Newspaper Subscribers

November 6

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

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (November 6, 1772).

“Those Persons are desired to make some Agreement, otherways their Papers must cease.”

Daniel Fowle and Robert Fowle, printers of the New-Hampshire Gazette, frequently inserted notices calling on subscribers and others to settle accounts.  They threatened to sue those who did not pay their bills.  Such notices regularly appeared in newspapers throughout the colonies.  Printers extended credit to subscribers, hoping to increase their circulation numbers in order to generate more revenue by attracting advertisers, and many of those subscribers notoriously became delinquent in paying for their newspapers.

Printers were not the only ones, however, who had a hard time collecting from newspaper subscribers.  The post riders who delivered newspapers to subscribers in other towns also experienced difficulty getting subscribers to pay for their services.  Printers, including the Fowles, sometimes ran notices on behalf of the post riders who facilitated the circulation of their newspapers to subscribers and other readers in towns near and far.

On November 6, 1772, the Fowles ran notices related to both situations.  They advised that “Mr. MILK the Eastern-Post Having now Completed the Year, the Customers are desired to send pay for their Papers by him.”  The printers did not suggest legal action as a consequence of ignoring their notice this time.  Instead, they attempted to reason with subscribers, stating that having enjoyed their subscriptions throughout the year that Milk serviced the route they now had an obligation to pay.  Similarly, the Fowles stated that “Mr. LARRABEE (the Post to Dartmouth College) … also Rode a Year” so “the Customers for this Gazette, on that Road, are desired to send pay and the Entrance for another Year if they expect the Papers sent any longer.”  In this instance, the Fowles expected subscribers to settle accounts for the past year as well as pay in advance for the coming year if they wished to continue receiving the New-Hampshire Gazette.  Perhaps they had an even more difficult time collecting from subscribers at Dartmouth College than those served by the Eastern Post.

The Fowles also instructed subscribers in Hampton and other towns along the route covered by “Mr. NOBLE [and] the Boston Post” that the rider would no longer deliver their newspapers “unless he can by some Means come at the Pay” for his services.  Those subscribers needed “to make some Agreement” with Noble or else “their Papers must cease, or be sent by private Hands.”  Noble apparently no longer found it financially feasible to deliver the New-Hampshire Gazettewithout being paid for his efforts.  Enlisting the aid of the Fowles, he put subscribers on notice that they either had to pay what they owed him or he would discontinue delivery.

Both kinds of notices provide glimpses into the operations of eighteenth-century printing offices and their networks for circulating newspapers to subscribers and other readers.  The Fowles did not directly receive revenues from running these notices, but indirectly such notices may have been as lucrative as paid advertisements if they managed to get some subscribers to settle accounts and kept circulation numbers strong enough to attract advertisers.

March 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (March 12, 1771).

“Gentlemen, in and near Boston, who have signified their Desire of becoming Subscribers.”

In 1771, printers in Boston published more newspapers than in any other town or city in the colonies.  Mondays saw the distribution of three newspapers, the Boston Evening-Post printed by Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, the Boston-Gazette and Country Journal printed by Benjamin Edes and John Gill, and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy printed by John Green and Joseph Russell.  Two more newspapers came out on Thursdays, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter printed by Richard Draper and the Massachusetts Spy printed by Isaiah Thomas.  Residents of Boston had many options for reading the news.

In Salem, Samuel Hall printed and distributed the Essex Gazette on Tuesdays.  He often reprinted news that previously appeared in the Boston newspapers, though that was a reciprocal relationship.  Boston printers apparently received copies of the Essex Gazette and reprinted items from its pages.  On March 11, for instance, Edes and Gill devoted the entire front page of the Boston-Gazette to reprinting a memorial occasioned by the “Anniversary of Preston’s Massacre–in King-Street–Boston” nearly a week earlier.  Printers participated in exchange networks that gave them access to newspapers from other cities, newspapers filled with content that they could choose to reprint in their own publications.  What about readers?  Did any residents of Boston subscribe to newspapers published elsewhere?  Or did they depend on local publications to print and reprint, as so many mastheads proclaimed, “the freshest Advices, both foreign and domestic”?

Despite the crowded newspaper market in Boston, Hall indicated demand for the Essex Gazette existed among prospective subscribers in the bustling port city.  He inserted a notice in the March 12 edition to inform “THOSE Gentlemen, in and near Boston, who have signified their Desire of becoming Subscribers for this Gazette … that Subscriptions are taken in at the Store of Mr. Thomas Walley, on Dock-Square, Boston.”  That some residents of Boston wished to subscribe to the Essex Gazette suggests that dissemination of newspapers did not only flow out from the city to other parts of the colony but that some readers received newspapers published in other places.  For some subscribers, the Essex Gazette may have been another “local” newspaper that happened to serve an entire region, not unlike those published in Boston.  Titles that included Massachusetts (rather than Boston) or and Country Journal testified to the reach of those newspapers.  According to Hall’s advertisement, the Essex Gazette had a similar reach that extended not only into Salem’s hinterlands but into Boston as well.