William Beadle

April 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Connecticut Courant (April 12, 1774).

“A New Supply of TEA, Extraordinary Good.”

William Beadle was at it again.  A few months after the Boston Tea Party, he once again took to the pages of the Connecticut Courant, published in Hartford, to inform readers that he stocked “A New Supply of TEA, Extraordinary Good” at his shop in Wethersfield.  That advertisement first ran on April 12, 1774, a month after the first time he promoted “Best Bohea TEA, Such as Fishes never drink!!”  Readers could not miss the reference to the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor, though they could have read Beadle’s comment in different ways.  In Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776, James R. Fichter proposes that Beadle might have sold smuggled tea that had not been subject to import duties or he might have underscored that Connecticut did not have a tea boycott in place so consumers could make their own decisions about purchasing it.  He suggests that Beadle did not experience any backlash, at least not enough to make him reconsider his marketing efforts, because “he placed generic advertisements for tea,” such as today’s featured advertisement, “throughout the spring and summer of 1774 and early 1775.”[1]

Tea was certainly a topic of discussion in Wethersfield and other towns in Connecticut.  In the same issue that first carried Beadle’s “New Supply of TEA” advertisement, updates about tea appeared in several places among the “American Intelligence.”  One “Extract of a letter from Baltimore” stated, “The intentions of the British Administration relative to the American duty on tea, are not yet fixed; the Minister has many weighty subjects to lay before the lower house, before the article will be brought into debate, and the session will be far expended ere any alteration in the revenue laws will be attended to.”  An “Extract of a Letter from London” warned that “Three Men of War are ordered to be immediately in Readiness to sail to Boston, and exact Payment for the Tea.”  News from Newport, Rhode Island, focused on the “New-Yorkers [who] are determined in their resolutions of sending back the tea ship without suffering an ounce to be landed.” That report referred to the Nancy and the trouble that was brewing in New York as the Sons of Liberty there advertised that they would hold weekly meetings “till the Arrival and Departure of the TEA SHIP.”  Tea had become such a sensitive topic that many merchants and shopkeepers ceased listing it among their inventory in their advertisements, but, especially without a nonimportation pact in place, Beadle charted his own course in promoting the popular beverage to consumers in Connecticut.

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[1] James R. Fichter, Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776 (Cornell University Press, 2023), 147.

March 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Connecticut Courant (March 8, 1774).

“Best Bohea TEA, Such as Fishes never drink!!”

Nearly three months after the destruction of tea now known as the Boston Tea Party, William Beadle of Wethersfield, Connecticut, published an advertisement that alluded to the event.  “Best Bohea TEA, Such as Fishes never drink!!” he proclaimed in a notice in the March 8, 1774, edition of the Connecticut Courant.  Two manicules, one at each end, directed readers to the phrase “Such as Fishes never drink!!”  The double exclamation points gave the comment even more exuberance, especially considering that exclamation points rarely appeared in eighteenth-century newspaper notices.  Beadle’s advertisement certainly differed from those placed by merchants and shopkeepers who assured prospective customers and the public that they did not stock tea and, by extension, opposed Parliament’s attempts to impose duties on the colonies.

What message did Beadle intend for readers of the Connecticut Courant?  What kind of commentary did he offer about consumer politics?  James R. Fichter examines Beadle’s advertisement in his recently published Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776.  Fichter indicates that Beadle’s neighbors “knew him as a man … who dabbled in dark and ambiguous humor.”  Some of that humor was on display in his previous advertisements.  Perhaps Beadle made a joke “at the expense of the Boston tea partiers or the drinkers deprived of their tea.”  After all, humor about the destruction of the tea already spread.  As Fichter recounts, Peter Oliver, a noted loyalist, reported that “some Bostonians abstained from eating local fish ‘because they had drank of the East India Tea.’”  Was Beadle taking a political position and mocking the excesses of patriots in Boston and other cities and towns who stopped selling tea?  Fichter also suggests that Beadle could have been “drawing attention to Connecticut not having a tea boycott” or he might have meant that he carried Dutch tea smuggled into the colonies.  Consumers could purchase and drink such tea with a clear conscience since it had not been subject to Parliament’s duties.  Yet Beadle may not have been making a political argument at all.  Perhaps he just wanted to publish the boldest advertisement, gain the most attention, and garner the most customers among merchants and shopkeepers who continued to advertise and sell tea in Connecticut.  According to Fichter, “Tea advertising remained common in Connecticut, and Beadle bore little burden for his cheek: he placed generic advertisements for tea throughput the spring and summer of 1774 and early 1775.”[1]

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[1] James R. Fichter, Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776 (Cornell University Press, 2023).

May 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Connecticut Courant (May 4, 1773).

“A new PLAN.”

When William Beadle “open’d a new Store” in Wethersfield, just south of Hartford, he placed an advertisement in the Connecticut Courant to inform prospective customers that he sold his wares according to “A new PLAN.”  Before explaining that plan, Beadle first attempted to entice consumers to browse the “great Variety for Gentlemen and Ladies wear,” placing particular emphasis on the choices he made available to female customers.  He also carried a “good Supply of necessary Articles for Family Use and Country Business.”  Beadle sold all of that merchandise “as cheap as Goods can be sold in the Country.”

However, he did not extend credit to his customers.  That was the “new PLAN” that he featured in the headline for his advertisement.  Beadle wished “to prevent all Distinctions, and the Difficulties and Inconvenience that attend the common Practice of trusting” or allowing customers to make purchases on credit.  He did not assume the responsibility of making “Distinctions” among his customers, deciding who merited credit and how much, nor did he intend to experience the “Difficulties and Inconveniences” of pleading with customers to settle accounts when their bills came due.  Merchants and shopkeepers frequently ran advertisements encouraging customers to settle accounts, some of them threatening legal action against those who proved recalcitrant.  Beadle’s solution to such problems was “not to trust at all, not even a Shilling to any Person whatsoever.”

He asked prospective customers to consider that “he is a Stranger in this Place, and consequently free from all Connections.”  In other words, he recently moved to the area and did not possess sufficient knowledge of the residents to make judicious decisions about granting credit to prospective customers.  That being the case, Beadle “hopes this Resolution will give no Offence.”  Furthermore, he invited “all Persons who are convinced of the Utility of Business being done in this Method, (considered either as a public or private Advantage) [to] favour him with their Countenance and Custom.”  As much as they enjoyed participating in a transatlantic consumer revolution, some colonizers began to consider purchasing on credit a vice and a character flaw.  As Kate Haulman notes, fine garments, like those sold by Beadle, often “expressed neither merit nor wealth, since [they were] purchased on credit.”[1]  Beadle framed his refusal to give credit as a virtue that consumers should reward with their patronage, a virtue that transferred to them when they did so.

As a newcomer to Wethersfield, Beadle presented his “new PLAN” for selling all sorts of goods, including garments for men and women, as a sound business practice that not only benefited his business but also his prospective customers by reeling in some of the excesses of the consumer revolution.  He wanted prospective customers to spend money and gave them a means of feeling as though they did so responsibly.

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[1] Kate Haulman, “Fashion and the Culture Wars of Revolutionary Philadelphia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 62, no. 4 (October 2005): 634.