Runaway Son

January 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (January 27, 1775).

“Not to trust or give Credit … to my Son JACOB BOMMER on my Account.”

As the imperial crisis intensified and the colonies and Parliament were increasingly at odds in 1774, a rupture occurred in the relationship that Michael Bommer had with his son, Jacob.  It may or may not have been the result of politics and disagreements over the Coercive Acts and how the colonies should respond.  Just as likely, it had nothing to with politics.  After all, colonizers continued to lead their daily lives even as momentous events unfolded around them.  Fathers and sons quarreled about a variety of personal and financial issues that had little or nothing to do with politics.

Whatever the cause of their discord, it was significant enough to cause the father to take to the pages of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette with a notice “to all Storekeepers, Shopkeepers, and Tradesmen whatsoever, not to trust or give Credit, or to pay any Sum of Money whatsoever, to my Son JACOB BOMMER, on my Account, from the Date hereof, October 29th, 1774.”  Three months later, the Bommers had not reconciled.  Instead, the elder Bommer felt compelled to insert his advertisement in the January 27, 1775, edition of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette.

When he did so, he followed a format familiar to readers because it was so very regularly deployed by husbands against their wives in newspapers throughout the colonies.  On the same day that Bommer’s notice appeared, for instance, Richard Mills informed readers of the New-Hampshire Gazette that he “hereby forbids any person crediting his Wife ANNA, on his Account, as he will not pay any Debts by her contracted.”  Such notices offered a means for husbands to attempt to assert their authority in public after their wives had disdained that authority in private.  On rare occasions, men adapted those sorts of newspaper notices when their relationships with other family members deteriorated.  When Bommer did so, he protected his credit and finances, but at the expense of hinting at private affairs in the public prints.  Such a spectacle had the potential to fuel gossip and draw more attention to the strife he and his son experienced.

October 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (October 17, 1771).
“I have also made it known that I would never pay any of his Debts.”

Readers regularly encountered “runaway wife” advertisements in eighteenth-century newspapers.  Aggrieved husbands placed such notices to warn the community not to extend credit to women who absconded from their households without permission.  In many instances, husbands complained about various infractions committed by their wives, but such narratives privileged husbands’ perspectives.  On those rare occasions when wives responded in print, they described misbehavior and abuses perpetrated by their husbands.  For those women, running away from their husbands constituted acts of resistance and self-preservation.

Newspaper advertisements sometimes captured other kinds of familial discord.  For instance, in 1771 William Macon, Sr., placed a notice in Purdie and Dixon’s Virginia Gazette to instruct others not to extend credit under his name to his son, Hartwell Macon.  The elder Macon lamented that his son had, “by his imprudent Conduct, spent all that he had any Right to, and reduced himself to such unhappy Circumstances that he is unable to discharge his just Debts.”  The situation exasperated William.  “Notwithstanding that this has been well known to the World for some Time past, and that I have also made it known that I would never pay any of his Debts,” he declared, “many People still let him have Things on Credit, expecting I will discharge his Debts, or leave him some Part of my Estate which they may seize upon after my Decease.”  Those who made such assumptions were bound to be disappointed, William warned.  He placed his notice “to prevent any One from being deceived, or rather deceiving themselves, that I am determined never to give my said Son any Thing during my Life, nor to leave him any Thing by my Will.”  William suggested that those who extended credit to Hartwell enabled further misconduct, implying that some of them did so opportunistically for their own financial benefit without taking into account what the community already knew about William and Hartwell’s fractured relationship.

Hartwell may have had his own version of events that differed from the narrative presented by his father, but the story William told made it seem unlikely that his son engaged in the sorts of resistance and self-preservation common among runaway wives who appeared in advertisements in the public prints.  Rather than taking place within the household, beyond public observation, Hartwell’s transgressions occurred in full view of the community over an extended period.  Readers of the Virginia Gazette had means of assessing and confirming William’s claims about his son that did not rely on competing accounts of what occurred within the private spaces of the Macon household.