Managing America- Reporting American History "You Are There" -1774 to 1776 Amazon Kindle Edition

This book about the American Revolution, of which I write the record history, unfolds the principles which govern its events, keeps faith with the ashes of its heroes but, yet details how they achieved and preserved the Rights of Man and Laws of Nature in America’s civil governments.

The equality of all men was declared and the origin of God’s fundamental law of man’s free will and personal freedom secured in its complete individuality.

By the side of the principle of the freedom of the individual and the freedom of the separate states, the noblest work of human intellect was consummated in a federative union.

History sets in man’s mind the principles for conduct and behavior of mankind. Principles grow into life by forming the public mind and in their maturity gain the mastery over events and ruling changes without a pause.

No sooner do the agitated waves of change begin to subside, a new messenger from the Infinite Spirit moves over the waters in the ship of Destiny with the fortunes of mankind, abundance and prosperity to all.

The power of this book stems from the rich documentation of participants journals, letters, newspaper accounts, Government Records -Journals and books written, in 1830-1860, after the events happened

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The original publications of these journalistic sketches precluded the citation of authorities and sources, thus criticism is deliberately risked by omitting footnote references which are not absolutely necessary if historical details which implies truth or historic truth, as are here given, will help the reader catch a glimpse of the spark and spirit of the Revolution, that will aid in securing a firmer foundation for the understanding of our United States of today.

Early American Newspapers and Printers-1754 to 1783

Newspaper growth during the French and Indian War period is an indicator of the importance of news of the war to the American colonists. From 1754 to 1760, the number of news-papers in America increased 73 percent, from eleven English language newspapers to nineteen.

At the same time, the population of the British American colonies increased by just 36 percent, from slightly more than 1.17 million inhabitants to slightly more than 1.59 million. Newspapers grew at twice the rate of the American population in the period leading up to the capitulation of Canada, no doubt because of the desire for news about the war.

Isaiah Thomas printer of the The Essex Journal and Massachusetts Spy said, "The war with the French at this time 1755, in which the British colonies were deeply interested, increased the demand for public journals.

“In addition, another three newspapers were begun in the colonies before the official end of the French and Indian War in 1763.”

George Washington's Journal gave newspaper readers a first-person account of his talks with American Indians and French military leaders west of the Appalachians. Readers learned of French forts from New Orleans to Canada, a network of American Indian alliances with the French, and how difficult moving supplies into the region would be for British fighting units. Washington's activities became a prime news topic for months culminating in his defeat at Fort Necessity 1n July.

The news of Washington and the French trouble in the Ohio Valley did not appear in isolation in colonial newspapers. The spring and summer of 1754 brought in reports of French and Indian action and troop build-up from Maine southward.

The New York Mercury alerted readers that the Lake Erie area was already under French control and that the French and Indians planned to attack Albany. Unless stopped by American forces, the article said, citizens could expect France to control the whole Continent.

July 1776, was a pivotal date in the history of the United States. The Continental Army, lead by General George Washington,  was outnumbered three to one by the British and their German mercenaries, the British Navy dominated the high seas controlling supplies and arms and America , out of money, was seeking financial and political support both domestically and inter-nationally to continue the revolt.

The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to draft a declaration of independence which would clearly state the reasons for the Revolution and hopefully garner desperately needed arms and ammunition and soldiers. Thomas Jefferson wrote the original draft which was revised in committee and by the whole Congress. It was printed as a broadside on July 4 and distributed to be read publicly throughout the colonies. To achieve even wider distribution, Congress ordered it to be printed in newspapers as well.

The Continental Congress saw the Declaration of Independence as a powerful tool. The support of nations like France, the Netherlands, and Poland was crucial. Declaring independence made it possible to take the Revolution out of the arena of civil war and put it directly on the international stage as a war for independence. The simplicity and eloquence of the Declaration of Independence immediately gained the attention of the world and has inspired democratic movements ever since. Getting the word out was a priority.

On the evening of July 4, 1776, John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer that printed the jour-nals of the Continental Congress, took the manuscript copy of the Declaration and printed it as a single-sheet broadside. It took a little longer for it to appear in newspapers.

 Benjamin Towne, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, printer located "in Front-street, near the London Coffee-House," was the first to print the Declaration in a newspaper.

On July 6, 1776, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, which was published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, carried the Declaration on the front page. At this time Towne was an ardent patriot. 

However, Towne was an opportunist and a turncoat. He switched sides several times during the war, depending on whether the British or the Americans were occupying Philadelphia at the time.

By the end of the war he was viewed as a traitor. He lost most of his subscribers and advertisers. He started printing The Pennsylvania Evening Post every day, making it the first daily newspaper in the United States.

The Pennsylvania Gazette was the most successful newspaper in colonial America. It owed its success to Benjamin Franklin, who wrested control of the paper from Samuel Keimer in 1729 and then used his influence as postmaster to increase its circulation and list of subscribers. Franklin introduced the editorial column, humor, and the first weather report, and the first cartoon, the famous drawing of a divided snake with the caption "Join or Die," which appeared in 1754 in response to the French and Indian massacres of settlers in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

                                         

By 1776, the paper was owned and run by David Hall Jr., the son of Franklin's partner, David Hall Sr., and William Sellers. On July 10, 1776, they printed the Declaration of Independence on columns one and two. On column three are two of fourteen advertisements for rewards of the return of slaves and indentured servants. This traffic in human beings was a fact of life and big business in the colonies. Advertisements about the slaves for sale and runaways of all sorts--including slaves, apprentices, wives, indentured servants as well as deserters--was also a major source of revenue for colonial newspapers.

This newspaper shows the world of radical inequalities from which the Declaration's affirmation that "all men are created equal" emerged.

The Pennsylvania Journal was the major competitor to The Pennsylvania Gazette. It was owned and run by William Bradford and his son Thomas. In 1754 he established the London Coffee-House, which served as the seat of the merchants' exchange in Philadelphia.

The Pennsylvania Journal was the official printers to the First Continental Congress.

On July 10, 1776, William Bradford printed the Declaration of Independence on page one. He was a colonel in the Pennsylvania militia and fought bravely during the War and was severely wounded at the Battle of Princeton. His dying words to his children were, "Though I bequeath you no estate, I leave you in the enjoyment of liberty." He was the outstanding soldier-editor of the Revolution, and his career shows both the close connection between journalism and politics and how deeply personal the Revolutionary cause could be for some printers.

On July 10, Mary Katherine Goddard devoted the front page of her newspapers, The Maryland Journal and The Baltimore Journal, to the Declaration. Mary Goddard was one of thirty woman printers in the colonies. Printing was one the few professions open to women at this time. Money was scarce throughout the Revolution. Mary's subscribers often paid in goods rather than cash. To raise cash, Mary opened a store adjacent to the print shop, selling the goods she received. She was the first woman in the American colonies to serve as postmaster, a position she filled for fourteen years.                  

The prejudice at this time against women making a profit led to her dismissal as postmaster. She petitioned Congress and wrote George Washington appealing her dismissal, to no avail. She spent her remaining years running her own book shop.

The New York Journal was a zealous advocate for the American Revolution. John Holt, the printer, showed his support in his imaginative masthead. The double coiled snake with its tail in its mouth proclaims on the body, "United Now Alive and Free, Firm on the basis Liberty shall stand, And thus supported, ever bless our land, Till Time becomes Eternity." The snake swallowing its tail is a symbol for eternity. Within the coils is a pillar standing on the Magna Carta surmounted by the cap of liberty.

The New York Gazette was first issued November 8, 1725, marking the beginning of newspaper publishing in the state. Frank Luther Mott writes in his American Journalism, A History: 1690-1960 that it was a "small two-page paper, poorly printed, and containing chiefly foreign news from three to six months old, state papers, lists of ships entered and cleared, and a few advertisements."

New York's second paper was The New-York Weekly Journal issued by John Peter Zenger beginning November 5, 1733. Four issues deemed seditious were confiscated and burned. Zenger spent nine months in jail before the famous 'libel' trial of 1735, during which time his wife, Anna, continued the publication, making her the first woman to write, edit, and publish a newspaper in New York State.

James Humphreys Jr. was a Tory who had taken an oath of allegiance to the King of England. His paper, The Pennsylvania Ledger, sported the King’s Arms in the masthead; however, he promises political impartiality in his byline. Benjamin Towne, the opportunistic printer of The Pennsylvania Evening Post, hounded Humphreys for his political beliefs and was able to drive him out of town in order to get a share of the congressional printings. In an effort to appease his readers, Humphreys dropped the King’s Arms from his masthead on June 22.

He published the Declaration of Independence on July 13 on page two. On the front page he printed a large ad for the second edition of Thomas Paine's seminal work Common Sense. Humphreys was a distributor for this work and used his newspaper to generate business for book sales. Page one also carries a debate from the House of Lords dated March 5. The Revolution is the main topic of discussion. The interesting note here is that there seems to be no unity among the Lords in their opinions on the war. A reader gets the impression that ambivalence and division is rampant so that by the time one reads the Declaration, it seems that independence is not impossible.

The Connecticut Courant is the oldest continuously printed newspaper in America. It was established by Samuel Green, the scion of a famous printing family in Connecticut. When Samuel died, his partner Ebenezer Watson took over the paper. After the British captured New York, The Connecticut Courant became the largest newspaper in the Northeast. Ebenezer was famous for his humanity and loyalty to independence. He discarded the King's Arms as the masthead and substituted the Arms of Connecticut.

On July 15, 1776, he printed the Declaration of Independence on page two, following an-other report of speeches in the Parliament showing growing support for the American cause. Its printing of the Declaration after the pro-American speeches in Parliament shows another way printers could subtly shape support for independence, and its subsequent history confirms the importance of women printers in the Revolutionary era.

John Rogers began The American Gazette on June 22, 1776, but it only lasted a few weeks. This was enough time to include the Declaration of Independence in his July 16 issue. The Declaration is on the first page and the last page of the four pages of the paper. Inside is the speech of Lord Richmond, described earlier in The New York Packet.

Benjamin Edes was a printer centered in Boston. When the British took Boston he escaped by night in a boat with a press and a few types. He opened a printing house in Watertown, Massa-chusetts, where he continued publishing his paper The Boston Gazette.

The quality of printing suffered greatly due to the fact that printing presses, typefaces, ink and paper were all imported from England. Edes had to work with worn type, poor quality ink, and a severe shortage of paper. The available paper was barely fit for printing. To address the paper shortage, Edes advertised for rags from which paper was made. On the last column of page one, along with the Declaration of Independence, Edes advertises "Cash given for clean Cotton and Linen rags, at the Printing-Office in Watertown."

The Newport Mercury-Rhode Island, the second newspaper established in Rhode Island was founded by James Franklin Jr., Benjamin Franklin's nephew. With the exception of three years during the Revolution, when it was forced to move to Massachusetts due to British occupation, the newspaper would be continuously published until 1928; it then merged with another paper to become the Newport Mercury and Weekly News.

The New Hampshire Gazette was founded in Portsmouth on October 7, 1756, by printer Daniel Fowle. It was the first newspaper of any type in the Province of New Hampshire. In his years in Boston before founding the Gazette, Fowle, a slave-holder, was the first to print the words of Samuel Adams, and had spent time in prison for printing anti-British pamphlets "The Monster of Monsters" and "A Total Eclipse of Liberty." The Gazette continued to be published through Fowle's death in 1787, and in 1839, it was recognized as the oldest newspaper in America after the Maryland Gazette ceased publication.

Thomas and Samuel Green were sons of the Samuel Green who established a printing dynasty in New England. These brothers published The Connecticut Journal between 1767 and 1809. They published the Declaration of Independence on July 17. It appeared on the second page, set off by a crude decorative border made up of miscellaneous pieces of type that separate the Declaration from the rest of the text.

Edward Powars and Nathaniel Willis purchased The New England Chronicle from Sam-uel Hall on June 13, 1776. They ran the Declaration on the front page. Inoculation for smallpox was important in 1776, as its far safer and more effective modern form has become again today. The ad in Powars's and Willis's newspaper illuminates one of the major dangers that threatened to undermine the American struggle for independence.

The Essex Journal was started by Isaiah Thomas on December 4, 1773. Thomas was a prolific printer, editor, writer, and author of the definitive History of Printing in America from which much of the information on pre-Revolutionary newspapers comes. He founded the American Antiquarian Society, the most important repository of eighteenth-century American newspapers in the world. Thomas sold his rights to the newspaper to Ezra Lunt in 1774 who then sold to John Mycall.

Mycall printed the Declaration on page one. The masthead includes the familiar images of the American Indian and the sailing ship. Following the Declaration, there is a proclamation delivered on July 4 in Watertown, Massachusetts, calling for August 1 to be a day of "public humiliations, fasting and prayer," to bring an end to the British atrocities against Americans.

The proclamation ends with the emphatic declamation "GOD save AMERICA!"

John Dixon and William Hunter printed the Declaration of Independence on page two of their July 20 issue of The Virginia Gazette out of Williamsburg, Virginia. Dixon and Hunter owned one of three newspapers titled "Virginia Gazette" in Williamsburg at this time. On June 1, 1776, they printed George Mason’s Declaration of Rights adopted by the Virginia constitutional convention.

Thomas Jefferson closely followed the wording and ideas of this document, as can be seen in its words "That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." The material the Virginia Gazette printed in the weeks surrounding the appearance of the Declaration of Independence supports Jefferson's contention that the Declaration was not an original work but an expression of the American mind.

Alexander Purdie was born in Scotland, where he learned the printing trade. He printed the Declaration of Independence in his Virginia Gazette on the front page on July 26, 1776. At the top of column one he printed this notice: "In COUNCIL, July 20, 1776, Ordered THAT the printers publish in their respective Gazettes the DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE made by the Honourable of the Continental Congress, and that the sheriff of each county of this common-wealth proclaim the same at the door of his courthouse the first court day after he shall have received the same."

The Virginia Gazette was an "official" newspaper, financed in part by the colonial government publishing notices in it. There was no competing paper until 1766, when one faction in the House of Burgesses stimulated a new publication during the Stamp Act controversies. It was called Rind's Virginia Gazette, a confusing name chosen in part because the legislature had previously specified that the lucrative official notices would be published in the Virginia Gazette.

Purdie's patriotism is readily apparent in the newspaper masthead, where the Arms of Virginia include the famous phrase "Don't Tread on Me" and below the masthead is the subtitle "High Heaven to Gracious Ends directs the Storm!"

On page two following the Declaration is the following report: "Williamsburg, July 26. Yesterday afternoon, agreeable to an order of the Hon. Privy Council, the Declaration of Independence was solemnly proclaimed at the Capitol, the Courthouse, and the Palace amidst the acclamations of the people, accompanied by firing cannons and musketry, the several regiments of continental troops having been paraded on that solemnity." Here we have an eyewitness report of the celebrations surrounding the publication of the Declaration of Independence, a celebration that has continued uninterrupted for over two hundred years.

The South Carolina Gazette began in 1732 under J. Whitemarsh, in Charlestown, but within two years died of yellow fever. In 1734 another former printer with Benjamin Franklin, Lewis Timothy, revived the Gazette and ran it until his accidental death four years later. His widow Elizabeth then ran both the paper and the print shop until their son, Peter, was old enough to take over. Peter also worked with the colonial postal service and was appointed Deputy Post-master-General of the Southern Provinces. Peter Timothy was from the early years a Patriot, was known to join in from time to time around the Liberty Tree, and expressed his views in the Gazette.

The Gazette printed news of Europe, what the royalty had worn at the last social event, news of the colony, notices of births, deaths, marriages and estate auctions, and advertisements, including those for runaway slaves.

May, 1780, the Gazette is seized by the British and given to the Tory Loyalist Robert Wells who continued it as the Royal Gazette, reflecting the British perspective.

 In August Peter Timothy, one of  the100 leading citizens of South Carolina, was dragged out of his house and put aboard a British prison ship where he died.

 It was not until 1749, when the North Carolina legislature decided that the colony needed a press of its own to print currency and laws, that James Davis, an experienced printer from Virginia, was hired and brought to set up shop in New Bern, where he issued his first title, "The journal of the House of Burgesses of the Province of North-Carolina," to be printed in North Carolina.  Davis served as official printer of the colony for thirty-three years, though his work was not limited to official publications.

In August 1751 he published the first issue of The North Carolina Gazette, North Caro-lina's first newspaper. Although it looks very different from the papers we're used to today, the Gazette was a typical eighteenth-century newspaper.

 It contained a wide range of articles, many reprinted from other papers. A typical issue might include stories reprinted from other papers as many as four or five months old. Essays, laws, and unsigned or pseudonymous editorials took up the first couple of pages. Local news, if it was included at all, was often relegated to inside pages, and advertisements and announcements appeared throughout. 

Although the Gazette offered, according to its masthead, "the freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestic," the freshness of the news was debatable.

Georgia's first newspaper was the Georgia Gazette, published by James Johnston from 1763 until 1776. When royal rule was temporarily restored in Savannah, Johnston published the Royal Georgia Gazette; when peace came, he changed the name again, this time to the Gazette of the State of Georgia.

After the state capital was moved to Augusta in 1785, Greensburg Hughes, a Charleston printer, began publishing the Augusta Gazette.

Congress wrote the Declaration of Independence to be read by as wide an audience as possible. To this end, thirty newspapers in America printed it. The Library of Congress owns fifteen original copies of these printings. Colonial printers held a unique position in the history of American printing. Printers in Great Britain had a legal monopoly on most printed material, such as the English-language Bible, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and all maps.

 American printers were limited to producing newspapers, almanacs, sermons, addresses, pamphlets, primers and other lesser items. To make ends meet, most colonial printers had other jobs. Many maintained book shops and dry-goods stores. A number of printers were also postmasters. Printers were by default editors, publishers, and distributors.

Because they had to wear many hats, they had great influence in the colonies.

Newspapers not only covered the war effort, but they also promoted a unity of conscious-ness for colonists along the Atlantic seaboard.

Keeping the Declaration of Independence and the principles of the American Revolution fresh and alive in our hearts and minds will continue the understanding and the meaning of liberty, freedom and democracy in our republic.

 My hope is that sharing the importance of studying the history of America in a factual and truthful manner will inspire you as much as it has inspired me to pass along the importance of our history to succeeding generations.

Enjoy your journey through the American Revolution as presented by the newspaper reporters and participants in that period of history.

Reporting American History "You Are There" -1774 to 1776 Amazon Kindle Edition

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