Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter

September 7

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (September 7, 1775).

“At the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar … the best and freshest drugs and medicines.”

An unsigned advertisement in the September 7, 1775, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter promoted “ALL kinds of the best and freshest drugs and medicines” available “At the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar in Marlborough Street.”  Silvester Gardiner advertised “Drugs and Medicines, both Chymical and Galenical,” and “Doctor’s Boxes” and “Surgeon’s Chests” for ships that he sold “at the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar inMarlborough-Street” in the Boston Evening-Post as early as June 18, 1744.  He continued running advertisements that featured both his name and his shop sign for seven years, but by the middle of the 1750s advertisements that directed prospective customers to the Unicorn and Mortar no longer included the name of the proprietor.  Perhaps Gardiner believed that his name had become synonymous with the image that branded his shop.  If so, he may have been the apothecary who placed the advertisement in the fall of 1775.  On the other hand, another entrepreneur may have acquired the shop and the sign at some point and determined that it made good business sense to continue selling medicines at a familiar location marked with a familiar image.

The Unicorn and Mortar was a popular device among apothecaries in colonial America.  Just as Boston had a shop “At the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar,” so did Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, and Salem.  The partnership of Gardiner and Jepson sold a “complete Assortment” of medicines “at the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar, in Queen-Street, HARTFORD,” according to advertisements in the May 5, 1759, edition of the Connecticut Gazette, published in New Haven, and the March 21, 1760, edition of the New-London Summary.  Hartford did not have its own newspaper until 1764, so Gardiner and Jepson resorted to newspapers published in other towns to encourage the public to associate the Unicorn and Mortar with their business.  The experienced Silvester Gardiner may have taken William Jepson as a junior partner to run the shop in Hartford.  A few years later, Jepson, “Surgeon and Apothecary, at the Unicorn and Mortar, in Queen Street, Hartford,” ran advertisements on his own, starting with the December 21, 1767, edition of the Connecticut Courant.  Within a decade, Hezekiah Merrill, “APOTHECARY and BOOKSELLER,” advertised his own shop “at the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar, a few Rods South of the Court-House in Hartford.”  He ran a full-page advertisement in the December 21, 1773, edition of the Connecticut Courant and many less extensive advertisements in other issues.  When Merrill opened his “New STORE” he did not refer to it as the Unicorn and Mortar.  Perhaps he eventually acquired the sign from Jepson, whose advertisements no longer appeared, and hoped to leverage the familiar image at a new location.  Residents of Hartford recognized the Unicorn and Mortar and associated it with medicines no matter who ran the shop, whether Gardiner and Jepson, Jepson alone, or Merrill.

Apothecaries in other towns also marked their locations with the Unicorn and Mortar.  Patrick Carryl announced that he moved “to the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar” in the May 23, 1748, edition of the New-York Gazette.  He ran advertisements for more than a decade, always associating his name with his shop sign.  John Prince ran an advertisement in the February 6, 1764, edition of the Boston Post-Boy to announce that “he has lately Opened his Shop at the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar, near the Town-House in Salem.”  John Sparhawk operated his own apothecary shop “At the Unicorn and Mortar, in Market-Street, near the Coffee-House,” in Philadelphia, according to his advertisement in the December 18, 1766, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette.  By the time he advertised in the Pennsylvania Chronicle on March 4, 1771, he gave the full name as the “London Book-store, and Unicorn and Mortar.”  In that notice and others, he promoted a “NEAT edition of TISSOT’s Advice to the People respecting their Health” in addition to “Drugs and Medicines of all kinds as usual.”  Building his brand, Sparhawk placed many newspaper advertisements that mentioned the Unicorn and Mortar over the course of several years.  Benjamin Bowen and Benjamin Stelle sold “MEDICINES … at the well-known Apothecary’s Shop … at the Sign of the Unicorn and Mortar,” according to their advertisement in the August 25, 1770, edition of the Providence Gazette.  Apothecaries in other towns likely marked their locations with a sign depicting the Unicorn and Mortar.  It became a familiar emblem that consumers easily recognized by the time that the anonymous advertiser ran a notice in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter in the fall of 1775.

May 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (May 19, 1775).

“Articles of Intelligence, foreign or domestic will be gratefully received.”

It was the first issue of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter in a month.  Margaret Draper published an issue on April 20, 1775, the day after the battles at Lexington and Concord.  It carried some of the first newspaper coverage of those skirmishes.  Then the presses in Boston went quiet.  Isaiah Thomas had already removed the Massachusetts Spy to Worcester.  The Boston Evening-Post and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boyceased publication altogether, while their printers suspended the Boston-Gazette and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter temporarily.  A city that had five newspapers at the beginning of April 1775 did not have any by the end of the month.

On May 19, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter became the first to resume publication, though it did not manage to stick to a regular schedule during the siege of Boston.  A notice to the public filled most of the first column on the first page of that issue: “AS a Number of Gentlemen are very desirous of a Continuation of the MASSACHUSETTS-GAZETTE, the Proprietor therefore proposed to renew the Publication.”  The siege of Boston continued.  General Thomas Gage had allowed colonizers who wished to depart the city to do so, provided they did not take firearms with them when they departed.  These factors meant new “Conditions” for the newspaper.  It would “contain two Pages in Folio” instead of the usual four since paper was scarce.  In addition, “Communication with the Country is at present impeded” by the siege so “the Number of Customers it’s likely will be but few.”  That meant that “the Price to Subscribers cannot be less than Eight Shillings Lawful Money per Year, one Quarter to be paid at Entrance, and another Quarter Part at the end of three Months.”  Printers often extended credit to newspaper subscribers, but Draper did not have that luxury under the circumstances.  She noted that subsequent issues would appear upon achieving a certain number of subscriber, but that number was next to the left margin, unfortunately not visible in the digitized image of the issue bound into a volume with other editions of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.

Draper added a second notice immediately below the first.  “Emboldened by the encouraging assurances of a Number of respectable [gentlemen] … and being willing to oblige them as speedily as possible,” she declared, “we have ventured upon the Publication of the first Paper, hoping that a sufficient Number will be subscribed through the Course of the Week to encourage us to continue it weekly from this Time.”  The next two issues did come out on schedule on May 25 and June 1.  Draper further explained that the “Difficulties attending the Publication of a News-Paper, at this unhappy Period, when almost all Communication with the Continent is cut off, and so every regular Source of intelligence stopped, obliges us to [beg(?)] a twofold Share of that Candor we have formerly experienced.”  Draper needed assistance generating content for the revived Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  She suggested an eighteenth-century version of crowdsourcing among those who remained in the city: “we would take this Opportunity to request of Gentlemen who may at any Time be possessed of London Papers, that they would be so kind as to favour us with them.”  Furthermore, “Articles of Intelligences, foreign or domestic will be gratefully received; and if Gentlemen would take the Trouble of forwarding them to us, it would in a great Measure supply the Want of a regular weekly Conveyance.”  Printers regularly reprinted news from other newspapers they received through exchange networks, but Draper no longer had access to new issues of newspapers from other colonies.  She had to depend on other sources, including newspapers from London that residents of Boston had received from correspondents there. Advertisements could also fill some of the space, but few of those appeared in subsequent issues.

March 17

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

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (March 17, 1775).

“AN ORATION … to commemorate the bloody Tragedy of March 5th 1770.”

In the spring of 1771, patriots marked the first anniversary of the “BLOODY TRAGEDY” now known as the Boston Massacre with “AN ORATION Delivered … at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston … By JAMES LOVELL.”  That started an annual tradition, with Joseph Warren giving the oration in 1772, Benjamin Church in 1773, and John Hancock in 1774.  Gathering for the oration became an annual ritual.  So did publishing and marketing it.

For the fifth anniversary, the “ORATION … to commemorate the bloody Tragedy of March 5th 1770” was once again “delivered by JOSEPH WARREN.”  Less than two weeks later, advertisements in the March 17 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter informed readers where they could acquire copies.  One indicated that Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers of the Boston-Gazette, sold the oration, implying that they also published it.  According to the imprint, Edes and Gill printed the address in partnership with Joseph Greenleaf, the proprietor of the Royal American Magazine.

Another advertisement gave readers another option: “In the MASSACHUSETTS SPY, of this Day is published, the WHOLE of the ORATION, delivered by JOSEPH WARREN, Esq; on March 6th , 1775, to commemorate the bloody Tragedy of March 5th, 1770.”  Isaiah Thomas, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy, did indeed devote three of the four columns of the third page of his newspaper to Warren’s oration.  In an introduction, he reported that it was “this day published, in a pamphlet” and available for sale in addition to appearing in the newspaper.  The printer offered multiple ways for readers to engage with the oration.  He (and Edes and Gill and Greenleaf) also offered consumers an opportunity to purchase a commemorative item.  Readers who previously purchased the orations by Lovell, Warren, Church, and Hancock on previous anniversaries may have been motivated to add to their collections.

The printer of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter gave the advertisements a privileged place, likely intended to increase the chances that readers took note of them.  They appeared one after the other immediately after the weekly account of local marriages and deaths.  That meant that the advertisements served as a transition between news items and paid notices.  Readers who perused the news yet merely glanced through the advertisements may have been more likely to take note of these first notices as they realized that the remainder of the page featured advertising.  A manicule also helped call attention to them, signaling their importance in a town experiencing the distresses of the Boston Port Act and the other Coercive Acts.

November 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (November 10, 1774).

“*** The Votes and Proceedings of the Grand American Continental CONGRESS.”

Just over a week after William Bradford and Thomas Bradford first advertised their Philadelphia edition of Extracts from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental Congress in the Pennsylvania Journal, printers in Boston ran advertisements advising the public that they published and sold their own local editions.  Those notices first appeared in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy on November 10, 1774.  Readers could choose between two editions published in Boston.

Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, the printers of the Boston Evening-Post, and the Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers of the Boston-Gazette, partnered in publishing one of those editions.  Their advertisements in both the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy followed a familiar format for notices about books, pamphlets, almanacs, and other printed items.  A headline proclaimed, “This Day is Published,” followed by a secondary headline that listed the names of the printers.  The body of the advertisement consisted of the title of the pamphlet and a list of its contents.

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (November 10, 1774).

Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks, the printers of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, worked with fellow printer John Boyle as well booksellers Edward Cox and Edward Berry to publish and sell another Boston edition of the Extracts of the First Continental Congress.  That meant that the printers of all five newspapers published in Boston in 1774 participated either in publishing or advertising that important political pamphlet that informed the public about the decisions made by the delegates in Philadelphia.

The advertisement for this edition in the Massachusetts Spy followed the same format as the notice about the other edition, though the secondary headline gave only the names of Mills and Hicks and Boyle.  The notice in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, on the other hand, looked more like a news update, especially since it appeared immediately to the left of a report that “Last Evening arrived in Town form the GRAND CONGRESS, the Hon. Thomas Cushing, Esq; John Adams, Esq; Mr. Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, Esq; … on which Occasion, most of the Bells in Town were rung.”  With three asterisks to draw attention, the notice about the pamphlet started with the title, continued with the contents, and concluded with “sold by Cox and Berry, Mills and Hicks and John Boyle.”

Residents of Boston and nearby towns had ready access to the Extracts as soon as delegates returned from the meeting of the First Continental Congress.  They likely heard about the meetings through conversation and learned about it from reading newspapers, yet they could purchase an overview of the proceedings to examine in as much detail as often as they liked.

October 9

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (October 6, 1774).

“ALMAN[A]CK … Ornamented with a large and elegant Engraving, representing the VIRTUOUS PATRIOT.”

When it came to buying almanacs, residents of Boston had many choices during the era of the American Revolution.  That meant that printers often advertised what made the almanacs they published distinctive from others on the market.  Such was the case for John Kneeland when he advertised Nathanael Low’s Astronomical Diary: Or, Almanack for the Year of Christian Aera, 1775 in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter in the fall of 1774.  The production of the almanac and its promotion resonated with current events as the imperial crisis intensified.  The Boston Port Act closed the harbor, the Massachusetts Government Act revoked the colony’s charter, and the other Coercive Acts punished the port city for the Boston Tea Party.

Kneeland informed prospective customers that this almanac was “Ornamented with a large and elegant Engraving, representing the VIRTUOUS PATRIOT at the Hour of Death.”  In addition to the usual contents, “every Thing necessary in an Almanack,” it also included a “long and sympathetic Address to the Inhabitants of Boston, with several other Pieces of Speculation, which tends to rend it not only useful, but entertaining.”  The engraving dominated the cover of the almanac.  It depicted a man, the “VIRTUOUS PATRIOT,” on his deathbed. A woman, presumably his wife, and three children kneeled in the foreground.  On the other side of the bed, a minister prayed while another man, perhaps a relative and likely another patriot, joined the family in their vigil.  Above the bed, an angel welcomed the “VIRTUOUS PATRIOT” into heaven.  A caption below the image stated, “IF Prayers and Tear th’ PATRIOT’s Life could save, None but usurping Villains Death would have.”

According to an auction catalog prepared by PBA Galleries, the “long and sympathetic Address” filled the first four pages of the almanac.  Echoing rhetoric that circulated in newspapers and pamphlets, the address “rails against the British,” assuring residents of Boston that “[Your countrymen] are sensible the heavy hand of power under which you are now groaning is designed only as a prelude to the utter abolishment of American freedom.”  The Coercive Acts, the address warned, would enslave the colonies to Britain.  (Two advertisements on the same page as the advertisement for the almanac in the October 6, 1774, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter concerned enslaved people, one presenting an enslaved woman for sale and the other offering a reward for the capture and return of an enslaved man who liberated himself by running away from his enslaver.)  The address proclaimed, “My dear brethren, the destiny of America seems to be suspended on the present controversy; and it is on your fidelity, firmness, and good conduct, for which you have so remarkably signalized yourself on all occasions, that a happy issue of it in a great measure depends.”  The advertisement for the almanac containing this address ran in the newspaper as the First Continental Congress continued its meetings in Philadelphia.  A month earlier, the colonial militia in Worcester County to the west of Boston had closed the courts and removed British authority in what has become known as the Worcester Revolution of 1774.  Six months after Kneeland advertised the almanac with the engraving and the address, a war for independence began with the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord.

Nathanael Low, An Astronomical Diary: Or, Almanack for the Year of Christian Aera, 1775 (Boston: John Kneeland, 1774). Courtesy PBA Galleries.

August 18

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

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (August 11, 1774).

“Render this Country an essential Service, by establishing a Manufacture necessary to its Prosperity.”

Abraham Cornish had been in business and advertising long enough by the late summer of 1774 that he expected colonizers to be familiar with his brand of “CORNISH’s New-England Cod-Fish HOOKS.”  He deployed the name of his product as a headline for his advertisement in the August 18 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  Still, for those who needed a refresher or a bit more encouragement to purchase his fishhooks, he provided more information about why those from “his Manufactory” were superior to others.  That they were made in America was central to his marketing efforts.

The savvy entrepreneur had recently moved from “the North-End of Boston, to the Upper Part of Charlestown,” where he continued to make fishhooks “warranted of the best Quality.”  He called on “all concerned in the Fishery” to “favor him with their Custom, as they will thereby promote their own private Interest, and render this Country an essential Service, by establishing a Manufacture necessary to its Prosperity.”  It was a win-win-win situation for “the American Fishery,” the manufacturer, and all colonizers at a time that the political crisis intensified due to the imposition of the Coercive Acts in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party.  Those whose livelihood depended on fishing could acquire equipment “found much Superior to any imported, Cornish could maintain or even expand his business, and the colonies would benefit from “domestic manufactures” that both supported a local industry and directly contributed to the local economy.  Ever since the boycotts inspired by the Stamp Act nearly a decade earlier, many colonizers had advocated for producing more “domestic manufactures” as a means of reducing their reliance on imported goods.  Doing so also served as political leverage in the struggles with Parliament.  Such plans placed obligations on both artisans and tradespeople to produce goods and consumers to purchase those goods instead of imported items.  Like many other producers of “domestic manufactures,” Cornish assured prospective customers that they did not have to sacrifice quality, decalaring that his fishhooks were “made of the best Wire only” and “better shap’d to take Fish.”  He proclaimed that they were “universally approv’d,” having gone into even greater detail in a previous advertisement about how “Fishermen who made Trial of his Hooks … found them … superior to those imported from England.”  Cornish devised a “Buy American” campaign before the colonies declared independence.

August 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (August 11, 1774).

“Mrs. Draper … proposes to continue publishing the Paper herself.”

With a notice in the August 11, 1774, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, Margaret Draper became the sole printer responsible for publishing that newspaper.  Who served in that role had changed several times over the past several months.  On May 5, Richard Draper, Margaret’s husband who had printed the newspaper for many years, placed an advertisement seeking a “Printer that understands collecting News, and carrying on a News Paper” to assist him because his “very low State of Health, prevents his making such Collection of Intelligence and Speculation, as his Customers must have expected.”  A week later, he ran a new notice to advise his customers of “a Co-Partnership with Mr. JOHN BOYLE.”  The “Co-Partnership” of Draper and Boyle, he promised, “will Endeavor to support the Reputation the said Paper has had for many Years past.”  At the same time, he made a pitch for advertisers, noting that the “great number of Customers on the Western Roads, make it peculiarly advantageous for those who advertise therein.”  The following week, an updated masthead for the May 19 issue included the names of both printers.

That partnership lasted only a few weeks.  Richard died on June 5.  A death notice and obituary ran as the first time in the first column of the first page in the June 9 edition, followed immediately by a notice that the “Co-Partnership between RICHARD DRAPER and JOHN BOYLE is dissolved by the Death of the former.”  In turn, the newspaper “will now be carried on by MARGARET DRAPER and JOHN BOYLE,” who renewed pledges that “the utmost Endeavors will be taken to maintain the Character it has had for upwards of Seventy Years past.”  Black borders, indicative of mourning, embellished the mastheads for the standard issue and the supplement that accompanied it.  The masthead for the standard issue stated, “Published by MARGARET DRAPER and JOHN BOYLE, at their Printing-Office in Newbury Street.”  In contrast, the masthead for the supplement only named one of them: “Published by JOHN BOYLE, at his Printing-Office in Newbury Street.”  Apparently portions of the newspaper went to print before the widow and her departed husband’s partner worked out all the details of their new arrangement.  Both names appeared in the masthead for the next several issues as well as in an updated version that first appeared on June 30: “Published by DRAPER and BOYLE in Newbury-Street, where Advertisements, &c. for this PAPER are taken in, and all other Printing-Work performed.”

This new partnership endured for two months, concluding with a notice “To the Public” that “MARGARET DRAPER & JOHN BOYLE, agreeable to Contract, … dissolved by mutual Consent” their partnership.  The colophon portion of the masthead simply declared, “Draper’s,” as it had prior to the Richard’s death.  In addition to announcing that she now operated the newspaper on her own, Margaret issued a call for friends, customers, and the public to provide “some reputable Means of Subsistence” for her.  To that end, she “solicit[ed] the Favor of further Subscriptions” that would allow her to “keep up the Credit which the Paper had for a long Time sustained in the Days of her deceased Husband.”  She ran the printing office on her own for several months before entering into an agreement with John Howe to manage the business.  That made her one of several female printers, along with Sarah Goddard, Anne Catharine Green, and Clementina Rind, in the colonies on the eve of the American Revolution.

May 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Supplement to the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (May 19, 1774).

“Exterminate Ignorance and Darkness, by the noble Medium of SOCIAL LIBRARIES.”

Today Henry Know is acclaimed as an American general during the Revolutionary War and the nation’s first Secretary of War, appointed when George Washington formed the first presidential cabinet.  In May 1774, however, he was a young bookseller in Boston.  Just a few months shy of his twenty-fourth birthday, he ran the “LONDON BOOK-STORE” and advertised an “ELEGANT, VALUABLE & LARGE ASSORTMENT of BOOKS” in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  He was a veteran advertiser by that time, having previously placed newspaper advertisements and distributed engraved trade cards.  He also passed out book catalogs, “which may be had gratis,” as part of his marketing efforts.  Like many other entrepreneurs, Knox did not rely on newspaper notices alone to generate interest and incite demand for his wares.

Knox stocked works by “the latest. Most learned, and most approved Authors, in all Branches f Literature,” from “ANATOMY” and “ARCHITECTURE” to “DIVINITY” and “HISTORY” to “PHILOSOPHY” and “SURGERY.”  He listed thirty genres, offering something to attract just about any reader.  He also carried “Magazines, Reviews, and other new Publications of Merit, by every Opportunity after they come out in London,” though he did not mention if he sold the Royal American Magazine, published by Isaiah Thomas in Boston.  Knox supplemented revenues from books by peddling patent medicines, a common practice among printers and booksellers at the time.

Knox sought various kinds of customers for the books that he imported.  While readers were always welcome to visit the London Book-Store to peruse and purchase the titles on hand and pick up a catalog, the bookseller also aimed to supply “Country Merchants, [and] Traders” with books and pamphlets for their retail operations, whether they were shopkeepers with fixed locations in towns beyond Boston or itinerant peddlers who hawked a variety of wares as they traveled from village to village.  Knox also hoped that members of social libraries would acquire books from him.  Public libraries did not yet exist, but clubs formed to open private libraries that gave members who paid subscriptions or other fees access to a greater number of books than they could afford to purchase on their own.  Knox lauded such initiatives, commending “Those Gentlemen in the Country who are actuated with the most genuine Principles of Benevolence in their Exertions to exterminate Ignorance and Darkness, by the noble Medium of SOCIAL LIBRARIES.”  Prospective customers purchasing on behalf of those institutions likely wished to collect from among many or even most of the genres that the bookseller highlighted in his advertisement.  Knox’s marketing strategy included diversifying the kinds of customers he served as well as stocking a wide selection of books, pamphlets, magazines, and other reading material.

May 8

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

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

Supplement to the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (May 5, 1774).

“City Tavern, Philadelphia.”

When the City Tavern opened in Philadelphia, Daniel Smith inserted advertisements in the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Packet in February 1774.  The opening had been much anticipated in that city, following the efforts of some of the most prominent residents to erect the building via subscription.  In 1772, Samuel Powel entrusted the land to seven wealthy colonizers.  In turn, those “Gentlemen Proprietors” oversaw a “voluntary subscription of the principal gentlemen of the city” to raise funds to build the tavern and then selected Smith to lease and operate the City Tavern.

About three months after his advertisement ran in Philadelphia’s newspaper, it appeared in the Supplement to the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter on May 5.  It featured identical copy and, except for the headline, identical format in terms of capitalization and italics.  Smith may have written it out exactly, but just as likely he clipped the advertisement from his local newspaper and sent it to Richard Draper’s printing office in Boston.  Alternately, he could have sent instructions to reprint the notice from a newspaper that Draper received via his exchange networks with other printers, but Smith would not have been certain that Draper received the issues that originally carried his advertisement.  Given that the tavernkeeper proclaimed that he “fitted up a genteel Coffee Room, … properly supplied with English and American papers and magazines,” he likely corresponded directly with Draper, ordering a newspaper subscription and arranging to run his advertisement in the public prints in Boston.

That advertisement provided a brief history of the City Tavern that would have been familiar to many residents of Philadelphia yet new to readers in Boston.  Smith hoped to impress prospective visitors to his city with the “largest and most elegant house occupied in that way [as a tavern, coffeehouse, and inn], in America.”  He emphasized his own “very great expence” in furnishing it with “every article of the first quality, in the stile of a London tavern.”  Indeed, when John Adams traveled to Philadelphia to attend the First Continental Congress several months later, he described it as “the most genteel [tavern] in America.”[1]  That was the reputation Smith hoped to cultivate, not only in his city but throughout the colonies.  He positioned the City Tavern as a destination itself, not just a place to eat, drink, and lodge while visiting Philadelphia.

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[1] See entry for August 29, 1774, in John Adams diary 21, 15 August – 3 September 1774 [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/

May 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (May 5, 1774).

“A very low State of Health, prevents his making Collection of Intelligence and Speculation.”

Printers often inserted notices about their own businesses immediately after any local news items they published, increasing the chances that readers would take note even if they did not closely examine the advertisements that followed.  Such was the case for a notice that Richard Draper placed in the May 5, 1774, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  Right below news from Boston and Worcester, he declared, “The Publisher and Printer of this Paper being in a very low State of Health, prevents his making such Collection of Intelligence and Speculation, as his Customers must have expected to be given them.”  He especially lamented that he had been hampered in gathering news “since the arrival of the last Vessels,” acknowledging that ships arriving from London brought updates about Parliament’s reaction to the destruction of tea in Boston Harbor the previous December.  Colonial printers had to hustle to acquire the latest news and rumors from the other side of the Atlantic, learning what they could from captains and convincing merchants to share excerpts from the letters they received.

Even though a two-page supplement featuring “INTERESTING INTELLIGENCE” from London accompanied the May 5 edition, Draper did not consider himself up to the task of collecting and collating all the news flowing into the busy port.  That being the case, he addressed his subscribers, “beg[ging] their Indulgence till he recovers Strength, or till the Paper falls into other Hands.”  Planning for the latter, at least for the near future, he advised that a “Printer that understands collecting News, and carrying on a News Paper … may be concerned on very advantageous Terms” upon applying to Draper at his printing office.  His appeal met with success.  In the next issue he announced that he entered a “Co-Partnership with Mr. JOHN BOYLE, who was regularly brought up and has since carried on the Printing Business in this Town.”  Together, the partners would “Endeavor to support the Reputation the said Paper has had for many Years past.”  Draper alluded to the long publication history of the newspaper, established seventy years earlier.  In his History of Printing in America (1810), Isaiah Thomas described the Boston News-Letter (later the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter) as “the first newspaper published in this country,” dismissing the single issue of Publick Occurences published in 1690.[1]  Thomas reported that Draper’s “ill health render[ed] him unable to attend closely to business” so Boyle “undertook the chief care and management of the newspaper.”[2]  A month later, Draper died.  Hs widow, Margaret, continued in partnership with Boyle for about a year, but they went their separate ways after the Revolutionary War began.  She then took John Howe as a partner, continuing to publish the newspaper “until the British troops left Boston in 1776.”  Thomas notes that it was the only newspaper “printed in Boston during the siege.”[3]  Despite Draper’s poor health and other turmoil, his newspaper lasted longer than any of the others published in Boston at the time he requested the “Indulgence” of his subscribers.

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[1] Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers and an Account of Newspapers (1810; New York: Weathervane Book, 1970), 231.

[2] Thomas, History of Printing, 145.

[3] Thomas, History of Printing, 231.