New-Hampshire Gazette

May 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (May 12, 1775).

“Those who send Advertisements, are also desired to send the Pay at the same Time.”

On April 28, 1775, a little over a week after the battles at Lexington and Concord, Daniel Fowle, the printer of the New-Hampshire Gazette placed a notice calling on subscribers and other customers “to discharge what they may be in Arrears” and to do so “immediately, otherwise he shall be obliged to discontinue [the newspaper] for some Time.”  He added that all the newspapers published in Boston “are all stopt, and no more will be printed for the present.”  Fowle warned, “that must be done here unless the Customers attend to this call.”  He could not continue publishing the New-Hampshire Gazette without receiving payments for it.

Just two weeks later, he inserted another notice, declaring that he “Designs, if possible, to continue [the newspaper] a while longer, provided the Customers who are in Arrears pay off immediately, to enable him to purchase Paper, &c. which he is obliged to procure at a great Distance and Charge.”  This time he singled out advertisers, a cohort of customers that he had not explicitly mentioned in his previous notice.  “Those who send Advertisements,” Fowle instructed, “are also desired to send the Pay at the same Time.”  Furthermore, “those that are, and have been a long Time in Arrears for Advertisements, &c. are desir’d to pay off, and not oblige the Printer to be perpetually dunning for small Sums.”

In that notice, Fowle revealed an important aspect of his business practices.  Most printers extended credit to subscribers.  Fowle certainly did so, prompting his notices in late April and early May 1775, as well as other notices that he frequently inserted in the New-Hampshire Gazette over the years.  Many historians of the early American press posit that printers allowed for generous credit for subscriptions, permitting subscribers to avoid paying for years, because they generated significant revenue from advertisements.  Doing so, depended on advertisers having confidence in the circulation of newspapers, explaining why printers allowed some subscribers to fall years behind on making payments.  Accordingly, printers supposedly required advertisers to pay for their notices when they submitted them for publication.

Fowle’s notice in the May 12, 1775, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette suggests that he did not demand payment before publishing advertisements in his newspaper.  The Adverts 250 Project has collected other notices in which printers called on customers to pay for advertisements, though in many cases the use of the word “advertisements” was ambiguous.  It could have meant newspapers notices or it could have referred to printing handbills and broadsides (especially for printers who asserted that they could print “advertisements” with only an hour’s notice).  In this case, however, it seems clear that Fowle meant newspaper notices when he stated, “Those who send Advertisements, are also desired to send the Pay at the same Time.”  Fowle and other printers very well may have adopted practices different from the usual narrative about printers uniformly requiring advertisers to pay in advance.

April 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (April 28, 1775).

“The Boston News Papers we hear are all stopt.”

It was the sort of notice that printers throughout the colonies regularly inserted in their newspapers, though Daniel Fowle, the printer of the New-Hampshire Gazette in Portsmouth, may have done so with greater frequency than some of his counterparts in other towns.  “The Publisher of this Paper,” he declared on April 28, 1775, “has often called upon his Customers, to discharge what they may be in Arrears.”  This time, however, he did not threaten to stop sending copies to delinquent subscribers who did not pay their bills.  Instead, he suggested that the entire enterprise was at stake, that if he did not receive those payments “immediately” then “he shall be obliged to discontinue [the newspaper] for some Time.”  In other instances, printers addressed subscribers who had not paid in several years, but, again, this time was different.  Fowle proclaimed that “even those who owe but for half a Year are desired to pay off.”

To demonstrate the gravity of the situation, he reported that the “Boston News Papers we hear are all stopt, and no more will be printed for the present.”  Indeed, Fowle had heard correctly.  Five newspapers were published in Boston at the beginning of the month, but none continued uninterrupted by the end of April.  Isaiah Thomas removed the Massachusetts Spy to Worcester before the battles at Lexington and Concord on April 19.  Other printers suspended publication of their newspapers, believing that they would do so only “till Matters are in a more settled State.”  Yet it was the end for the Boston Evening-Post and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  The Boston-Gazette and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter did eventually resume publication, though only the Boston-Gazette survived the Revolutionary War.

At that moment, neither Fowle nor his subscribers knew the fate of Boston’s newspapers or the New-Hampshire Gazette.  The printer asserted that he would cease publication “unless the Customers attend to this call.”  He did so on the same page that carried more extensive coverage of the events at Lexington and Concord than he had been able to publish in the previous issue because of the “different and contrary Accounts of the late Bloody Scene” received in the printing office in the hours immediately after something momentous happened.  When news about those engagements appeared in the April 28 edition, Fowle used thick black borders, usually associated with mourning, to draw attention.  He also inserted a note at the bottom of the first page: “See the other Side of the Paper an Account of the late Battle.”  In addition, instead of the usual four pages, that issue consisted of only two, an indication to readers that Fowle had limited resources.  If they wanted to continue receiving coverage in print to supplement what they heard by word of mouth, subscribers needed to “discharge what they may be in Arrears” and “do it immediately.”

April 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (April 21, 1775).

“Warrantee and Quitclaim Deeds, Justices Writs … Sold at the Printing Office.”

Daniel Fowle, the printer of the New-Hampshire Gazette, used one of his own advertisements to fill the space near the bottom of the last column on the final page of the April 21, 1775, edition.  He devoted two lines to announcing, “Warrantee and Quitclaim Deeds, Justices Writs, Shipping Papers, Bail Bonds &c Sold at the Printing Office.”  Many printers adopted a similar strategy, promoting goods they sold and services they provided when they had extra space in their newspapers.

Yet that advertisement was not the last word from the printer in that issue of the New-Hampshire Gazette.  Fowle followed it with a notice that stated, “The Publisher of this Paper Has been in such perpetual Confusion by the different and contrary Accounts of the late Bloody Scene, that all Mistakes must be overlook’d.”  He referred to the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord that occurred two days earlier on April 19.  As the masthead proclaimed, Fowle published the “Freshest ADVICES,” but that meant going to press with the information that he received even if some reports contradicted others.  Fowle anticipated that he would offer a clear account of events over time.  For the moment, however, he did his best with the “different and contrary” stories to keep readers informed of what he recognized as momentous events even if all the details were not yet clear.

New-Hampshire Gazette (April 21, 1775).

To that end, the first column on the first page not only began with a rare headline but one that demanded attention: “BLOODY NEWS.”  In an introductory note, the printer explained that “Early this Morning,” on April 20, “we were alarmed with an Express from Newbury-Port, with the following Letter, to the Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence in this Town.”  That letter relayed “Reports of the TROOPS having marched out of Boston to make some Attack in the Country.”  Those reports “in general concur, in part, in [British troops] having been at Lexington.—And it is very generally said they have been at Concord.”  The rider who brought that letter supplement it with his own version of what he had heard.  Fowle also published updated information from two other express riders who arrived in Portsmouth on April 20, one in the afternoon and the other in the evening.  He devoted an entire column to breaking news from Lexington and Concord.

Many of the readers that Fowle hoped would purchase the various printed blanks that he advertised had no doubt heard that something had happened at Lexington and Concord before they saw the April 21 edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette, yet they would have looked to it for confirmation and additional details.  Fowle gave them more details, but stopped short of confirming the accuracy of all of them.  In the coming weeks, he would sift through even more accounts as events continued to unfold, chronicling the Revolutionary War as it happened.

February 24

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (February 24, 1775).

“All which were imported before the 1st Day of December.”

As February 1775 came to a close, Richard Wibirt Penhallow took to the pages of the New-Hampshire Gazette to advertise a variety of items he offered for sale “at the Warehouse on Long-Wharfe, (lately occupied by Mr. Jacob Sheafe jun.)” in Portsmouth.  He had nails, sugar, frying pans, blankets, twine, and fishing hooks, “together with many other Articles.”  Penhallow concluded his notice by informing readers that all his wares “were imported before the 1st Day of December.”

Why would prospective customers, readers of the New-Hampshire Gazette, or the public care when Penhallow imported the goods that he sold in February 1775?  In clarifying when he received his merchandise, Penhallow acknowledged current events, including the Continental Association that went into effect on December 1 and the imperial crisis that intensified as Parliament passed and enforced the Coercive Acts in response to the Boston Tea Party.  The Continental Association, a nonimportation, nonconsumption, and nonexportation agreement devised by the First Continental Congress and adopted throughout the colonies, called for boycotting imported goods until Parliament repealed the Coercive Acts.  Colonizers attempted to use economic means to achieve political ends.

Not wishing to run afoul of the local Committee of Inspection, Penhallow emphasized when he received the goods that he advertised.  He also indicated that he sold then “cheap for CASH only.”  In addition to alerting prospective customers that he would not extend credit in those troubling times, he also signaled that he abided by the provision of the Continental Association that prohibited merchants, shopkeepers, and others from engaging in price gouging.  “Venders of Goods or Merchandise,” the ninth article specified, “will not take Advantage of the Scarcity of Goods that may be occasioned by this Association, but will sell the same at the Rates we have been respectively accustomed to do for twelve Months last past.”  Those who did jack up their prices could expect consequences.  Supporters of the Association would not “deal with any such Person … at any Time thereafter, for any Commodity whatever.”

With a few carefully selected words in his advertisement, Penhallow communicated that he understood and abided by the Continental Association.  In turn, prospective customers could acquire merchandise from him without worrying that they violated the pact.  Similarly, he could remain in good standing in his community.

January 13

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

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (January 13, 1775).

“A NEGRO FELLOW named POMP … procur’d a counterfeit Pass.”

On January 13, 1775, nearly two dozen advertisements about enslaved people appeared in newspapers printed in the American colonies.  Twenty-two of them ran in the South-Carolina and American General Gazette, published in Charleston, and one in the New-Hampshire Gazette, published in Portsmouth.  Those numbers tell a familiar story about the size of the enslaved population in the southern colonies, yet the example from New-Hampshire Gazette demonstrates that slavery was practiced throughout the colonies on the eve of the American Revolution.

Ebenezer Sayer of Wells, Massachusetts (now Maine), placed a notice in the newspaper printed closest to his town, the New-Hampshire Gazette, to advise that “a NEGRO FELLOW named POMP” liberated himself by running away sometime during the evening of December 18, 1774.  Sayer described Pomp’s clothing, including the “black silk Handkerchief round his Neck, and a green Cap,” to help readers recognize him.  He also offered a reward to anyone who apprehended Pomp and brought him to Sayer in Wells or secured him in the jail in York, Massachusetts (Maine).

In a nota bene, Sayer revealed that Pomp was quite ingenious and carefully planned his escape from enslavement.  Before he departed, Pomp “procur’d a counterfeit Pass, changing his own Name and his Master’s.”  Sayer did not reveal how he learned about the pass or anything about its origins, though he does suggest that Pomp could read and write well enough to alter the pass on his own.  “All Persons are cautioned against being deceived by such Artifice,” Sayer admonished.  He also issued a standard warning to “all Masters of Vessels and others … not to harbour, conceal or carry off said Negro.”  Those who aided him would face “Penalties of the Law.”  In other words, colonies in New England had their own slave codes to maintain social order, further demonstrating that slavery was not restricted to plantations in southern colonies.  Yet Pomp’s story (and the stories of many of the enslaved people in advertisements in the South-Carolina and American General Gazette) also testifies to the spirit of resistance and resilience among enslaved people on the eve of the American Revolution, an exceptionally important story itself.

December 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (December 30, 1774).

“TO BE SOLD, BY Samuel Gardner, At his Store on Spring-Hill.”

When it came to interspersing advertisements among news, editorials, and other content in colonial newspapers, the New-Hampshire Gazette was the exception to the rule.  Not all newspapers took the same approach to where advertisements appeared, but they generally avoided mixing advertisements and other content.  For instance, some newspapers reserved advertising for the final pages, printing all the news and editorials first, then the shipping news from the custom house to signal the transition to advertising, and finally the paid notices.  Others ran advertising on the first and last pages, printed first on the same side of the broadsheet, and saved the second and third pages for the latest news that arrived.  In some instances, news and advertising appeared on the same page.  The front page, for example, could include a column of paid notices and two columns of news with the advertisements in either the left column or the right column.  No matter the order, individual advertisements did not appear interspersed with news …

… except in the New-Hampshire Gazette.  Daniel Fowle, the printer, took a novel approach that may have looked haphazard to contemporary readers, though later generations came to expect news and advertising alternating in newspapers.  The layout of the New-Hampshire Gazette often required active reading to determine which portions featured advertising and which delivered news.  Consider the December 30, 1774, edition.  A short advertisement placed by George Whipple, “Attorney at LAW,” ran as the first item in the first column on the first page.  News constituted the remainder of the content on that page.  The second page began with news from the “Continental Congress continu’d” from the previous issue.”  It spilled over into a second column, followed by an advertisement for goods available at Samuel Gardner’s store, and then a lengthy essay about conditions in Boston by “MASSACHUSETTENSIS.”  That essay occupied most of the third page.  Three advertisements completed the third column.  More news and editorials appeared in the first column on the final page.  In addition, news from New York and the shipping news from the custom house ran at the top of the third column.  George Craigie’s lengthy advertisement for “A General Assortment of English Goods” interrupted the news and editorials.  Half a dozen advertisements appeared below the shipping news in the final column.  In other issues, Fowle interspersed short advertisements and short news items even more indiscriminately, giving readers of the New-Hampshire Gazette a different sort of visual experience in terms of organizing content compared to what they encountered in other colonial newspapers.

December 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (December 23, 1774).

“Fall GOODS, which were imported before the 1st of Dec.”

Richard Champney’s advertisement in the December 23, 1774, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette looked like many others that had appeared in that newspaper and others throughout the colonies for about two decades.  The shopkeeper emphasized that he stocked “a great Variety of Fall GOODS” and promised competitive prices, declaring that consumers could acquire his merchandise “as low as can be purchased in any Shop in Town.”  To demonstrate the array of choices he offered, he devoted most of his advertisement to an extensive list that included “BAIZES of all Widths and Colours,” “Shalloons and Trimmings of all colours,” “strip’d and plain Camblets,” “fine and coarse Checks,” a “Variety of Ribbands,” “worsted Caps,” and “Barcelony and Spittlefields black Handkerchiefs.”  Although many of those textiles and accessories may not be immediately familiar to modern readers, they resonated with readers immersed in the consumer revolution of the eighteenth century.  They fluently spoke the language of consumption.

Despite the similarities with longstanding forms of advertising, Champney’s notice included one detail that distinguished it from what he would have published even a month earlier.  Although he had “opened” a new stock to supplement his “former Assortment,” those new goods “were imported before the 1st day of Dec[ember].”  That clarification was important for the shopkeeper to bring to the attention of prospective customers in Portsmouth and nearby towns and anyone who might read the New-Hampshire Gazette far and wide.  Champney explicitly specified that he observed the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement adopted by the First Continental Congress that went into effect on December 1.  Since he had received this “great Variety of Fall GOODS” before that date, he could sell them with a clear conscience.  Similarly, consumers could purchase them without worrying whether they aided the shopkeeper in breaking the agreement.  For many years advertisers had noted when they imported their merchandise as a means of assuring prospective customers that they carried new items of the latest styles and taste.  After December 1, 1774, however, when a shipment arrived had political significance and new sorts of ramifications for both advertisers and buyers.

October 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (October 21, 1774).

“Stop Thief!”

Sometimes advertisements in colonial newspapers could have doubled as an eighteenth-century version of a local police blotter.  The October 21, 1774, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette, for instance, included an advertisement that raised an alarm: “Stop Thief!”  Nicholas Weeks, Jr., reported that four days earlier someone “BROKE OPEN” his house in Kittery and stole a silver watch and a pocketbook.  Weeks alleged that the burglar was a man who sometimes went by the name Charles Baton and other times by John Smith.  No matter which alias the culprit used, the public could recognize him by his “light sandy Hair, short and curl’d,” missing front teeth, and the scars on the left side of his face.  Weeks offered a reward to anyone who “will take up said THIEF, and confine him in any of his Majesty’s [Jails], so that he may be brought to Justice.”

In another column on the same page, John Davenport of Portsmouth also proclaimed, “Stop Thief.”  Sometime during the night of October 12, a “THIEF or Thieves … broke open” his shop and stole a variety of merchandise, “some Cash,” and about five gallons of rum.  The shopkeeper listed several of the stolen items, hoping that would help in identifying the criminals if they attempted to sell them.  After all, theft gave some people an alternate means of participating in the transatlantic consumer revolution that extended to even small towns in the colonies.  Like Weeks, Davenport offered a reward to readers who “shall discover and bring to Justice” the perpetrators.  In yet another advertisement, Nicholas Boussard described a “St[r]ayed or Stolen” horse that went missing in Exeter.  He did not know for certain that someone took the “dark Bay HORSE,” but he did not dismiss the possibility.

Such incidents usually did not receive coverage among the news items in colonial newspapers, yet inserting advertisements allowed colonizers to bring them to the attention of the public and enlist the aid of the community in recovering stolen goods and prosecuting the offenders.  Advertisements delivered local news.

September 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (September 16, 1774).

“There are now the most interesting Matters depending that ever were in this Country.”

Colonial printers frequently ran advertisements asking customers, especially subscribers, to pay their overdue bills.  Daniel Fowle, the printer of the New-Hampshire Gazette, seemed to do so more often than others.  Such advertisements became a regular feature in his newspaper.  One appeared in the September 16, 1774, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette.  This time, Fowle pleaded that the “Customers of this Paper” are earnestly desired to pay off what they may be in Arrears immediately, as the Publisher is under a Necessity of raising Money to carry on his Business.”  The fate of the newspaper, Fowle’s ability to continue publishing it, was at stake.  In part, that was because he apparently experienced a disruption in his supply of paper, acquiring it “with Difficulty and extraordinary Charge, as it is all brought 70 Miles on Land carriage.”  The printer did not go into greater detail on that point, though at various times in the past he had suggested that he used only paper produced in the colonies rather than paper imported from England.  The blockade of Boston, one of Parliament’s responses to the Boston Tea Party, may have affected Fowle’s route for receiving paper produced in another colony.

Even if subscribers could not settle accounts, Fowle requested that they “send at least one Dollar, that the Paper may not be wholly stopped, as there are the most interesting Matters depending that ever were in this Country.”  The printer recognized that the imperial crisis had intensified with the Boston Port Act and the rest of the Coercive Acts.  Earlier in the month, the First Continental Congress commenced its meeting in Philadelphia, deliberating about a unified response across the colonies.  Discussion and debates also took place in communities near and far.  That same issue of the New-Hampshire Gazette carried updates from Philadelphia, New London, Hartford, Newport, Boston, Salem, and other towns in Massachusetts.  Local news included coverage of a tea consignee in Portsmouth refusing to accept the shipment, diverting it to Halifax rather than cause a scene.  Yet that article also warned, “In future no such Indulgence will be allowed to the Enemies of America.”  Momentous events were underway.  Fowle did not know what would happen next, but he assured subscribers that they did not want to lose access to the news he supplied if they did not pay what they owed.

July 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (July 29, 1774).

“(The Particulars in our next)”

In the summer of 1774, Richard Champney took to the pages of the New-Hampshire Gazette to announce that he “has just open’d a fresh Assortment of most Kinds of English and Hard Ware GOODS” at his shop in Portsmouth.  He pledged that customers could acquire his merchandise “as low as can be purchased in any shop in Town.”  When his advertisement first ran on July 22, it did not list any of those items.  Instead, a note promised, “The Particulars in our next.”  Most likely the compositor devised that note due to lack of space in that issue; Champney’s advertisement appeared in the final column on the third page, the last of the content that would have been prepared for any edition.

The following week, however, his advertisement did not include the “Particulars.”  It ran exactly as it had, without any revision, though the compositor managed to find room for a new advertisement that featured an extensive catalog of goods that John Penhallow “Imported from LONDON” and sold at his store.  Had someone in the printing office overlooked the copy that should have appeared in Champney’s advertisement?  Did the shopkeeper raise an objection when his complete advertisement did not run as planned?  Was he frustrated that a competitor achieved greater visibility in the public prints even though he submitted his advertisement a week earlier?

Some exchange might have occurred between Champney and the printing office to rectify the situation.  The complete advertisement finally found its way into print in the August 5 edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette, two weeks after the shopkeeper first alerted readers that he had a “fresh Assortment” of goods.  It listed dozens of items to entice consumers, simultaneously demonstrating that the choices he offered to customers rivaled what Penhallow and other advertisers presented to the public.  Promising the “Particulars” in the next issue may have encouraged anticipation among prospective customers, especially in an issue that included only one other advertisement for imported wares, that one from a milliner who promoted a narrow range of goods, but not following through on it did not serve Champney well when his competitors published their own catalogs of merchandise.  Even though his complete notice eventually ran, any advantage from being the first in print had been squandered.