USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume II > Part 14
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First among American newspapers to be soundly established and con- tinuously published is "The Boston News-Letter," but absolute priority belongs to "Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick," printed at Boston by Richard Pierce for Benjamin Harris. It is suppressed after a single issue, but it is a genuine newspaper. To Harris it is desirable to devote more than casual attention, for he figures in the struggle for a free press both in Old and in New England. We find him entering a book at Stationers' Hall as early as 1674-"The Saints Looking-glasse exposed to view, in the most exemplary life and triumphant death of that pious and painfull minister of the Gospell, Mr. James Jemeway lately deceassed." , Soon he becomes a publisher of controversial literature, and in the cause of Protestantism he issues, on July 9, 1679, the first number of a . semi-weekly newspaper, "Domestick Intelligence, or News both from City
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and Country," which, with one change of title and one long suspension, terminates with its 114th number on April 15, 1681. A competitor de- nounces him as a "press-pirate," and calls him a "factious, infamous, per- jured antichristian." In 1680 he is presented for trial before the unspeak- able Judge Jeffreys, charged with criticism of the King in his Appeal from the Country to the City. His neighbors give him a good character. He has friends among the jurors, but their request to inspect the sedi- tious pamphlet is denied. They bring in an evasive verdict which the court resents and orders changed. He is sentenced to pay a fine of £ 500, to stand one hour in the pillory, and to produce sureties for good behavior for three years. In court he merely says with simple dignity: "I hope God will give me patience to go through with it." In prison he makes concessions. Severe punishment tempers somewhat his proud spirit, and he discloses the names of the writers of a few of the offending articles. According to the Town Records he lands in Boston in 1686, and opens a "Coffee, Tee, and Chucaletto" shop. He makes several voyages and so may have justified the observations of his friend, the eccentric John Dun- ton, who characterized him as one who "had a deal of mercury in his natural temper," and who expressed the opinion that could Harris but "fix his Mercury a little, and not be so volatile, he would do well enough." In the early autumn of 1690 he issues from his "London Coffee House" the first newspaper printed on the American Continent ..
Let us examine this pioneer publication. The Rev. Joseph B. Felt of Salem found the only known copy in the Public Record Office in London in 1845. Samuel Abbott Green of the Massachusetts Historical Society reproduced it in fac simile in 1901. It is a small quarto, printed two col- umns to a page on three sides of a folded sheet, measuring 71/2 by II1/2 inches. The only contemporaneous allusions to it, besides the order of suppression presently to be noticed, are contained in Sewall's Diary. In his entry for September 25, 1690, he says: "A printed sheet entituled publick Occurrences comes out, which gives much distaste because not Licensed; and because of the passage referring to the French King and the Maquas [Mohawks]."
Harris defines his purpose in a prospectus. He proposes to publish once a month, "or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener"; he prom- ises to furnish "an account of such considerable things as have arrived unto our Notice"; he pledges himself to "take what pains he can to obtain a Faithful Relation of all such things," and especially he will "make him- self beholden to such persons in Boston" as may help him to procure the news. Further, he will do what he can "towards the Curing, or at least the Charming of that Spirit of Lying, which prevails amongst us," trying always to be accurate in his reports, "and when there appears any mate- rial mistake in anything that is collected, it shall be corrected in the next."
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Finally, he engages to assist in the suppression of malicious "False Re- ports" by exposing the names of such persons as are shown to have been guilty of "so villanous a Crime."
Now what does this paper contain ? Let us scan the diminutive pages of this forerunner of the multitudinous newspapers of today. Here are the "occurrences." The Christianized Indians of Plymouth have ap- pointed a thanksgiving day. The husbandmen find no want of hands, "which is looked upon as a Merciful Providence," for the season is favor- able and many men have gone on the expedition to Canada. Indians have stolen two children from Chelmsford. An old man of Watertown, having lately lost his wife, has committed suicide by hanging himself in the cow-house. In Boston 320 persons have died of smallpox. In a fire near the Mill Creek some twenty houses have been burned. A fire near the South Meeting House has consumed several buildings and a young man perished in the flames; moreover "the best furnished PRINTING- PRESS of those few that we know of in America was lost." [Benjamin Harris is responsible for the capitals.] The Indians and the French have butchered the master and most of the crew of a vessel bound for Virginia which had put into the Penobscot. There is then an account of the expe- dition to Canada under General Wait Winthrop and how it failed. Also an account of the massacre of a body of French and Indians of the "East Country." Some items about conditions in the West Indies have been obtained via Portsmouth where a vessel is just in from the Barbadoes. The city of Cork has proclaimed King William and turned the French landlords out of doors. Finally, there is some additional mention of Indian troubles in several places.
Benjamin Harris must have been an enterprising editor. Here are nearly a score of news items, long and short ; three are local, all the others but two are domestic. There are massacres and conflagrations, a suicide, and the narrative of a military expedition with a battle. Truly a "mod- ern" paper for 1690. Harris would probably have been classed as a sen- sational journalist today.
But Harris had not asked the permission of the authorities for the publication of this paper. The magistrates cannot tolerate the unlicensed issue of a newspaper even once a month. It is too dangerous a novelty. The Governor and Council promptly issue a broadside asserting their "high resentment and disallowance" of this pamphlet, and prohibiting any person "for the future to set forth anything in print without license first obtained." The authorities affirm that Harris has printed "reflec- tions of a very high nature." It is difficult to identify the objectionable passages. Judge Sewall locates the offense in the references to the French King and the Mohawks. The account of the misunderstanding between General Winthrop and the government of New York may have disturbed
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the magistrates. There is one scandalous allusion to the French King. It may be that the expressed intention to expose rumor mongers was interpreted as the threat of a spy rather than the pledge of a reformer. Cotton Mather declaimed against the sheet. The sinister innovation must not be allowed to continue. It is suppressed, and the town waits yet fourteen years for the regular publication of a newspaper.
Harris lingers still some time in Boston. With a partner he founds a printing shop, and ere long he is assigned to be the official printer for the publication of the laws. For a while he is located on the present site of "The Boston Globe." Late in 1694 or early in the following year, how- ever, he returns to London and opens a shop in Fore Street. The censor- ship having expired in May, 1695, and his taste for journalism having been no whit lessened by his experiences, he presently issues the first number of a news sheet to which he applies the name "Intelligence, Domestick and Foreign."
During the interval between the suppression of "Publick Occurrences" and the establishment of "The Boston News-Letter" the colonists ob- tained what news they got from the irregular and uncertain supplies of newspapers sent from England and from the manuscript letters prepared by their postmasters, who as centers of intelligence, quite naturally be- came distributing agents for both authentic information and cursory gossip. Their compensation being small, the postmasters sought to sup- plement their stipends by writing letters which should contain more complete accounts of contemporaneous events than private letters were likely to supply. John Campbell, who became postmaster of Boston in 1702, arranged to forward statedly to the Governors of the several New England colonies manuscript digests of the news which might come into his possession. Having built up a business as a writer of news letters, he early perceived the advantage of printed news sheets. Newspapers in England were increasing in popularity, the demand for news was increas- ing in America. It was an easy transition from the written news letter to the printed newspaper, and the title of the first American newspaper could hardly have been avoided. The postmaster was the immediate precursor of the editor. For many years after Campbell started "The Boston News-Letter," a newspaper was considered an adjunct of the postoffice. Strangely enough the licensing system was continued in Mas- sachusetts after the censorship had been abandoned in England, but there was no hubbub over John Campbell's venture, for this first newspaper in America bore the announcement conspicuously displayed, "Published by Authority." Campbell was as cautious as Harris had been zealous, tak- ing great pains to avoid offense either to the civil magistrates or to the church leaders. A daily newspaper began publication in London in 1702. The first issue of Campbell's weekly is dated "from Monday, April 17,
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to Monday, April 24, 1704." It justified its claim as our first paper of reg- ular publication by maintaining a continuous existence for almost seven- ty-two years.
We know that John Campbell was in Boston in 1695, that he was of Scottish ancestry, and that he was president of the Scots Charitable So- ciety in 1727. Also from the obituary notice in the paper he founded we learn that he died in 1728, at the age of seventy-five, having been "One of His Majesties Justices of the Peace for the County of Suffolk." His brother, Duncan Campbell, bookseller, John Dunton describes as "a brisk young Fellow, that dresses All-a-mode, and sets himself off to the best Advantage ; and yet thrives Apace." From the pages of his news- paper we may fairly infer that its publisher was not very aggressive, although capable of moral indignation ; not very original while striving to be accurate ; not gifted rhetorically but occasionally dabbling in mild sarcasm ; and not very prosperous although manifesting some interest in public affairs. He often wrote in an apologetic tone, as when he admitted the paper to be "thirteen months behind in giving the news from Europe." Quite in the spirit of the time he greeted the appearance of a rival sheet thus : "I pity the readers of the new paper ; its sheets smell stronger of beer than of midnight oil. It is not reading fit for the people !"
What style of sheet was this "News-Letter"? Certainly the initial number could not compare with the sole issue of the ill-fated paper pub- lished by Benjamin Harris. It was printed on both sides of a half-sheet folio, measuring 7 by 111/2 inches. There must have been two editions of the first issue, for at least one difference in typography is found among the three copies now in existence. The publisher's announcement con- tained a request for advertising : "All Persons who have any Houses, Lands, Tenements, Farmes, Ships, Vessels, Goods, Wares or Merchan- dizes, Ec. to be Sold, or Lett; or Servants Runaway ; or Goods Stoll or Lost, may have the same Inserted at a Reasonable Rate; from Twelve Pence to Five Shillings, and not to exceed : Who may agree with Nich- olas Boone for the same at his shop, next door to Major Davis's, Apothe- cary in Boston, near the Old Meeting-House."
This is not a newsy issue. It contains a fair amount of foreign infor- mation and a negligible quantity of domestic matter. The foreign news is taken from the London papers of the preceding December. The Amer- ican items deal with Jamaica, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Several paragraphs contain ship news, as we would say nowadays. There is a brief account of an action in which an English vessel fought a French sloop "Board and Board three Glasses." There is an account of a scare over the presence of French ships off Block Island. For purely local mat- ter-a "principal Merchant" of Boston has died, a Judge of the Admiralty has been commissioned, the General Assembly has been dissolved, and a
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certain "Excellent Sermon" has been ordered "by his Excellency · to be Printed."
This number conveys a fairly accurate impression of the general char- acter of the paper during almost the entire period of its publication. Local news sometimes was limited to two or three items. Rarely did it fill a column or a column and a half of the four, eight, and occasionally twelve columns of an issue. The foreign news usually was collated from British papers, and if it seems stale to us it should be remembered that these papers often reached Boston by way of Bermuda, Virginia, or New York. Quite in the tone of the time this news in the main comprised royal proclamations, State papers, Parliamentary proceedings, and mili- tary movements. During its early years many numbers were filled with the events of the War of the Spanish Succession. The American intel- ligence included numberless marine items, engagements with Indians on land and with French privateers at sea, elections to the General Court, proclamations by the Governor, and brief notes of varied character from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the several New England Colonies, from New York and Philadelphia, occasionally from South Carolina, and not seldom from the West Indies. The files of the "News-Letter" supply historians with some valuable documents and not a few important dates, but these must be handled with discretion for the paper by no means is celebrated for inerrancy.
It may be that his Scottish ancestry accounts for Campbell's persist- ence in publication, for the "News-Letter" was not a money-maker. Subscribers were few and advertisers absent. He did not hesitate to print frequent appeals for aid. In the second year of publication he asked the Governor to grant him an allowance "to encourage him in said duty for the future," and a small amount was allocated to him. In 1719 he presented an extended statement of his affairs in a plea to the public for help, declaring he had "supplied them conscientiously with publick occurances of Europe and with those of these our neighboring provinces, and the West Indies." He must confess his circulation to be but 300, whereas we know the population of the town at the time of the founding of the "News-Letter" to have been about 8,000. It was in that same year, 1719, that Campbell was summarily separated from the postoffice. One stroke of enterprise in his career as a newspaper publisher deserves special mention. The paper was only a few weeks old when he issued what has been described as a "Pirate Supplement." On Friday, June 30, 1704, six pirates were executed in Boston, a great and gala day for the town. Campbell printed a sheet which may have been put out as a sup- plement or extra, containing "An Account of the Behavior and last Dying Speeches of John Quelch, John Lambert, Christopher Scudamore, John Miller, Erasmus Peterson, and Peter Roach, the six pirates that were
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executed on Charles River, Boston side." He described the scene and recited the exhortations to the malefactors and the prayer by a minister while the pirates were on the scaffold "as near as it could be taken in writing in the great crowd."
Various difficulties perplex the student of the "News-Letter." The day of publication was readily moved forward or backward by twenty- four hours or forty-eight, misprints were frequent, especially of the day of the month, and the numbering was erratic. Mr. Albert Matthews has discovered such "amazing sequences" as 1958, 1459, 1960, and 2059, 2951. In the course of its three-score years and ten, the paper changed its name eleven times. In 1727 it became "The Weekly News-Letter," in 1730 "The Boston Weekly News-Letter," in 1757 it resumed the original title, and in 1762 it adopted the style of "The Boston News-Letter and New- England Chronicle." Then in the ensuing April it appeared as "The Massachusetts Gazette. And Boston News-Letter"; in 1768 it again be- came "The Boston Weekly News-Letter," only in the next year-not to list all the minor changes-to assume a slight variant from the style of 1763, and as "The Massachusetts Gazette : and the Boston Weekly News- Letter" it continued until the end. In 1755 the Legislature passed the Provincial Stamp Act imposing for two years duties on vellum, parch- ment, and paper, and levying a half-penny on every scrap on which any news should be printed. All the copies from April 30, 1755, to the corre- sponding date in 1757 were printed on paper bearing in the lower right hand corner of page one a circular stamp in red ink, with a bird with out- spread wings in the centre. The publisher requested his customers to notify him of their intentions so that he might know "what Number to print off." In 1765 the issue for May 2 contained an announcement that the paper used was made at Milton and a request that the people would save "all Linen Rags" and so "prevent large Sums of Money from going out of the Province."
Advertisements, while not common, did appear from time to time. A card in the second number offered a reward for the return of two anvils which had been taken "Off Mr. Shippen's Wharff." The third issue car- ried a "For Sale" card for certain lands and buildings "At Oysterbay on Long Island," inquiry to be made of "Mr. William Bradford Printer in N. York." Prospective privateers advertised for men. Toward the mid- dle of the century advertisements for the sale of negro slaves became fairly common. For instance : "To be sold, a likely Negro boy about 12 years old; enquire of the printer." But it was not until the War for Independence had been fought and won that business men accepted the newspaper as the easy and natural method of communicating with the public.
Dull, stupid, as the "News-Letter" may seem to the majority of read-
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ers today, news items of thrilling import did appear occasionally in its prosaic columns. The Boston papers printed several false reports of the repeal of the British Stamp Act, but authentic information reached the! town on May 16, 1766, and the "News-Letter's" issue of May 22 bore across the top of page one, like a modern "stringer," this notice: "Friday last arrived here the Brigantine Harrison, Shubael Coffin, Master, belong- ing to John Hancock Esq; a principal Merchant in this Town, in about 6 weeks from London ; who brought the important Acct of the REPEAL of the AMERICAN STAMP ACT."
Bartholomew Green began the printing of the "News-Letter" in a small wooden building in what now is Washington Street, and after eighteen years, on the last day of 1722, John Campbell gave notice in its columns that in the ensuing number Green would himself become the publisher and owner. Early in 1733, Green having died, John Draper, who had married his daughter and served as his assistant, took charge of the paper. Shortly after Green had become publisher he inserted a notice of his intention "now and then to print an article upon the state of relig- ion," and under the management of his son-in-law the paper continued to be semi-religious in character. In the last month of 1762 notice was given that "the business of the late publisher" had devolved upon his son, Richard Draper, and he obtained an appointment from the Governor and Council as Official Printer in succession to his father, who had held the place for many years. Both the father and the son were competent journalists for their time, diligent and honorable, and the younger man earned the reputation of being "the best compiler of news in his day."
The month of May, 1768, confronts us with the most difficult puzzle in the history of Boston journalism previous to the Revolution. Long before that time the day of publication of the "News-Letter" had been shifted from Monday to Thursday. "The Boston Post-Boy" was now issued on Monday. Richard Draper of the one paper and John Green and Joseph Russell, the publishers of the other, made a curious arrange- ment which provided that the publication of each paper should be con- tinued under its own name and on its regular day of issue, while the publishers of both papers would issue jointly a third paper to be known as "The Massachusetts Gazette." The portion of the "Gazette" issued on Mondays would be printed by Green and Russell and sometimes on the same sheet with the "Post-Boy" of that date, and the portion of the "Gazette" issued on Thursdays would be printed by Draper and some- times on the same sheet as the "News-Letter" of that date. Frederic Hudson was the first of several investigators to call these "the Siamese Twins of Journalism." The puzzle is to determine whether this joint publication shall be considered as a separate newspaper. The scheme was continued from May 23, 1768, to September 25, 1769.
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In May, 1774, Richard Draper fell ill, and printed a plea for the indul- gence of his subscribers, along with an advertisement for a printer. A week later he gave notice of a partnership between himself and John Boyle. Then in June appeared the announcement of the death of Draper, and of the intention of his widow, Margaret, with the assistance of Boyle, to "carry on." This arrangement lasted only until August, however, when Mrs. Draper undertook to publish the paper on her sole responsi- bility. At the outbreak of the war there were five papers printed in Bos- ton, but in the critical months of 1775 "The Evening Post" and "The Post-Boy" found it impossible to continue publication, "The Boston Gazette" and "The Massachusetts Spy" could not continue in Boston and removed, the one to Watertown and the other to Worcester, so that the "News-Letter," recognized as a Tory organ and called contemptuously by the patriots "Mrs. Draper's paper," was left alone in Boston through the siege. The issue of October 13, 1775, bore the heading "The Massa- chusetts Gazette : Published Occasionally," although the succeeding is- sues carried the usual title. From this October date until February 22, 1776, the issues all had the imprint of John Howe, without mention of a publisher or of Mrs. Draper, and the evidence is not decisive as to whether Mrs. Draper kept her ownership until the end or Howe served in the dual capacity of printer and publisher.
Bartholomew Green came of a famous family of printers, and himself and his successors did the printing for the "News-Letter" throughout its existence, except for four years, from November, 1707, until October, 17II, when it was issued from the press of John Allen in Pudding Lane, now Devonshire Street. He advertised the arrival from London of "a Printing Press with all sorts of good new Letter." But his plant was consumed in the great fire of October 2, 1711. The quality of the print- ing deteriorated during the Allen régime, but under the other printers the workmanship has well endured the lapse of two centuries. Green's printing house burned in 1734 and John Draper erected a new building on the same site and here the paper continued to be printed until its suspension.
No issue of the "News-Letter" is known of a date later than February 22, 1776. The paper undoubtedly passed out of existence at about the time the British marched out of Boston and the Continental troops marched in.
For fifteen years the "News-Letter" had no local competition and indeed there was little in its record to induce others to undertake a news- paper enterprise. But in 1719 a second paper appeared, and between that date and the end of the War for Independence there were published in Boston through periods of varying length sixteen newspapers besides the "News-Letter." Let us compact a roster into a single paragraph :
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"The Boston Gazette" began publication on Monday, December 21, 1719, and continued until September 17, 1798. "The New England Cour- ant" issued its first number on August 7, 1721, and its last on June 4, 1726. The first copy of "The New England Weekly Journal" carried the date line March 20, 1727, and the last copy was dated October 13, 1741. Next came "The Weekly Rehearsal," which ran from September 27, 1731, to August II, 1735. The imprint reads : "Printed by J[ohn] Draper for the Author," and in his "History of Printing," Isaiah Thomas says that "it was carried on at the expense of some gentlemen who formed themselves into a political or literary club, and wrote for it. At the head of the club was the late celebrated Jeremy Gridley, Esq., who was the real editor of the paper." Draper printed it for nearly a year at the Heart & Crown, and Thomas Fleet followed as printer for eight months, becoming the sole owner and publisher with the issue of April 2, 1733. He continued publication until August, 1735, when he replaced this paper with his "Evening Post," which in most respects was a duplicate of the "Re- hearsal." "The Boston Post-Boy," about whose earlier years relatively little is known, seems to have been issued consecutively from November 18, 1734, through 1970 numbers, to April 17, 1775, or two days before the affray at Lexington. "The Boston Evening Post" commenced its file of 2070 numbers on August 18, 1735, and terminated its career on April 24, 1775, which would be five days after Lexington. "The Independent Ad- vertiser" survived but a short period, and with one interregnum, from January 4, 1748, to October 2, 1749, with an additional issue dated Decem- ber 5, 1749. It was put out in Queen Street by Gamaliel Rogers and Daniel Fowle and at the close of their career these publishers manifested some irritation in their valedictory : "There is hardly any Character that deserves less Envy and more Candour than that of a Political Writer, especially if he writes for Principle, and is perseveringly honest." "The Boston Chronicle" did not last much longer, from December 21, 1767, to June 25, 1770, but it has the distinction of having been the first Boston paper to be issued twice a week. Accepting the theory that "The Massa- chusetts Gazette," the curious dual arrangement for whose publication we already have noted, was a separate newspaper, it belongs next in our list, running from May 23, 1768, to December 29 in that year, and from June I to September 25 in the following year. The famous paper with which the name of Isaiah Thomas is associated, "The Massachusetts Spy," now comes in order, with an initial issue on July 17, 1770, and a final issue in Boston on April 6, 1775, when it was removed to Worcester where pub- lication was resumed on May 3. "The New England Chronicle : or, The Essex Gazette" was printed in Cambridge from May 12, 1775, to April 4, of the following year, when it was transferred to Boston. The first num- ber of "The Continental Journal and Weekly Advertiser" is dated May
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