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

“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.