from any day in one yea, to any in the succeeding year,” and “Tables of exchange.”  Merchants, brokers, shopkeepers, and others would certainly find each of those calculations helpful when conducting business.

Ball claimed that each table as “Accurately calculated and carefully examined” so subscribers could trust them.  To that end, he added an endorsement from nine residents of Annapolis after the “CONDITIONS” for subscribing.  “WE have perused the manuscript copies of your book, called the Pocket Assistant,” they declared, “and think it a work of public utility.  From the testimony of the gentleman who examined the copies, we are induced to believe it accurately calculated; we, therefore, wish you success in the publication of it.”  Ball engaged in a bit of sleight of hand: the signatories did not report that they had confirmed the calculations themselves, only that they trusted the unnamed “gentleman” who had looked over them.  Still, Ball considered that recognition significant enough that it might sway prospective subscribers to reserve copies so he could move forward with the project.

The schoolmaster also enlisted the assistance of several local agents who accepted subscriptions on his behalf.  Subscribers could submit their names at popular places for doing business, including the coffeehouse where merchants regularly gathered and the printing office where Anne Catharine Greene and Son published the Maryland Gazette, as well as at William Aikman’s circulating library.  Seven other men and women also took the names of subscribers, though none of them collected any money.  Subscribers only paid “upon delivery of the book,” provided that the proposals generated enough interest to justify Ball taking the “small volume” to press.  Even a carefully orchestrated marketing campaign, however, did not guarantee success.  Many subscription proposals did not result in publication.  Unfortunately for Ball, it does not appear that his Pocket Assistant made it to press.

September 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (September 29, 1774).

“It is probable a non-importation agreement may be soon entered into by the colonies.”

In the fall of 1774, John Boyd advertised the “DRUGS and MEDICINES” available at “his medicinal store in Baltimore” in both the Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, and the Maryland Journal, published in Baltimore.  The latter was still so new that the apothecary realized many of his prospective customers still relied on the former as their local newspaper.  He reported that he just imported a “fresh and very general assortment” of patent medicines, “perfumery and grocery” items, spices, and medical equipment.

Boyd also leveraged current events in hopes of moving his merchandise.  At that moment, the First Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia, deliberating over responses to the Coercive Acts passed after the Boston Tea Party.  He reminded readers that “it is probable a non-importation agreement may be soon entered into by the colonies” and when that happened “our intercourse with Great Britain must of course be much interrupted, and regular supplies of goods from thence, not so easily obtained as hitherto.”  That being the case, he advised doctors, his “physical friends,” and his other customers to “supply themselves before my present stock is exhausted.”  In other words, they needed to make purchases while the items they needed or wanted were still available.  A boycott would result in scarcity and, eventually, empty shelves, storerooms, and warehouses.  Boyd was not the only entrepreneur making that argument.  In Charleston, Samuel Gordon recommended to “the Ladies” that they needed to buy his textiles, accessories, and housewares while supplies lasted because “a Non-importation Agreement will undoubtedly take Place here.”  Boyd’s advertisement made clear that it was not solely “the Ladies” who needed to worry about politics causing disruptions in the marketplace.

He vowed to do what he could to limit the effects, stating that he would “continue my importations by every opportunity,” though he carefully clarified that he would do so “conformable to any general restrictions that may take place.”  He would continue accepting shipments for as long as possible, replenishing his stock to ward off scarcity, yet there would come a time that he would have to yield to whatever agreement colonizers adopted.  His advertisement preemptively suggested to prospective customers that they should check with him when they discovered that other apothecaries no longer stocked their usual wares.  Colonizers had experienced nonimportation twice in the past decade, first in response to the Stamp Act and later in response to the duties on certain imported goods in the Townshend Acts.  Savvy entrepreneurs like Boyd reminded them how to prepare for what looked to be inevitable disruptions.