“Last Monday evening Miss Hannah was married to Mr. Fluker”

On 27 Dec 1750, Boston ministers announced that Hannah Waldo and Thomas Flucker (shown here) intended to marry.

The Rev. Jonathan Mayhew presided over the wedding on 14 Jan 1751 at the West Meetinghouse.

In reporting that wedding, the Boston Evening-Post called the bride “a Lady of great Beauty and Merit.” The Boston Post-Boy said she was “an agreable and virtuous young lady.”

That coverage strongly implies most people sympathized with Hannah in her decision to call off her engagement to Andrew Pepperrell the preceding fall after he had delayed their wedding one too many times. They didn’t blame her as the fickle one.

Flucker was a young merchant, seven years older than his bride. He had previously married a sister of James Bowdoin and been widowed in May 1750. Aside from his daughter named Sally born out of wedlock on a date I don’t know, Hannah and Thomas appear to have had a solid genteel New England marriage, with their first baby, also named Hannah, arriving at the end of 1751. Flucker went on to become the province’s royal secretary.

Andrew Pepperrell’s cousin William Tyler sent him the news:

I inform you that last Monday evening Miss Hannah was married to Mr. Fluker and appeared a bride at the West Church, New Boston, brought in her chariot. The talk is almost over, for everybody thinks and tells me they believe it is what you wanted, but more of this when I see you.

Pepperrell doesn’t appear to have pined after his lost fiancée. He went back to his mansion in Kittery, Maine, and his rural social life. While returning from a ball in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in February, he caught a cold. That became pneumonia. The Boston Evening-Post announced that he died on 1 March “after a short Indisposition.” The local minister preached a sermon in his memory.

Later authors wrestled with why Andrew Pepperrell had strung Hannah Waldo along for so long. Was he prone to ill-timed “despondency” or depressions? Was he interested in someone else? Did he resent and resist his father’s arrangements? Most of Andrew’s papers were destroyed, making it even harder to know. (Not knowing the facts didn’t bother other authors who exaggerated the young man’s death, suggesting he went mad or died of a broken heart two days after Hannah Waldo’s send-off.)

Sir William Pepperrell was left without a son to carry on his name. He made the eldest son of his daughter Elizabeth Sparhawk heir to his fortune and baronetcy on the condition that that young man take the surname Pepperrell. The first Sir William Pepperrell died in 1759. The second became a Loyalist exile.

Hannah’s father, Samuel Waldo, also died in 1759 while overseeing his property in Maine. Most of his descendants became Loyalists, but one exception was Thomas and Hannah Flucker’s daughter Lucy, who married Henry Knox. Through careful management of family claims, the U.S. Secretary of War gained (nominal) control of most of the Waldo Patent.

And that couldn’t have happened except for the long, unhappy engagement of Hannah Waldo and Andrew Pepperrell.

“She would not marry one who had occasioned her so much mortification”

Toward the end of 1750, the families of Hannah Waldo (shown here) and Andrew Pepperrell gathered in Boston for their long-anticipated wedding.

Samuel Waldo, the father of the bride, was in London working on his large land claims in Maine and Nova Scotia, but other relatives were in Boston.

Andrew’s parents, Sir William and Lady Pepperrell, traveled down from Maine for the ceremony. The baronet had written to his friend Waldo “that he now had every reason to hope that the long talked of alliance of their two families would soon be completed, much to the joy of himself and family,” according to biographer Usher Parsons.

One important person was still missing, however: the groom. Parsons reported, “a few days before the one appointed for the wedding arrived, Andrew wrote to [Hannah] that circumstances had occurred which would make it necessary to defer it to another day, which he named, as more convenient for himself.”

Hannah Waldo had been awaiting this marriage since 1746. The engagement had been publicly announced in 1748. And here was another delay. That finally pushed her to take control of her own course.

Parsons wrote:

She returned no answer; the guests from far and near, minister and all, assembled at the appointed hour and place, when she enjoyed the sweet revenge of telling Andrew that she would not marry one who had occasioned her so much mortification, and who could not have that love and friendship for her that was necessary to her happiness.

The Pepperrells went back to Maine.

When Samuel Waldo heard the news in London, he wrote to the baronet:

I was greatly chagrined at the news of my daughter’s changing her mind and dismissing your son after the visit you mention, which I was apprised of by her, and concluded that the affair would have had the issue I had long expected and desired, and that the ship which brought the unwelcome news of a separation, would have given me the most agreeable advice of its consummation; but I find she was jealous that Mr. Pepperrell had not the love and friendship for her that was necessary to make her happy. This I understand from her letter to me, and that the last promise made when your son was in Boston was disregarded by him in not returning at the period he had fixed.

This disappointment to a close union with your family, which above all things I desired, has given me great uneasiness, and the addition thereto will be greater if I should find the fault lie on my daughter; but be that as it may, I should be very sorry to have it break friendship between us, or any of the several branches of our families;—those of yours I assure you I wish as well to as my own, and I shall, if ever in my power, convince them of it.

Back in Massachusetts, the young people had to get on with their lives.

TOMORROW: Separate ways.

“Your wish that the alliance between our son and your daughter were completed”

As I quoted yesterday, in early 1748 the Maine grandees Sir William Pepperrell and Samuel Waldo exchanged letters reassuring each other that their children wanted to get married.

Andrew Pepperrell’s long delay in setting a date with Hannah Waldo was starting to cause talk in Boston, as Samuel Waldo hinted in a 20 March letter:

I hope all impediments to a consummation will soon end in their mutual happiness, and to the satisfaction of their respective friends, as well as the mortification of those who are foes to every one. . . . though I have no reason to suspect his honor in the pending affair, yet the delay (the consequence of which is not to be foreseen) must be very disagreeable to us. Your own concern for the issue of it will excuse my anxiety for the future welfare as well as present peace and honor of my daughter, toward which it is my duty to contribute my best endeavors.

Hannah’s sister Lucy Waldo had married Isaac Winslow; they and their children appear above in a portrait by Joseph Blackburn now at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Winslow wrote from Boston several times that spring passing on his sister-in-law Hannah’s regards to the man who was supposed to marry her, as on 9 May:

I had the pleasure of drinking your health last evening at my father Waldo’s, about 10 o’clock. It was at that time when your dear Miss Hannah drank the toast, with the usual becoming blush on her countenance. She desired me to send you her compliments

Winslow also suggested various trips between Boston and Kittery that would bring the young people together. But Andrew Pepperrell never suggested a firm date for those trips, either.

Finally on 3 Sept 1748, the engagement was formally announced in the Kittery meetinghouse. Usually that meant the wedding was only weeks away.

But then Andrew complained of a lingering fever. And he undertook a new shipping project. His father wrote on 16 December, “If Andrew would go and be married, I would willingly undertake one winter journey more; but he has got a vessel which he will endeavor to fit out this winter, contrary to my advice, which I am afraid will make him sick again.”

Waldo replied:

I should think that could stand in no competition with the grand affair of a settlement for life, which he has been now nearly two years engaged in, and it gives me no small concern, as the honor of either of the parties, as well as my own, are engaged therein, it should be seemingly in suspense; the many rascally stories that are industriously bruited gives great amusement to some ill-natured persons among us, and no small chagrin to the friends of either party.

Still the months dragged on. On 20 Feb 1749, Winslow wrote to his father-in-law Waldo, who was then in London:

The affair with Mr. P———ll & Miss remains much as you left It I have hitherto omitted saying any Thing of it as I’ve been at a Loss what to say; & Miss Hannah has been of Opinion yt. it was best to be silent on ye. Affair at present. Every post almost has brot. some apology for his not coming & Mr. [Nathaniel] Sparhawk still thinks favourably of him; A short time must I think determine his Intentions

The next month, Sir William wrote to Waldo:

Mrs. Pepperrell joins with me in your wish that the alliance between our son and your daughter were completed, which I do think would be a satisfaction to all their friends, and a means of putting a stop to the talk of their enemies, as there are none without some. As I have often urged him to finish the affair, and he has declined to let me know the time designated, I have no thoughts of mentioning it to him again.

But other people were definitely still talking about the situation.

TOMORROW: Clustering around young Andrew.

“The long talked of affair between Mr. Pepperrell and my daughter”

As I wrote yesterday, Sir William Pepperrell, baronet, and Samuel Waldo, militia brigadier and great proprietor, were pleased when their children, Andrew and Hannah respectively, became engaged in 1746.

Presumably they remained happy in 1747.

By early 1748, with no wedding date set, the gentlemen began to worry. At the time, Waldo was in Boston while Sir William was up at his house in Kittery, Maine, said to be the grandest in the district. (It’s shown above, courtesy of Buildings of New England.) That separation meant we have the ability to read their conversation about the family situation.

According to Usher Parsons’s biography of Pepperrell, on 9 Jan 1748 Waldo wrote to him:

As to the long talked of affair between Mr. Pepperrell and my daughter, I am at a loss what to think about it. You know matches are made in heaven, and what’s appointed must be. It is not best for any to be overanxious, but to govern with prudence, on which head no caution is necessary to you. I am very much obliged to Lady Pepperrell as well as yourself for your good liking of my daughter, and more especially that she should become yours. The proposed union gave me great pleasure, and the more so as I knew she could not fail to be happy in your family, and I promised myself it was not in her power to misbehave. I had never, Sir, any reason to doubt of yours or your lady’s heartiness in the affair, but if there be not a mutual good liking between the young people, it will not be best they should come together. But I leave the affair to them.

I am, by yours, confirmed in my former sentiments, that you had done very handsomely for your son. Above a twelvemonth ago, I think it was, I had a conversation with him when I proposed a speedy issue to the business, and assured him my intentions as to the future well-being of my daughter were not contracted. He declared himself in a very genteel and generous manner. The sum you mention is large; part of it is probably laid out upon his house. Some misfortunes he has met with in trade, and possibly he may think that the improvement of the remainder may not be a sufficient sum to support upon as your son. I had some difficulty on this head myself before marriage. I got what I could from my father, and trusted Providence for the rest. My daughter is very well and presents her duty to you and Lady Pepperrell.

The next month, Waldo assured his friend again:

I am obliged to you, Sir, and Lady Pepperrell for your good liking of the proposed alliance between our families; nothing can be more agreeable to me, and it would be an additional satisfaction could there be a speedy consummation. It has been long enough pending for the young people to know, not only their own, but each other’s mind. My good liking to it they have both of them been long acquainted with. Till lately I flattered myself that before I embarked for Europe, which I hope will be soon, (though not before I make you a visit to Kittery,) the proposed alliance would be finished.

Pepperrell wrote back on 15 March:

I observe by your letter that you are exceedingly surprised that I did not know the reason that the family affair, so long pending, was delayed; but what I wrote you is certainly true; and if ever my son will do an ill thing I cannot help it, nor ever can or will pretend to justify it; and if he never marries I will never say so much to him about it as I have said. I do think, so far as I have been enabled, that I have discharged my duty to him.

It is certain that he has laid out upwards of ten thousand pounds in a house, contrary to what I should have advised, but considerable of that I gave him, beside the twenty-eight thousand I mentioned, and my design was, that if he should marry, I should give him land that would be an immediate income, but if he does not, I look upon myself to be the best judge how to dispose of my estate, and shall act accordingly as long as it shall please the Most High to preserve my reason and senses.

It is true that he has met with considerable losses in his trade, but from what I know, his interest sent abroad is safe, that he has upwards of thirty thousand pounds, old tenor, in trade; considering that he has wharves, warehouses, etc., fitted to his hand, I think it is a handsome fitting out, and if he behave himself well, as long as I am able I shall be doing for him.

I always thought that you would be doing all in your power for all your children, and I know that you are able; but as every thing in this life is uncertain, if Providence should order it that you could not give Miss Hannah any thing, I say if this should be the case (though I hope it never will), I should be freely willing my son should marry her, and I cannot think he will ever be happy in this life if he don’t, nor can expect a blessing; but I hope he soon will, and not expose himself and friends to unfriendly remarks. If you knew the trouble it gives me to write, you would readily excuse me from enlarging.

Mrs. Pepperrell joins with me in best respects to yourself and family, and in particular to Miss Hannah.

The two gentlemen thus acknowledged that money was a factor—a big factor—in a genteel marriage, but they promised each other that their children would have enough to be comfortable. As long as there was “a mutual good liking between the young people.”

TOMORROW: The young people.

Hannah Waldo, Patent Heiress

Hannah Waldo was born in Boston on 21 Nov 1726 and baptized in the town’s First Meetinghouse. She was the daughter of Lucy and Samuel Waldo (shown here).

Samuel Waldo was a merchant who went into land speculation in a big way. In 1729, when Hannah was two years old, he acquired the controlling interest in a big land grant in Maine.

That royal grant had changed hands for many decades because simply having permission from London to claim land didn’t mean a person could actually exercise any control over it.

Waldo also bought a big land grant in Nova Scotia, but that claim was on shaky legal grounds. He spent a fair amount of the 1730s in London, arguing unsuccessfully for that patent and recruiting people to settle on his Maine (main?) claim.

One obstacle to British settlements on what became known as the Waldo Patent was danger from the French and the Native nations allied with them, or just uninterested in losing their territory. Starting in 1740, Waldo promoted a plan to attack the French fortification at Louisbourg to remove that threat.

When Britain finally went to war against France, Gov. William Shirley authorized that military expedition. William Pepperrell was the commander-in-chief, and Samuel Waldo, who had served under Pepperrell in the top ranks of Maine’s militia, was commissioned a brigadier general, second in command of the land forces.

As I discussed yesterday, that expedition was a big success. By the end of 1745, Massachusetts’s military captured the French outpost for the British Empire (though the British Empire decided to give it back in exchange for Madras). Pepperrell was made a baronet. Waldo was addressed as “general” for the rest of his life, and he could step up his efforts to recruit settlers for his land.

Among the people who came to the Waldo Patent in the next few years, before another war broke out, were Georg Frederich Seiter and Christine Salome Hartwick. They would marry and have children, including Christopher Seider. But that’s getting away from Hannah Waldo’s story.

The Waldo and Pepperell families were well acquainted. The general’s son Samuel, Jr., was in the same class at Harvard College as the baronet’s son, Andrew. Furthermore, in 1742 the baronet’s daughter, Elizabeth, had married Nathaniel Sparhawk, a son of Hannah and Samuel, Jr.’s step-grandmother through a second marriage.

In 1746, Hannah Waldo and Andrew Pepperrell became engaged. Andrew was seen as quite a catch. Writing ninety years later, Usher Parsons said: “his comely person and polished manners were a passport to the best circles; and his heirship to a fortune and a baronetcy placed him in the highest social position.”

Sir William and Gen. Waldo were both pleased with this engagement, which would bring together the district’s two leading families (with the Sparhawks tied in as a bonus). The actual wedding date was to be named later when Andrew finished building his house.

And that proved to be a problem.

TOMORROW: Waiting for a wedding.

Podcast Episodes to Search Out

I subscribe to several podcasts dedicated to Revolutionary history (broadly defined).

I also listen to several podcasts that range more widely in topics but every so often land in the eighteenth century.

Here are a few recordings from the latter group that I’ve found interesting in recent weeks.

At HUB History, Jake Sconyers recounted “The Liberty Riot” of 1768, “Three Battles for Boston Light” during the siege, and “The Prison Ship Uprising” in 1780.

At Mainely History, Ian Saxine welcomed Tiffany Link for a discussion of “The Bombardment of Falmouth,” Maine, on 18 Oct 1775. The podcast also hosted a “Pageant of Corruption,” with Saxine, Kristalyn Shefveland, and Alexandra Montgomery presenting their case for the most string-pulling, greedy, and petty gentleman of colonial America. The contenders were Virginia lieutenant governor Alexander Spotswood, New Jersey and Massachusetts governor Francis Bernard, and Maine developer Samuel Waldo.

On the B.B.C. interview show In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg led discussions by academic experts on “Edward Gibbon,” author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–), and “Kant’s Copernican Revolution,” about the significance of Critique of Pure Reason and its sequels (1781–).

The In Our Time discussion of “Longitude” makes a good companion for the Travels Through Time podcast interview of author Nicholas Crane on “Latitude.”

And cementing the Anglophiliac theme of this posting, the History Extra podcast offers interviews with Jacqueline Riding about “Hogarth: The Chronicler of the 18th Century,” with Sir Tom Devine on “The Highland Clearances,” and with Norman Davies on “George II.”

Richard Fry’s Greatest Scheme

Before going on with The Saga of the Brazen Head, I’ll zip through what happened with Richard Fry.

Under his contract for the paper mill with Samuel Waldo and Thomas Westbrook, Fry had to pay £64 a year. But making paper on the Maine frontier didn’t bring in huge profits, and the whole province was in a cash crunch. Fry managed to send his landlords fifty reams of paper in place of specie, but that wasn’t £64 in cash, was it?

Waldo and Westbrook sued Fry and won a judgment of £70. They had the sheriffs in Maine seize the paper-making equipment. And they had Fry clapped into the Boston jail as a debtor around the start of 1737. In response, Fry claimed that Waldo and Westbrook had taken that action only after they had tried to buy him out and he refused.

Waldo recruited another man to continue the paper manufactory as an employee. Then he turned on Westbrook, forcing him out of the partnership. Calling himself “hereditary lord of Broad Bay,” Waldo recruited more settlers in Europe.

Among the people who came to America at Waldo’s invitation were the German ancestors of Christopher Seider. However, whenever Britain went to war with France, which happened in 1744 and again in 1757, the Maine frontier became a risky place to live and the settlements emptied out. Waldo died in 1759. Some of his holdings descended to his daughter Hannah and then to her daughter Lucy, wife of Henry Knox.

Meanwhile, back in the Boston jail, Richard Fry produced a steady stream of petitions complaining about his Maine landlords, the sheriff and undersheriff who’d taken his stuff, and the jailer who’d locked him up.

On 22 May 1739 Fry placed yet another advertisement in the New-England Weekly Journal:

This is to inform the Publick, that there is now in the Press, and will be laid before the Great and General Court, a Paper Scheme, drawn for the Good and Benefit of every individual Member of the whole Province; and what will much please his Royal Majesty; for the Glory of our King is in the Happiness of his Subjects: And every Merchant in Great Britain that trades to New-England, will find their Account by it; and there is no Man that has the least Shadow or Foundation of Common Reason, but must allow the said Scheme to be reasonable and just:

I have laid all my Schemes to be proved by the Mathematicks, and all Mankind well knows, Figures will not lye; and notwithstanding the dismal Idea of the Year Forty One, I don’t doubt the least seeing of it a Year of Jubile, and in a few Years to have the Ballance of Trade in Favor of this Province from all Parts of the Trading World; for it’s plain to a Demonstration, by the just Schemes of Peter the Great, the late Czar of Muscovy, in the Run of a few Years, arrived to such a vast Pitch of Glory, whose Empire now makes as grand an Appearance as any Empire on the Earth, which Empire for Improvement, is no ways to be compared with this Royal Majesty’s Dominions in America.

I humbly beg Leave to subscribe myself,
A true and hearty Lover of New-England,
Richard Fry.

Boston Goal, May 1739.

What was he on about now? Fry was issuing A Scheme for a Paper Currency to solve the specie crisis and promote the local economy. Backing up the new printed money, he wrote, would be the output of “Twenty Mills” built around Boston harbor. When Fry had first announced his scheme the previous August, even calling a meeting of investors at the Green Dragon Tavern, he had only seventeen mills in mind.

One might question the value of economic advice from a man who had gone bankrupt in England and was in jail for debt. But those circumstances didn’t daunt Fry. We can read his proposal, plus a couple of the petitions he wrote in the same years, in this book. Other documents from him are in the Clements Library.

Fry’s scheme wasn’t the only attempt to address the province’s specie shortage. In 1740, Boston businessmen set up the Massachusetts Land Bank, which issued private paper currency based on land holdings. The royal government and its supporters, led by Thomas Hutchinson, worked to stifle that enterprise, and in 1741 Parliament outlawed it. Some historians have traced the enmity between Hutchinson and Samuel Adams, whose father was a Land Bank investor, to that controversy.

Fry of course saw nothing wrong with paper currency (and one suspects he hoped to win the contract to supply the paper). But he no doubt preferred his own approach to issuing it. And as long as the provincial authorities opposed the Land Bank, he was ready to take advantage of that. In December 1740 Fry pointed out to Gov. Jonathan Belcher and his Council that his jailer was dealing in Land Bank currency. (A sample shown above.)

Richard Fry died in 1745, his finances still a mess. He left a wife and at least one child.

“Brown Paper made at Mr. Fry’s Mill”

In 1734 Richard Fry finally set about making paper at the mill built for him in Stroudwater outside Falmouth (now Portland), Maine, by real-estate developers Samuel Waldo and Thomas Westbrook. Fry sublet some of that facility to another English papermaker named John Collier.

On 14 October, Fry addressed his old neighbors in yet another hortatory advertisement in the New-England Weekly Journal:

To the INHABITANTS of the GREAT TOWN of BOSTON;

It is now almost Three Years, since I Published an Advertisement, to shew you the excellent OEconomy of the Dutch, in the Paper Manufactory, in order to induce you to follow so laudable an Example; but I am sorry to say, I have had but small Effects of it as yet; when Gentlemen have been at great Expence to serve the Public, as well as their own Private Interest, it is the Duty of every Person, as much as in them lies, to help forward so useful a Manufactory; Therefore I intreat all those that are Lovers of their Country, to be very careful of their Linnen Rags, and send them to Joseph Stocker in Spring Lane, BOSTON, and they shall receive ready Money for the same.

Richard Fry.

That plea highlights what seems like a fundamental flaw in the plan to run a paper mill on the Presumpscot River. A frontier settlement didn’t have nearly as many rags as a big old port like Boston. Nor did it have printers, newspapers, attorneys, or many businessmen in need of lots of paper. Waldo was still busy recruiting settlers, as this broadside shows. But aside from supply, demand, and labor, Fry’s enterprise had great prospects.

Meanwhile in Boston, as I quoted a couple of days ago, James Jackson first advertised himself as making and selling brass goods at the sign of the Brazen Head. On 8 May 1735, James and his wife Mary had their second son, James, Jr., baptized at King’s Chapel.

After another two months, on 7 July 1735, the New-England Weekly Journal announced:

Brown paper, TO BE SOLD, for ready Money, by James Jackson, at the Brazen Head in Cornhill, Boston.

P.S. There will be no more Brown Paper made at Mr. Fry’s Mill at Stroudwater, at Casco-Bay

I’ve found no clue about how Fry and Jackson linked up. Why would a shop full of brass hardware be a good outlet for brown paper? Perhaps the two men felt some affinity as recent arrivals from England making their way among established Yankees.

In any event, at the end of that summer James Jackson took a trip up to Casco Bay. He might have been delivering or installing brass fixtures in a mill or other new building. He might have been picking up more paper to sell. Jackson might even have been exploring the possibility of joining Waldo and Westbrook’s settlement, moving his small family to the Maine coast.

He never came back.

TOMORROW: “a very severe Storm of Wind.”

“Richard Fry, Stationer, Bookseller, Paper-maker, and Rag Merchant”

In September 1728 the Massachusetts General Court promoted local paper manufacturing by granting a ten-year patent to a group of investors that included Daniel Henchman, Benjamin Faneuil, and Thomas Hancock. Those partners built a mill in Milton and delivered the first sample of paper back to the legislature three years later.

Another Boston merchant, Samuel Waldo (1696-1759, shown here) also saw potential in paper. He made a partnership with Thomas Westbrook (1675–1744) of the district of Maine, securing title to a large swath of land between the Penobscot and Muscongus Rivers. Waldo headed to Britain to recruit skilled craftsmen while Westbrook set about building a settlement to receive them.

One of the men Waldo met in England was Richard Fry. According to A. H. Shorter’s Paper Making in the British Isles (1971), Fry, a “rag merchant,” paid to insure a paper mill at Long Wick in Buckinghamshire in 1726. John Bidwell’s American Paper Mills (2013) adds that Fry oversaw two more paper mills in Berkshire and owned part of a paper warehouse in London. Bidwell also reported that in 1730 Fry went bankrupt, and thus at liberty to make a new start in America.

Fry and Waldo signed an indenture contract in 1731. Fry promised to move to New England, and Waldo promised that within ten months Westbrook would finish building a paper mill on their land in Maine for Fry to run.

Richard Fry reached Boston by the end of that year. He had to support himself for a while, so in April and May 1732 he ran the same advertisement in the New-England Weekly Journal, Weekly Rehearsal, and Boston Gazette:

This is to give Notice, That Richard Fry, Stationer, Bookseller, Paper-maker, and Rag Merchant, from the City of London, keeps at Mr. Thomas Fleet’s Printer at the Heart & Crown in Cornhill, Boston; Where the said Fry is ready to accommodate all Gentlemen, Merchants, and Tradesmen, with sets of Accompt Books, after the neatest manner: And whereas, it has been the common Method of the most curious merchants in Boston, to Procure their Books from London, This is to acquaint those Gentlemen, that I the said Fry, will sell all sorts of Accompt-Books, done after the most acurate manner, for 20 per Cent. Cheaper than they can have them from London.

I return the Publick Thanks for following the Directions of my former Advertisement for gathering of Rags, and hope they will continue the like Method; having received seven thousand weight & upwards already.

For the pleasing entertainment of the Polite part of Mankind, I have Printed the most Beautiful Poems of Mr. Stephen Duck, the famous Wiltshire Poet: It is a full demonstration to me that the People of New England, have a fine taste for Good Sense & Polite Learning, having already Sold 1200 of these Poems.

I haven’t found any “former Advertisement.” If Fry had indeed collected 7,000 pounds of rags and sold 1,200 copies of the Duck poetry collection, most of that work might have been in Britain. The Boston print shop of Kneeland and Green did issue Duck’s Poems on Several Subjects in 1732, but it’s not clear whether they were working with Fry or inspired by him.

On 29 May, Fry announced another scheme in the New-England Weekly Journal:

This is to Acquaint the Publick, that I have Printed a Specimen of a new Sett of Letters, lately Imported from London, on which I propose to print the Spectators by Subscription, at Three Pounds the Sett, neatly Bound; and that the Publick may be intirely satisfied, the Subscriptions in Boston are to be taken in at the Office of Mr. Joseph Marion, Notary Publick, & Deposited in his hands.

It will be needless to acquaint the Learned and Polite part, that nothing more demonstrates the fine Genius of a Country, than to have the curious Art of Printing brought to Perfection, wherein the present Age have Opportunity to convey their Ideas in fine Characters to succeeding Ages. The vast Returns the Dutch make only in this Branch of Trade is most prodigious, for they Print for all the Known parts of the World; and it was really the Grand Oppressions they suffer’d that gave them that Keen Edge, to such a pitch of Industry, as hath brought them to make that glorious Figure they now make in the World: Therefore the Rod is sometimes very Convenient to reform Common-wealths of those things which would certainly be destructive of their Happiness: and there is no way of bringing any Common-wealth out of any Calamity but Industry, and jointly to promote every Art and Science that has the least view of being useful to the Publick: Therefore I don't doubt but every Gentleman that is a true Lover of his Country will Subscribe.

And I justly flatter my self I shall have a Number of Ladies Subscribers, the Authors of these Books having always been justly esteem'd among them.

Richard Fry.

N.B. Subscriptions will be taken in at Newport, New-York, Philadelphia, Piscataqua, and South-Carolina, and after Three Hundred Subscriptions, the work to be committed to the Press, and finish’d with all possible Expedition. 20 s. to be paid at Subscribing, & 40 s. at Delivery.

Unaccountably, Fry’s type sample and hortatory advertisement didn’t bring in three hundred subscriptions, and he never printed the Spectator.

Meanwhile, Westbrook was still building up in Maine. The paper mill wasn’t finished within ten months. In fact, the building wasn’t ready for Fry to move in until 1734. He then signed a twenty-one-year lease, promising Waldo and Westbrook £64 sterling each year.

TOMORROW: The Brazen Head connection.