When Did the British New Year Begin Before 1752?

The earliest examples of a poetic address from colonial American newspaper carriers to their customers on New Year’s Day are all from the fast-growing city of Philadelphia. The first three date from the years 1720-22. No broadsides of those addresses survive, but they were included in a 1740 collection of verse by the Philadelphia printer with the delightful name Aquila Rose.

Then comes another in 1735, and a third from Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette in 1739. Those do survive as flyers, and the second is dated “Jan. 1, 1739.” The Checklist of American Newspaper Carriers’ Addresses catalogues twenty-nine more between then and 1752, the year that the British Empire shifted from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.

Part of that shift was settling the first day of January as the start of the year. Before then, the English year officially turned over on the Feast of the Annunciation, or 25 March. So when were those pre-1752 New Year’s greetings distributed, around 1 January or around 25 March?

According to that checklist, every address but one that bears a date in its headline was pegged to 1 January, and the exception was dated 31 December. Others discuss winter. None treats 25 March as the start of a new year.

It turns out that most of the British Empire was counting years two ways. The “historical year” ran from January to December. The “civil or legal year” started on 25 March. Parish records often had headings for new years in both January (“New Style”) and March (“Old Style”). From January to March, literate English people designated the year with what looks like a fraction: “1707/08.” (Scotland had officially decided back in 1600 that the new year started in January, so it didn’t need such tricks.)

In daily life, people recognized the discrepancy. I looked at the published diary and correspondence of Massachusetts judge Samuel Sewall. On 1 Jan 1701, he wrote a mediocre poem that starts “Once more! Out God, vouchsafe to shine,” which certainly sounds like he was counting off a year, but he never labeled the poem as such. Richard Henchman responded to Sewall, however, with his own poetic lines which do refer to “our New-year” and “A New-Year’s Day.”

Later remarks from Sewall:

• “Monday, Jany 1. 1704/5 Col. Hobbey’s Negro comes about 8 or 9 mane and sends in by David to have leave to give me a Levit [trumpet blast] and wish me a merry new year.”
• “Jany. 4, 1704/5… My Service to your Lady; I wish you both a good New Year.”
• “Jan’y 21, 1716/17… January begins this New Year (the Julian Year) with almost every body but Englishmen.”
• “April 1, 1718… Now that upon all Reckonings, we are come to the beginning of a New year, I wish it may be a good and Joyfull one to you.”

Likewise, Sewall’s contemporary the Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather delivered a sermon titled “A New Year Well-Begun: An Essay Offered on a New-Years-Day” on 1 Jan 1719 (as we’d number the year)—but on the title page the date was “1718/19” because officially he wasn’t in a new year yet. In correspondence between Sewall and Mather there’s at least one letter dated “11th month”—but when had they started counting?

Newspapers reflected that confusion. In March 1720, Gov. Samuel Shute proclaimed that the last day of the month would be a fast day. The Boston News-Letter presented that news in its issue dated 7-14 Mar 1720.

The Boston Gazette printed the same proclamation in its issue dated 7-14 Mar 1719.

Look real close at the Gazette’s date and you’ll see that someone has crossed out the “19” and penciled in “20,” perhaps for later cataloguing.

Another newspaper example: The famous John Peter Zenger free-press case took place in 1734, by our reckoning, but the newspaper in question carried a date of 18 Feb 1733 because Zenger still used O.S. dates.

The English calendar(s) thus provided two days for reflection on the passage of time and opportunities to do more in the next twelve months. That system also required more mental calculation about how a person should write the date and what other people might have meant by a date. The calendar reform of 1752 wasn’t just about catching up with the rest of Europe on the Gregorian Calendar; it was about nailing down the official turn of the year.

A “horrid Scheme” on Nantucket?

On 5 Oct 1738, the Boston News-Letter published an article describing a planned uprising by Wampanoags on Nantucket Island:

We hear from Nantucket, That there has been lately a horrid Scheme conceiv’d by the Indians of that Island, to set Fire to the Houses of the English Inhabitants in the Night, and then to fall upon them arm’d, and kill as many as they could.

But the Execution of this vile Design was happily prevented by an honest Indian Fellow, whom they could by no means seduce to join with them in so desperate an Undertaking, but gave Timely Notice to the Inhabitants thereof, who accordingly keeping upon their Guard, the Indians have desisted.

It seems these Indians have for some Time past appear’d surly and discontented; and ’tis said the above Affair was conceived last Spring, before the Vessels sail’d on the whaling Voyages; and that the Indians who went out with the English on those Voyages were in the Confederacy, and were to do their Part by destroying the English on the Sea:

As several of those Vessels are not arrived tho’ long expected; and as the greater Number in the Crews were Indians, the Consequence thereof is much to be feared.

On 9 October, the Boston Evening-Post reprinted most of that item, adding in the middle:

The Pretence the Indians have for this cruel Attempt, is, as we hear, that the English at first took the Land from their Ancestors by Force, and have kept it ever since, without giving them any valuable Consideration for it;…

Upon the Discovery of the Plot, the English took to their Arms, and stood on their Defence, which discouraged the Indians from making any Attempt upon them; and we are impatient to hear whether their whaling Vessels are return’d in Safety, and what Measures have been taken to secure the Peace and Safety of the Island.

This summer, Missouri University of Science and Technology history professor Justin Pope published a study of this incident in the Early American Studies journal. The university proudly touted that publication, saying:

The “Nantucket conspiracy,” as Pope calls it, is also a cautionary tale for historians who rely on newspaper reports for their accounts of life in colonial America, Pope says. . . . The 1738 newspaper story began as a rumor that “would have passed into local lore if not for the newspaper men of Boston,” writes Pope. It began with printer John Draper, who first reported the account in his Boston News-Letter on Sept. 28, 1738.

That issue of the newspaper is actually dated 28 Sept–5 Oct 1738 on its front. That means it was printed and distributed on 5 October, collecting news that had arrived since 28 September.

Back to the university press release:

…the Boston News-Letter story “took off,” Pope writes. Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic ran with the story, which soon became the 18th century equivalent of a viral social media post. “Draper’s story made for good copy,” Pope adds.

“Within a week, his rivals in Boston had copied his version of the conspiracy verbatim,” writes Pope. Within two weeks, printers John Peter Zenger in New York City and Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia were running the story.

But that wasn’t the final word.

TOMORROW: “wholly contradicted.”

More Colonial Newspaper Advertising Rates

After my posting on colonial newspaper advertising rates, Caitlin G. DeAngelis alerted me to some additional data inside Charles E. Clark’s The Public Prints: The Newspaper in Anglo-American Culture, 1665-1740.

Then I found more examples quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.’s New England Quarterly article on “The Colonial Newspapers and the Stamp Act.” And in confirming those I came across other items in newspapers.

So here are yet more prices for colonial newspaper ads:

• John Peter Zenger’s New-York Weekly Journal, 1733: “three Shillings the first Week, and one Shilling every Week after.”
• Jonas Green’s Maryland Gazette, 1752: “Advertisements of a moderate Length are taken in and inserted for Five Shillings the first Week, and a Shilling per Week after for Continuance.”
• Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette, 1754: “In the Gazette, small and middling Advertisements at 3/ the first Week, and 1/ per Week after, or 5/ for 3 Weeks. Longer ones to be valued by Comparison with the foregoing; as if 20 Lines be a middling Advertisement, Price 5/ for 3 Weeks, one of 30 will be 7/6d, etc. judging as near as you can, by the Light of the Copy, how much it will make.” (It seems characteristic that Franklin’s prices would come in the form of a word problem about ratios.)
• Newport Mercury, probably around 1765: 3s.9d. for three appearances of an ad of 12 lines or fewer, plus 1s. for each additional appearance.

In addition, Clark’s Public Prints reports that in the late 1750s Thomas Fleet billed the Massachusetts government 4s. for each notice in the Boston Evening-Post.

And in the early 1770s, Benjamin Edes and John Gill charged shopkeeper Ebenezer Hancock (John’s little brother) 4s. for advertisements in the Boston Gazette.

And there’s a political dimension to this topic—which brings us back to the Stamp Act! Among the many provisions in that law was:

For every advertisement to be contained in any gazette, news paper, or any other paper, or any pamphlet which shall be so printed, a duty of two shillings.

That basically doubled the cost of a typical ad, it appears—cutting the number of ads people would buy. For printers, that loss of business came on top of the cost of the stamped paper that they had to print the newspaper on—a penny for each full sheet. And, as Carl Robert Keyes explains in this essay, “this put printers in the position of collecting duties” for the stamp agent.

UP AHEAD: What about subscription rates?

Preserving the Truth about the James Bell Tavern

I’ve seen a lot of news stories about the interrupted demolition of a stone building on the Harrisburg Pike in Silver Spring Township, Pennsylvania.

Most recently this building was Stone House Autos, and before that it was Stone House Computers, but back in the 1780s it was a tavern run by a man named James Bell.

Historical preservationists got upset enough about this demolition that the owner stopped the process partway through. That might give the owners and locals a chance to consider their options.

Unfortunately, the story that’s being spread around the web has a lot of overstatements. The latest version appeared on the Daily Mail website, and it’s riddled full of errors. The building was not called the City Tavern. The demolition was not done “accidentally” or by mistake, but with a permit and plans. And then there’s this sentence:

It was in this cozy watering hole built in 1780 that Adams, Washington et al had seminal discussions before finally drawing up the Bill of Rights.

“Adams, Washington et al” were never at James Bell’s tavern, and they weren’t the authors or proponents of the Bill of Rights. There’s no value in preserving a historic building if we’re just going to tell lies about its history.

These reports from Pennlive and the Cumberland Sentinel are better grounded. They make clear that local authorities chose not to protect the stone building in the 1990s. They didn’t follow through on seeking a listing on the National Register of Historic Places. They didn’t list the site as one that needed protection under the local zoning ordinance. So if there was a mistake involved in this demolition, it was a mistake in judgment over twenty years ago.

Now what about the building might qualify it for listing as historically significant? Pennlive’s version:

It was at the tavern on July 3, 1788, with pending ratification of the new federal constitution at hand, that a band of Cumberland Countians led by Robert Whitehill, Benjamin Blythe and others declared the need for changes in the document before they could accept it.

And the local Cumberland Sentinel’s:

According to meeting minutes obtained by Musser, the 1788 Stony Ridge Convention held at the former James Bell Tavern was attended by Benjamin Blythe, one of Shippensburg’s first settlers, and Robert Whitehill of Cumberland County. Whitehill is noted as the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” according to ExplorePAHistory.com, with its conception reportedly happening at that meeting at the Bell Tavern.

Some news stories have therefore called that tavern the “Birthplace of the Bill of Rights.”

That’s not a label with a lot of history. Which is to say, I can’t find a single source that applies that phrase to this stone building before the last two months. The usual claimant to the “Birthplace of the Bill of Rights” is the church in Eastchester, New York, where a local election in 1733 got reported by John Peter Zenger in a way that led to a court case strengthening freedom of the press. That’s just one right, so I don’t think that site has a strong claim to the label, either.

TOMORROW: So where was the Bill of Rights born?

U.S. News Gets Around to the American Revolution

A few months back, I chatted by phone with Michael Morella, Associate Editor at U.S. News & World Report, about the Boston Massacre. That magazine’s editors had decided to assemble a special issue devoted to the American Revolution.

That timely magazine hit the market this month, and it looks like a solid introduction to the topic built from recent books and interviews with recognized experts. The articles are grouped under four themes:

• Turning Points
• Diplomacy & Discord
• In the Trenches 
• Myths & Legends

As a grab-bag of basic information and intriguing facts, the magazine reminds me of a little paperback I picked up in the Bicentennial and still have. It could well spark some other young person’s interest in the future.

The pictures are a combination of illustrations from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that reflect the outlook of their times, photographs that reflect the outlook of ours, and a few eighteenth-century images.

The articles I’ve sampled are all reasonably solid on facts (with the exception of Harlow Giles Unger’s brief description of the tar-and-feathering of Thomas Ditson, Jr., from his book about the Tea Party). I wouldn’t have included four pages on John Peter Zenger’s libel trial a full generation before the Revolution, but then I’m not in the news-printing business. We all have our biases.

A.A.S. Programs in the Fall

The American Antiquarian Society in Worcester is hosting several lectures for the public this season, including three on people from eighteenth-century America.

On Tuesday, 12 October, at 7:30 P.M., Prof. Marla Miller of the University of Massachusetts will speak on “Betsy Ross: The Life behind the Legend.”

Legend has it that Betsy Ross created the first American flag. The truth is far less certain and far more interesting. In this program Miller describes how she came to research and write the first scholarly biography of Ross. The story she uncovers is a richly textured study of Ross’s long and remarkable life, which included three marriages, seven children, and a successful career as a seamstress and upholsterer. The book also examines the world of Philadelphia artisans and provides new insights into the world of middle-class crafts people, women, and work during the tumultuous years of our nation’s founding.

Miller’s book on Ross is Betsy Ross and the Making of America.

On Thursday, 21 October, at 7:30 P.M., Prof. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich of Harvard will speak on “Reflections on A Midwife’s Tale.”

Ulrich’s 1990 book examines the life of one Maine midwife and provides a vivid analysis of ordinary life in the early American republic, including the role of women in the household and local market economy, the nature of marriage, sexual relations, family life, aspects of medical practice, and the prevalence of crime and violence. The book won many awards including the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize. A Midwife’s Tale was also developed into a film of the same name which aired on The American Experience television program. In this lecture Professor Ulrich reflects on the impact this book has had on the discipline of history, the field of women’s studies, and her own life.

This is the Seventh Annual Robert C. Baron Lecture, which invites distinguished A.A.S. members who have written seminal works of history to reflect on one book and its impact.

On Tuesday, 9 November, at 7:30 P.M., Prof. Paul Finkelman of Albany Law School will discuss “John Peter Zenger and His Brief Narrative.”

Published in 1736, A Brief Narrative of the Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger is one of the most significant publications of colonial America and represents a major turning point in the history of freedom of the press and in the political development of colonial America and the early republic. John Peter Zenger was the first colonial publisher acquitted on a charge of libeling the governor. Zenger later published his own narrative of the trial, which became the most widely read American publication before the Revolution. This talk, based on a new edition of the Zenger narrative edited by Professor Finkelman, will explain this landmark legal case and show how it affected later developments, including the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

I’m curious about the desigation of Zenger’s Narrative as “the most widely read American publication before the Revolution.” That might be measured by the number of reprintings, but of course it would be a favorite project for printers. Does “before the Revolution” mean before the 1765-1775 political movement?