Robert L. Fowle

August 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (August 31, 1776).

“THE following new ACTS and LAWS, past at the last Session of the General-Court of this State.”

On August 10, 1776, the Freeman’s Journal, printed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, carried an advertisement that announced that the “Acts and Laws OF this State, passed since the new Form of Government took Place, are now in the Press, and in a few Weeks will be published at the Printing Office in Exeter.”  That town served as New Hampshire’s capital during the Revolutionary War.  Provincial congresses met there before the war during its first year.  The assembly continued meeting there after the Continental Congress declared independence.  Three weeks after the first advertisement, a new advertisement appeared in the Freeman’s Journal.  It informed readers that the “following new ACTS and LAWS, past at the last Session of the General-Court of this State” was “Just Published at the Printing Office in EXETER.”  Robert L. Fowle, the printer in Exeter, offered for sale “A few Copies exclusive of what the Assembly take off.”

Most of the advertisement consisted of a list of the various acts, including “An Act for establishing Courts of Law for the Administration of Justice within this Colony,” “An Act to establish an equitable Method of making Rates and Taxes, and determining who shall be legal Voters in town and Parish Affairs,” “An Act to prevent the Forgeing & altering Bills of pubic Credit, and for preventing the Depreciation thereof; and for making the Bills of Credit of the United Colonies, and the Bills of this Colony a Tender in all payments.”  Even though Fowle stated that the acts had been passed by the “General-Court of this State,” many of them referred to New Hampshire as a colony.  The provincial congress adopted a new constitution in January 1776, removing the colony from British authority, yet the colonies had not yet declared independence.  Those last colonial laws soon became the first laws of the new state.

When Fowle listed the acts in a newspaper advertisement in hopes of selling surplus copies that the assembly did not “take off,” he also reported the news.  Readers did not have to purchase the acts to learn what kind of work the assembly had undertaken in Exeter, though the list might have prompted some to learn more about those acts that interested or affected them.  The advertisement supplemented the coverage of state government that appeared in newspapers.

August 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Freeman’s Journal (August 10, 1776).

“The Acts and Laws Of this State, passed since the new Form of Government took Place.”

A month after the Continental Congress voted to declare independence, Robert L. Fowle set about publishing “The Acts and Laws” of New Hampshire “passed since the new Form of Government took Place.”  He placed an advertisement, dated August 3, 1776, in three consecutive issues of the Freeman’s Journal, printed by Benjamin Dearborn in Portsmouth.  He likely also ran advertisements in his own newspaper, the New Hampshire Gazette, or, Exeter Morning Chronicle.  (That newspaper has not been digitized for greater accessibility.)

Fowle’s advertisement made its first appearance in the Freeman’s Journal on August 10.  He announced, “The Acts and Laws Of this State,” no longer a colony, “are now in the Press, and in a few Weeks will be published, at the Printing Office in Exeter.”  When Fowle referred to statutes passed “since the new Form of Government took Place,” he did not mean the actions taken by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in early July.  Instead, he invoked the Constitution of New Hampshire devised by a provincial congress that met at Exeter on December 21, 1775.  Two weeks later, delegates to that convention “VOTED, That this Congress take up CIVIL GOVERNMENT for this colony,” displacing British authority, and outlined the “manner and form” in a framework now known as the Constitution of New Hampshire.  In so doing, they implemented the first state constitution … six months before the Continental Congress declared independence.  Accordingly, the “Acts and Laws Of this State, passed since the new Form of Government took Place” advertised by Fowle in August 1776 did not consist of legislation passed solely in the past month but instead during the seven months since the Constitution of New Hampshire written at Exeter went into effect.  Publishing the “Acts and Laws Of this State” buttressed the legitimacy of the new government, while purchasing or perusing the statutes kept citizen-consumers better informed about current events.  The legislature, the printer, and readers each played a role in disseminating the new acts and laws in their state, weaving together the fabric of a new nation from many threads.  Establishing and maintaining a “new Form of Government” required more than the Declaration of Independence.

May 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

A New Hampshire Gazette (May 27, 1776).

“Occasional HAND-BILLS, to contain all the interesting and important Intelligence of the Country.”

A broadsheet bearing the title A New-Hampshire Gazette carried only two advertisements.  A notice from Robert L. Fowle, the printer filled half of the first column on the first page.  A brief advertisement, only three lines, completed the final column on the other side of the sheet.  It announced, “A few Copies of Common Sense, and sundry other Pamphlets, BLANKS, &c. &.c &c. sold at the Printing-Office in Exeter.”

A New Hampshire Gazette (May 27, 1776).

The notice, dated at “Exeter, May 22, 1776,” informed the public that Fowle “removed his Printing-Office from Boston, to this Town, the present CAPITAL of the Colony of New-Hampshire.”  He solicited job printing and advertisements, though he may have meant broadsides and handbills rather than newspaper notices since he had concerns about the prospects of establishing a “regular News-Paper in the present disord’d Times” because “it is presum’d [it] would not be properly supported.”  Instead, he proposed printing and distributing “occasional HAND-BILLS, to contain all the interesting and important Intelligence of the Country” if “this and the near Towns will take off a few Hundred Copies weekly.”  Fowle planned to charge three pence for each handbill-newspaper “with an Allowance” or appropriate discount for “any suitable Person or Persons that will take them by the Hundred weekly, and ride round the Country.”  In addition, he requested that the “Innholders in this Colony … put up this Advertisement in their Houses” to help publicize the proposed handbill-newspapers.

Fowle indicated that the “following Articles [were] the last Advices from England” and another of the “occasional HAND-BILLS” “perhaps will appear next Monday.”  In his monumental History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820, Clarence S. Brigham states that Fowle established his New-Hampshire Gazette with a prospectus in the form of a handbill on May 22, 1776, with another handbill “promised for May 27, although no copy has been located.”  The first regular issue of the New-Hampshire Gazette, or, the Exeter Morning Chronicle, Brigham continues, appeared on June 1, “was numbered vol. 1, no. 3, and referred to the two ‘Hand-Bills’ previously published.”  That issue and most subsequent ones were “single sheets and without the name of the publisher in the imprint.”[1]

I believe that Brigham misidentifies the handbill-newspaper in the collections of the collections of the American Antiquarian Society as the first of the handbills rather than the second.  The date on Fowle’s notice, May 22, appeared immediately below the masthead, but that entire notice likely had been reprinted without revision from the first handbill-newspaper.  The “Fresh Advices” that followed on the first page relayed news from Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, not “the last Advices from England.”  The news on the other side of the sheet had “EXETER, May 27th, 1776,” for the dateline, though some of that content relayed “Advices by Friday’s Post from Boston.”  With news dated May 27, this handbill could not have been printed on May 22.  In addition, May 27 was a Monday, the day that Fowle indicated “another [handbill-newspaper] perhaps will appear.”  All this evidence suggests that no copy of the first handbill-newspaper has been located.  The known copy should be properly dated as May 27, 1776.

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[1] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 454.