Poem as Advertisement

December 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (December 27, 1775).

“I DO hereby give Information / A BULL broke into my Plantation.”

A stray bull that came to a farm was a nuisance, at best, and placing a newspaper advertisement in hopes of identifying the owner was even more of an inconvenience, yet Thomas Paxson of Middletown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, decided to have some fun with it.  Rather than write a standard notice, the type that appeared in newspapers throughout the colonies, he composed half a dozen rhyming couplets:

I DO hereby give Information,
A BULL broke into my Plantation,
About three Months before this Date,
Whose natural Marks I shall relate;
His Face is white, his Sides are black,
With a white List along his Back;
I think the strange mischievous Beast,
Must be three Years of Age at least;
And if the Owner does appear,
Before the last Day of the Year,
And prove his Right and Charges pay,
Then he may drive his Beast away.

Though certainly not the belles lettres popular among the better sorts in the eighteenth century, the poem likely drew the attention of readers from various backgrounds as they perused the December 27, 1775, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette.  The compositor indented each line of the poem, creating white space that differentiated Paxson’s advertisement from any other notices or news in that issue.  The format likely inspired readers to give the advertisement an initial glance out of curiosity, then the novelty of the rhymes may have encouraged them to spend just a moment reading through it.

News covered elsewhere in that issue included updates about the Revolutionary War from Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, and Virginia as well as a smattering of news from Pennsylvania.  Some readers may have appreciated Paxson’s creativity and the moment of levity that he introduced among more serious news.  Unlike other newspapers that regularly printed a “Poets Corner” on the final page, the Pennsylvania Gazette did not have that feature.  When he paid to insert his advertisement, Paxson made an editorial decision to remedy it, at least for one issue.

October 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (October 9, 1775).

“ON July last, twenty-first day, / My servant, JOHN SMITH, ran away.”

Advertisements about indentured servants who ran away before completing their contracts appeared regularly in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet in the 1770s.  In “Reading the Runaways,” David Waldstreicher demonstrates that similar advertisements ran in newspapers throughout the Middle Atlantic colonies during the era of the American Revolution.[1]  As I have examined newspapers from New England to Georgia for the Adverts 250 Project, I have encountered advertisements describing runaway servants and offering rewards for detaining and returning them in newspapers in every region.  They were so common that many issues featured multiple advertisements, some of them concerning two or more indentured servants that made a getaway together.

Given the ubiquity of those advertisements, John Whitehill wanted to increase the chances that readers noticed, read, and remembered his advertisement.  Rather than write formulaic copy, he composed a poem of more than a dozen rhyming couplets.  “ON July last, twenty-first day,” the first two lines read, “My servant, JOHN SMITH, ran away.”  The poem was easy to spot on the page of the October 9, 1775, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  The compositor indented each line, creating white space that distinguished the advertisement from other content.  The irregular lengths of each line of the poem meant even more white space on the right.  On a page of news and advertisements printed in orderly columns, justified on the left and on the right, the significant amount of white space in Whitehill’s advertisement made it easy to spot.

Once readers looked more closely, the opening couplet may have inspired even more curiosity.  “Age twenty-five years, and no more,” Whitehill’s poem continued, “I think his heighth is five feet four; / Black curled hair, and slender made, / And is a weaver by his trade.”  Additional couplets described Smith’s clothing, the items he took with him to set up trade somewhere else, and his arrival from Newry on the Renown the previous fall.  One couplet warned others not to aid Smith: “Should any persons him conceal, / No doubt with them I think to deal.”  The final couplets offered a reward and named the aggrieved master: “SIX LAWFUL DOLLARS I will pay; / I live in Salsbury, Pequea, / And further to oblige you still, / My name is junior JOHN WHITEHILL.”  The reward and the names of the servant and the advertiser were the only part of the poem in all capitals, likely intended to draw attention to the incentive for reading the advertisement and assisting Whitehill.

The poem certainly was not Milton nor Shakespeare, but the format of Whitehill’s runaway advertisement made it different (and more entertaining) than any of the other five notices placed for the same purposes in that issue of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  The attention it garnered may very well have been worth the time and effort that Whitehill invested in writing the poem.  For other examples of masters adopting this strategy, see James Gibbons’s advertisement about Catherine Waterson in the December 21, 1769, issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette and John McGoun’s advertisement about John Hunter in the October 26, 1774, issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette.

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[1] David Waldstreicher, “Reading the Runaways: Self-Fashioning, Print Culture, and Confidence in Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 56, no. 2 (April 1999): 243-272.

October 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (October 26, 1774).

“THO’ this is metre it’s no fun, / My servant boy has from me run.”

It was a novel means of drawing attention to the description of an indentured servant who ran away from his master.  Rather than the usual sort of advertisement that crowded the pages of newspapers from New England to South Carolina, John McGoun rejected writing a paragraph of dense text in favor of composing a series of rhyming couplets that gave readers all sorts of information about John Hunter and offered a reward for imprisoning or returning him.  On occasion, aggrieved masters composed and published such poems, yet they were rare enough to merit a closer look when McGoun inserted his advertisement.  In the first couplet, he played with the form, asserting that his situation was a serious matter even as he sought to entertain readers so they would take note of the details he presented: “THO’ this is metre it’s no fun, / My servant boy has from me run.”

Five other advertisements for the same purpose appeared on the final page of the October 26, 1774, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, yet readers may have been more likely to linger over McGoun’s notice.  The others filled the space purchased by the advertisers, running from one side of the column to the other, while McGoun’s poem had white space on each side, making his advertisement visually unique among those on the page.  That aspect initially drew the eyes of readers, with the couplets offering enough “fun” for a subject that was “no fun” for them to peruse the entire poem.  In addition to relaying details about the runaway’s age, height, hair, and eyes, that “fun” included an interesting way of stating that he would disguise himself with new garments: “He left his clothes, both coarse and fine, / To steal some others he’ll incline.”  Likewise, McGoun described Hunter’s habits and comportment: “Talks much, lies some, inclines to sing, / Says he can work at every thing.”  The master apparently did not find the servant as skilled at a variety of tasks as the servant claimed.  McGoun even managed to reference politics and current events in expressing his suspicion that Hunter headed to Boston: “He’s now full eighteen years of age, / I think he’ll push for Thomas Gage.”  He did not need to name the city: “(Where he is almost all men know, / As he’s become our country’s foe).”  The Pennsylvania Gazette and other newspapers certainly provided plenty of coverage of Gage and his role in enforcing the Coercive Acts as governor of Massachusetts.

Readers constantly encountered advertisements about runaway indentured servants, apprentices, and convict servants during the era of the American Revolution.  They usually followed a standard format, yet occasionally masters resorted to verse to distinguish their notices from others that competed for attention in the public prints.

January 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Connecticut Gazette (January 14, 1774).

“ALL Persons indebted to me / are desired to pay, / Or they will sued be, / and that without delay.”

Advertisements calling on colonizers to pay their debts frequently appeared in newspapers from New England to Georgia, including the Connecticut Gazette.  On January 14, 1774, for instance, that newspaper carried an estate notice directed to “All Persons indebted to the Estate of the Hon. JONATHAN HUNTINGTON,” asking them “to make speedy Payment, to EBENEZER DEVOTION, Executor.”  In addition to that advertisement, another instructed “All Persons indebted toRussell Hubbard, by BOOK or NOTE, whose Debts are of more than one Year’s standing … to settle their respective Accounts and pay off their Notes, without delay, or they may depend on being sued to the next Court.”  Given the circulation of the newspaper in New London and beyond, he asserted that he “expects that this will be as sufficient a Warning as if he wrote to each Person separately.”

Seth Wymund Holmes also took to the pages of the public prints in his efforts to encourage his debtors to make good on what they owed.  He resorted to a different format than Devotion and Hubbard, making his request (and delivering his threats of legal action) in verse.  Holmes composed four stanzas of four lines each.  “ALL Persons indebted to me / are desired for to pay,” his poem began, “Or they will sued by, and that without delay.”  He appealed to the conscience: “So will the Sum amount: / How can you it abide / To add to your Account / Trouble and Cost beside?”  He also lamented how long he carried those debts, incorporating a strategy that appeared in many other advertisements that did not resort to poetry.  “As many Debts now standing be, / for seven Years, to croud my Books,” Holmes declared, “I do protest I hate to see / such dull and heavy looks.”  In case neither asking debtors to do the right thing nor stating how long he had extended credit without receiving payment worked, Holmes circled back to threatening to sue in the final stanza.  “I therefore warn Debtors to come, / and Payment make with speed, / Or they will shortly hear their Doom / in Letters plain to read.”

Holmes certainly did not produce a great work of literature, but that was not his goal.  Instead, he sought to draw the attention of those who owed him money.  He also aimed to make his message memorable.  The format of his advertisement, the amount of white space that remained after setting type for each line, distinguished it from the dense text in so many other notices.  Once that aspect of Holmes’s advertisement prompted readers to take a closer look, they may have considered the poem such a novelty that they read each stilted stanza instead of skimming through the notice like they might have done with the advertisements placed by Devotion and Hubbard.  Holmes presented something different to readers of the Connecticut Gazette.  Whether or not that convinced his debtors to settle accounts, this strategy likely increased the chances that they knew he intended to sue them if they did not.

June 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (June 2, 1773).

“The following Lines be pleased to read, / And they will shew the Cause indeed.”

Henry Funk and Christian Carpenter wanted to increase the chances that readers of the Pennsylvania Gazette took note of their advertisement offering a reward “For securing JOHN FARRAN, in Lancaster Goal” for stealing horses.  Except for the headline at the top and their signatures at the bottom, the entire advertisement consisted of rhyming couplets that described Farran and the offense he committed.  Other advertisements in the June 2, 1773, edition offered rewards for capturing runaway indentured servants or enslaved people who liberated themselves, but each of them featured a paragraph of dense text.  In contrast, Funk and Carpenter’s notice had plenty of white space to draw the eye and an entertaining poem to hold readers’ attention.  The aggrieved advertisers certainly put more effort into composing it than their counterparts did in writing formulaic notices that described indentured servants and enslaved people.

Funk and Carpenter offered an overview of the situation.  “In April last was stole away, / From each of us (we’re bold to say) / Two stately Horses, stout and strong, / And Farran did the cruel Wrong.”  He escaped into the woods with the horses, saddles, and other goods, but “The honest Neighbours round about, / Did hunt and find the Villain out.”  Farran managed to escape and “Where he is gone, we cannot say, / But he’s a Rogue, by Night and Day.”  According to Funk and Carpenter, that had not been the thief’s first infraction.  Instead, he had a history and “This Rogue is known both far and near, / To steal and sell, from Year to Year.”

To aid in identifying the fugitive, Funk and Carpenter offered a description, a bit disjointed in order to achieve the rhymes.  For instance, they interspersed a warning that Farran might change his name with information about his age and appearance.  “To tell his Marks we do incline, / His Age may be full Thirty-nine; / He’ll change his Name too, now and then, / His Height may be full five Feet ten.”  Similarly, they muddled together other aspects of his physical description with his speech patterns and their suspicions that the thief would attempt to disguise himself.  “His Hair is black, Complexion too, / And as it suits, says Thee, or You; / To tell his Clothes, it will us fail, / For them he’ll Change, or more will steal; / He is a stout and well made Fellow, / And in his Colour something Yellow.”

While no great work of literature, Funk and Carpenter’s advertisements likely achieved one of its intended purposes.  The rhyming couplets, though awkward, presented a more engaging and a more memorable story than if they had settled for a standard notice.  That, in turn, may have put more colonizers on the lookout for the notorious Farran, increasing the chances of capturing him and securing him in the Lancaster Jail.

September 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (September 20, 1772).

“Hoping they will leave the odd Pence at the Place, / Where the Papers are left for them by CASE.”

Three newspapers printed in New York served the city and the rest of the colony in the early 1770s.  Samuel Inslee and Anthony Car printed the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy, leasing it from Samuel Parker.  Hugh Gaine printed the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, while John Holt printed the New-York Journal.  In addition, Alexander Robertson and James Robertson published the Albany Gazette for a brief period in the early 1770s, establishing the newspaper on November 21, 1771, and distributing the last known issue on August 3, 1772.  Post riders distributed those newspapers to subscribers throughout the colony.

Newspaper subscribers notoriously asked for credit and fell behind in making payments, causing printers to publish frequent requests for them to settle accounts or face legal action.  Many of the subscribers to the newspapers published in New York apparently failed to pay the post riders either.  In the fall of 1772, a man who identified himself only as Case sent a request to Holt’s printing office: “Please to insert the following Lines in your next, and oblige the Albany Post Rider.”  Those lines consisted of a short poem, entitled “The Albany Post Rider’s Representation,” that pleaded with subscribers to pay for delivery of their newspapers.

Case’s poem was not great literature, but it made his case in a manner that readers likely found entertaining … or at least noticed.  “AS true as my Name is CASE, / I find Cash very scarce,” the poem began with a couplet that did not quite rhyme.  That did not deter the post rider from continuing: “Therefore take it not unkind, / If I put my Customers in mind, / I have rode Post one Year, / Which has cost me very dear.”  Case asserted that he made sacrifices to carry the news “Which make me stand in need of pay, / Without the least Delay: / From such Gentlemen indebted to me, / For bringing them their News to read and see.”  He concluded with instructions in the form of a suggestion, “Hoping they will leave the odd Pence at the Place, / Where the Papers are left for them by CASE.”

This verse did not rival the weekly entry in “POET’S CORNER” that appeared in the upper left corner of the final page of Holt’s New-York Journal, but it did distinguish Case’s advertisements from others.  Colonizers sometimes resorted to poems to enhance advertisements placed for a variety of purposes, including goods for sale and runaway indentured servants.  They experimented with advertising copy beyond writing straightforward notices that merely made announcements.

April 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (April 30, 1772).

“A servant lad of slender fame, / And WILLIAM COCHRAN is his name.”

To increase the chances that readers of the Pennsylvania Gazette would take note of his advertisement about a runaway indentured servant, James Wilson resorted to more than a dozen rhyming couplets.  In the spring of 1772, he advised that “THIS instant April the twelfth day, / From the subscriber run away, / A servant lad of slender fame, / And WILLIAM COCHRAN is his name.”  Wilson then described Cochran’s clothing, age, and physical characteristics, incorporating as much information as appeared in other advertisements placed for the same purpose but in verse to entertain and to hold the attention of readers who might recognize the fugitive.  In addition, Wilson commenced his advertisement with a headline that proclaimed, “SIX DOLLARS Reward,” and concluded, as was common practice in such notices, with more details about the reward.  “Whoever will this lad secure, / That I again may him procure,” Wilson declared, “As I my honour do regard, / He shall get the above reward, / And all costs reasonable thereon, / By the subscriber, JAMES WILSON.”

Many of the rhymes were quite strained, though Wilson generally did better with the meter.  Still, composing a great work of literature was not his goal.  Instead, he sought to produce an advertisement that readers would notice and remember, especially considering how frequently advertisements for runaway apprentices and indentured servants as well as notices offering rewards for enslaved people who liberated themselves appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette and other newspapers published in the colony.  The combination of rhyming couplets and the white space within the advertisement that resulted from that format distinguished Wilson’s notice from others.  Three notices about runaway indentured servants appeared immediately above Wilson’s advertisement in the April 30, 1772, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, each of them a dense paragraph of text.  Such advertisements were so familiar to eighteenth-century readers that Wilson apparently believed that bad poetry was better than no poetry in drawing attention to his advertisement.

February 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Journal (January 30, 1772).

“A carpenter he is by trade, / Clandestinely from me he stray’d.”

Like newspapers published throughout the colonies, the Pennsylvania Journal regularly ran advertisements about indentured servants who ran away and enslaved people who liberated themselves.  When Richard Grosvenor, a carpenter indented to Joseph Lamb, ran away in January 1772, Lamb placed such an advertisement.  To distinguish his notice from others and make it more memorable, Lamb composed a verse that described Grosvenor and the horse that he stole.

Rather than the standard “RUN AWAY” that appeared at the beginning of similar advertisements, Lamb commenced with “JANUARY the nineteenth day, / RICHARD GROSVENOR rode away.”  He then simultaneously described the runaway servant and mocked him.  “Short, thick, and chunkey, five feet four / His height appears, – I think no more,” Lamb pronounced.  He then explained that Grosvenor was “fat and plump, the cause I reckon / ‘S with eating of my beef and bacon.”  Lamb had provided for the ungrateful servant, only to be betrayed.  As for Grosvenor’s clothing, most of it was old, worn, and faded, “And yet the proud, presumptuous cur / Must place upon each heel a spur, / Brass joined ones, some of the best; / The drunken sot’s compleatly dressed.”  Lamb peppered the carpenter with insults before describing the horse he stole.  His advertisement concluded, as most did, with the terms of the reward for capturing and returning the runaway servant.  “Whoever takes up the miscreant, / A good reward they shall not want, / THREE DOLLARS cast, I do declare, / Just one for him, and two the mare.”  As a final insult, Lamb offered twice as much for recovering the horse as he did for his “drunken sot” of an indentured servant.

Readers of the Pennsylvania Journal encountered so many advertisements about runaway servants that Lamb sought to increase the chances that they took note of his notice about Grosvenor.  The unusual format likely made the description of Grosvenor more memorable as well.  Lamb was certainly not the first aggrieved advertiser to resort to stilted verses to describe a runaway servant, but so few adopted that strategy that he probably believed it stood a good chance of engaging readers as they perused the advertisements.

December 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (December 31, 1771).

“CHOCOLATE … as good and cheap as any in the Government.”

On the final day of 1771, Francis Symonds placed an advertisement in the Essex Gazette to inform the public that he “continueth to entertain Gentlemen and Ladies in the most agreeable Manner” ay the Bell Inn near Salem.  In addition, he “hath for SALE a good Assortment of English & West-India Goods.”  Symonds devoted the final portion of his advertisement to promoting one item in particular: chocolate.  He proclaimed that “he not only grinds, but hath for Sale, in large or small Quantities, CHOCOLATE.”  To entice prospective customers, he declared that his chocolate was “as good and cheap as any in the Government.”  In other words, consumers would not find chocolate of a higher quality for a lower cost elsewhere in Salem, Boston, or any other town in the colony.

Symonds did not conclude his efforts to win over consumers there.  Instead, he continued with a short poem to capture the attention of readers, a precursor to the advertising jingle of the twentieth century.  He suggested to readers wondering about the quality and price of his chocolate:

If for Confirmation you incline,
And would have that that’s genuine,
Then please to come and try mine.

Chocolate frequently appeared among the goods listed in advertisements in the Essex Gazette as well as in notices published in newspapers in Boston.  Consumers in the region had many choices among purveyors, so Symonds sought to increase the chances that they would acquire chocolate from him rather than his competitors.  He hoped that the poem would help to make his chocolate more memorable and more appealing, tempting prospective customers to see for themselves if the product lived up to the promises Symonds made.  Most of the advertisements in the Essex Gazette adhered to standard formats, but Symonds and a few others experimented with making their notices more distinctive.  Nathaniel Sparhawk, Jr., for instance, used ornamental type to enhance the visual appeal of his advertisement.  As an alternative, Symonds relied on text alone, devising a poem unlike anything that appeared in advertisements elsewhere in the issue.  Glimpsing something different, readers may have paused to take note.

November 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (November 28, 1771).

“My boy JOHN COFFE ran away.”

Advertisements for runaway indentured servants and apprentices as well as enslaved people who liberated themselves by fleeing from their enslavers regularly appeared in colonial newspapers.  The November 28, 1771, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, for instance, carried several.  Peter Care informed readers that “a Dutch servant man, named George Foell” absconded a month earlier, described the runaway’s appearance and clothing, and offered a reward to whoever “apprehends and secures the said servant, so that his master may have him again.”  In another advertisement, John Anderson, the jailkeeper in Newtown in Bucks County, reported that he had in custody “a likely NEGROE man” suspected of liberating himself from George Adam Widner of Reading.  “His master,” Anderson instructed, “is desired to come and pay charges, and take him away.”

Among the many runaway advertisements that competed for the attention of readers, Andrew Moore sought to distinguish his notice by resorting to verse.  “THE ’leventh month, the sixteenth day, / My boy JOHN COFFE ran away,” the poem began.  Moore described Coffe’s age and appearance, but did so in rhyming couplets in hopes of keeping readers interested.  “His age uncertain, yet appears / To be at least full fifteen years,” Moore asserted, before providing an extensive description of Coffe’s clothing.  “A good wool hat he took away, / Quite new, just bought the other day … His jacket was, as I am told, / Too big for him, and something old.”  He commented on the fit of another garment as well.  “Old buckskin breeches too he had, / Too big I’m sure for such a lad.”  Moore may have intended this attention to the size of Coffe’s clothing to allude to his lack of experience and maturity.  As with most advertisements about runaway servants and apprentices, this one concluded with an overview of the reward.  “Whoever takes him, pray don’t fail / To lay him fast in any jail, / And then, to you I’ll freely give / Full Thirty Shillings if I live.”

Moore frequently forced the rhymes to make his poem about Coffe work, but his intention was not to write a work of literature but instead to create an advertisement that took a familiar theme and made it fresh and memorable.  Rather than a dense paragraph of text, he gave readers a breezy poem that entertained as well as informed.  It certainly took more effort to compose than typical runaway advertisements, but Moore likely that a worthy investment that would aid in recovering the recalcitrant Coffe.