“His majesty’s troops peaceably marching to and from Concord”

I profiled Maj. Robert Donkin (1727–1821) back in 2021, which was 212 years after someone drew this profile of him as a retired general.

In 1777, Donkin was an officer in the 44th Regiment of Foot, stationed in New York City. He decided that was the right time to publish a collection of short essays and anecdotes on military topics.

Donkin described Military Collections and Remarks as the wisdom of “a late general officer of distinguished abilities, in the science of war”—probably his mentor, Gen. William Rufane. But the major wrote at least some of that material himself since it referred to events after Rufane’s death in 1773.

Donkin cast the project as a charity project. In his preface he wrote of “the bloody massacre committed on his majesty’s troops peaceably marching to and from Concord the 19th April, 1775,” and promised that proceeds from his book would

relieve and support the innocent children and widows of the valiant soldiers inhumanly and wantonly butchered that day, as well as for those that gloriously fell in their country’s cause at Bunker-hill the 17th June following.

The book contains a subscribers’ list eighteen pages long, all military officers or administrators, about 500 of them. At the end of that list is an accounting. Donkin and his agents had collected £422.7.3.

Here are the costs for the 296-page book, printed in New York by Hugh Gaine:

To Paper for 1000 Copies, £37.19.4 1/2
To Printing Expences, 57.13.1 1/2
To folding, sewing, and covering 1000 Copies, 21.1.10 1/2
To Advertisements, 4.19.3 1/2
Expences in England, Scotland and Ireland. 5.5.0
Incidental Charges 5.0.0
[total] Sterling, £131.18.8

The major therefore declared he had “Distributed in Charity, Sterling, £290.8.7.”

But if Donkin and Gaines thought that they were done when they printed those pages, they were fooling themselves.

TOMORROW: Cut it out.

The Disappearance of the King’s Speech

On the last day of the year 1775, Boston merchant John Rowe, staying inside besieged Boston, wrote in his diary:

The Niger man of War Capt. Talbot is arrivd in Nantasket Road & has brought the King’s Speech dated the 26 October

On 26 October, George III had opened Parliament with a traditional “most gracious speech.” That tradition continues today, but now everyone knows that what the monarch reads is the program of the current prime minister and his or her cabinet, not a personal statement.

Back in 1775, the king still had a role in politics, at least at a personal level—i.e., the prime minister had to be someone he got along with. But already British politicians expected George III not to be setting policy but reflecting it. Fortunately, on the American question the king, Lord North, and the other ministers saw eye to eye.

That was a disappointment for some Americans who had still hoped the monarch would overrule his supposedly misguided and/or corrupt ministers and negotiate with their Continental Congress. Instead, George III read:

Those who have long too successfully laboured to inflame my people in America by gross misrepresentations, and to infuse into their minds a system of opinions repugnant to the true constitution of the colonies, and to their subordinate relation to Great-Britain, now openly avow their revolt, hostility, and rebellion. They have raised troops, and are collecting a naval force; they have seized the public revenue, and assumed to themselves legislative, executive, and judicial powers, which they already exercise in the most arbitrary manner, over the persons and properties of their fellow subjects.

And although many of these unhappy people may still retain their loyalty, and may be too wise not to see the fatal consequence of this usurpation, and wish to resist it, yet the torrent of violence has been strong enough to compel their acquiescence till a sufficient force shall appear to support them. . . .

It is now become the part of wisdom, and (in its effects) of clemency, to put a speedy end to these disorders by the most decisive exertions, For this purpose, I have increased my naval establishment, and greatly augmented my land forces . . .

When the unhappy and deluded multitude, against whom this force will be directed, shall become sensible of their error, I shall be ready to receive the misled with tenderness and mercy!

In particular, the king mentioned “friendly offers of foreign assistance,” which everyone understood to mean hiring soldiers from German states.

The Boston News-Letter, the only newspaper still being printed in Boston, ran the speech on the front page of its 11 Jan 1776 issue.

By that time the speech had already been printed in Newburyport in the Essex Journal for 5 January, ostensibly taken from a London newspaper dated 23 Oct 1775. (That was three days before the speech was delivered. But some American broadsides reported the king spoke on 27 October, one day late.)

The letters from the Continental headquarters on 3–4 January show that the very first Massachusetts printing of that speech had been back at the very start of the year. The royal authorities printed “a volume” of copies and delivered them to the Continental lines in Roxbury.

And that brings me to the last mystery of the incidents I’ve been discussing: What happened to all those broadsides?

According to some standard early-1900s guides to material published in the colonies, the king’s speech was “Printed by John Howe, in Newbury-Street.” Howe was the young printer managing the Boston News-Letter press for Margaret Draper. However, his edition of the speech was known from only one copy in the collection of the New York Public Library. (The British Library has another copy, according to WorldCat, but its own systems are down after a ransomware cyberattack.)

Washington told John Hancock he would “Inclose one [copy], of many, which were sent out of Boston yesterday,” but the Library of Congress doesn’t appear to have a copy now. Neither do the Harvard libraries, the Massachusetts Historical Society, or the American Antiquarian Society, three major repositories of Revolutionary material in this region.

Where did all the other copies go? I picture Howe and his assistants working through New Year’s Eve to produce the “great number” of copies to cow the rebels, and then those rebels showing their disdain for the king’s words by recycling the paper or using it in their latrines.

Taking a Scrap of History

Earlier this month Independence National Historical Park shared the photo above on Facebook.

That posting stated:

This scrap of newspaper was excavated from a privy at the National Constitution Center site where it had likely been used as toilet paper. That's right - this piece of paper likely wiped a bottom in ye old outhouse sometime following November 5, 1790, the day it was published. Sometimes the most fascinating objects are those that capture the most private moments of the past.

The clipping might also have come from the 8 Nov and 12 Nov 1790 Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser. Before and after those days, wine merchant Benjamin W. Morris’s advertisement differed slightly.

Examining a Copy of an Almanac for 1737

I enjoyed reading Renée Wolcott’s essay on investigating a copy of Poor Richard’s Almanac from 1737, recently shared by the American Philosophical Society, where she’s Assistant Head of Conservation.

In 1923 a collector of material on Benjamin Franklin gave this copy of the 1737 alamanac to the society. Unlike most almanacs, which were utilitarian ephemera, this one showed very little damage to its edges. To the naked eye, it looked complete and well preserved.

However, a note with the copy said that the title page and a later page were “in facsimile,” meaning that they had been reproduced.

After a display this spring, Wolcott decided to look more closely at that pamphlet. She started by examining the pages under ultraviolet light. The wide page margins, and all or part of those two designated pages, glowed differently from the paper under the central text.

Next she evaluated light shone through the paper. That revealed different fiber structure in those parts of the pages.

Finally, with a strong microscope and a raking light, Wolcott could spot the borders where “old and new papers were beveled with a knife, overlapped, and adhered together” to make what appeared to be an intact original page. That magnification also showed the ink in the newer portion of the page to be slightly more purple than the original.

Wolcott thus confirmed that the two pages in this Poor Richard’s for 1737 labeled as facsimiles were indeed reproductions in whole or part, and also that the margins of the other pages had been augmented, though nothing was printed on them.

Since the main alterations were disclosed and the almanac donated, this work wasn’t done to deceive but to make the artifact look as handsome and complete as possible.

Check out Wolcott’s essay for more detail and photographs of the crucial evidence.

Reporting from Rennsylvania

Yesterday at History Camp Valley Forge, the first presentation I attended was Ryan Strause’s talk about correcting the record on the Pennsylvania Gazette’s “JOIN, or DIE.” image from 1754.

Most of this talk was about Strause’s personal story of noticing a misperception that affected reproductions of Benjamin Franklin’s emblem and doggedly urging institutions to correct it.

The underlying historical story is quicker but might hold wider lessons.

Back in 1754, one copy of the Pennsylvania Gazette was printed on paper that had a speck in it. Unluckily, this speck was right next to the “P.” for Pennsylvania in the snake cartoon. That made the “P.” on that copy look on a first glance like an “R”.

Even more unluckily, that one copy of the Gazette page ended up in the collection of the Library of Congress. That institution’s image was easy to find and to reproduce, with no permission fees. And in black-and-white reproductions, the “P.” with a speck looked even more like an “R.”

By the early 21st century, if not before, the Library of Congress’s cataloguing information even said the letters along the snake were “S.C., N.C., V., M., R., N.J., N.Y., N.E.” And that of course appeared to be an authoritative source.

As a result, many modern reproductions of the cartoon, whether photographic or recreated, showed an “R” in place of a “P.”

Even though an “R” made no sense historically. Even though other surviving copies of the same printed page showed the “P.” Even though period artwork based on the 1754 Pennsylvania Gazette image showed the “P.”

Thanks for Strause’s efforts, the Library of Congress’s cataloguing information has been corrected, and the correction is presumably working its way through the culture, like a snake digesting a rodent.

For a while yet, though, we’ll still see “S.C., N.C., V., M., R., N.J., N.Y., N.E.” flags, beach towels, T-shirts, and textbook illustrations.

“Ink of a Very Different Sort”

Anisha Gupta and Renée Wolcott of the conservation department at the American Philosophical Society have shared an interesting series of blog posts about iron gall ink and the problems it can produce.

Iron gall ink has been around at least since the 300s. It offered scribes the advantage of being close to permanent, especially on parchment—but when the formula is off, it can damage that material.

Gupta explained what went into this type of ink:

Iron gall ink is comprised of four main ingredients:

1. Oak gall nuts. Oak gall nuts are a tree’s protective reaction to wasps depositing eggs beneath its bark. They are not actually nuts! Once collected, these are then soaked in a solvent.

2. Solvents. Acidic solvents, such as beer or wine, or allowing mold to grow on the gall nuts as they soak help produce gallic acid and increase the color of the ink.

3. Ferrous sulfate. Ferrous sulfate reacts with gallic acid to produce a blue-black iron-tannin complex.

4. Gum Arabic. Gum Arabic increases viscosity (improves ink flow), keeps pigment particles in suspension, binds ink to the writing surface, and gives the ink shine and depth.

The formation of the iron-tannin complex releases sulfuric acid, so iron gall ink is always extremely acidic, with a pH of 1-3. Acids attack the cellulose chains that paper is made of, shortening the chains and making the paper brown and brittle. If the iron gall ink contains an excess of iron (II) ions, it will also catalyze oxidation of the paper or parchment, which results in crosslinking and brittleness.

Wolcott highlighted a notebook from Benjamin Franklin’s papers recording his early experimentation (of course) with the substance:

at the very back of the book…Franklin had recorded the results of six iron gall ink recipes, including “Benj. Franklin’s Ink” from June 17, 1731, “Joseph Breitnall’s Ink” and “Ink of a Very Different Sort” from the same date. (Oh, how I wish I knew what made the different ink different!)

“Persian Ink made by James Austin” was “stir’d up June 19, 1731.” The “Japan Ink written June 22, 1731” was likely made from a commercial ink powder that could be mixed with water, and it has aged the most poorly, with brown haloes around the inked lines. “B. Franklin’s New Ink,” “written Aug. 3, 1731” and noted to be “pale when first wrote” has probably aged the best.

Finally, Wolcott showed an example of damage caused by iron gall ink that was too acidic for its paper.  

Iron gall ink was used in quill pens, so it had to flow and then dry. A completely different type of ink was developed for printing.

TOMORROW: Printers’ ink.

Rewards Offered in 1798

As quoted yesterday, in July 1798 David Stoddard Greenough offered a “ONE DOLLAR REWARD” for the return of his teen-aged indentured servant Dick Welsh.

I wanted to know how that compared to rewards other newspaper advertisements announced for other people. So I looked up the word “reward” in Massachusetts newspapers from June and July 1798.

Here’s what advertisements offered for people of different sorts, sorted from smallest reward to largest:

• John Scofield, 19 years old, indented to John Neat, Boston: 1¢.
• Eber Potter, 15, indented to Eliel Gilbert, Greenfield: 1¢.
• Stephen Mulforde, 13, indented to Daniel Pepper, Boston: 1¢.
• Elisha Roberts, 16, indented to cordwainer Enoch Mower, Lynn: 1¢.
• Silas Nowell, boy, indented to printer Edmund M. Blunt, Newburyport: 5¢.
• Jacob Phelps, 16, indented to Jonathan Whitney: 6¢.
• Joseph Larrabee, 19, indented to John Newhall, Lynn: 20¢.
• John Sturgis, 16, from the sloop Nancy: $4.
• Walter Spooner Belcher, 18, indented to carpenter Marlborough Ripley: $5.
• John Holbrook, 22, and Ebenezer Hollis, 20, soldiers deserting from Castle Island: $8.
• Prince, 20, enslaved to Joseph Willcox, 2d, Killingworth, Connecticut: $10.
• Ebenezer Buckling, 19, indented to papermaker Hugh McLean, Milton: $20.
• John Barton, adult, sailor who had taken $20 advance pay from Capt. Stephen Curtis: $20.
• John Wilcot, adult, accused of stealing a horse from Caleb Easty: $50 for man and horse, $30 for horse and tackle alone.
• Frank, 25, sailor enslaved to Elijah Grinnelds of Virginia: $50.
• Joseph Haslett, adult, suspected forger: $100.

Greenough’s one-dollar reward for Dick Welsh was much more than some masters offered for their missing apprentices, but that probably reflected Greenough’s wish to be seen as a wealthy landed gentleman. He could afford to toss out a dollar where other men offered only a penny.

Nonetheless, Greenough’s message was probably the same as that from Neat, Gilbert, and the other masters at the top of the list above: this runaway is worthless, and I bought this newspaper notice only as a legality and to make life on the run more difficult for the lad.

For pocketbooks, horses, watches, and other property, people offered substantial rewards—sometimes for the goods alone, sometimes more for the goods and the thieves. Greenough himself advertised a $50 reward in May 1791 for thieves who had broken into his house and stolen a lot of gold and silver items. For people who could just walk away again, not so much.

It’s notable that masters were willing to pay far more for enslaved workers than apprentices. After all, those black men had taken many more years of free labor away with them. Not until the case of the slave-child Med in 1836 did Massachusetts law hold that people enslaved in other states became free if their owners brought them into the commonwealth.

One last observation: Ebenezer Buckling must have learned a lot of the valuable trade of papermaking to be worth $20.

“To serve the purpose of their party”

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been quoting letters to the newspapers of Litchfield, Connecticut, about papermaker Elisha Horton’s conversations with his employer, Julius Deming, around the election of 1804.

Horton stated in court and in the press that Deming told him to vote his conscience. Four other people said Horton had complained to them at the time that he was afraid to vote Republican out of fear Deming would fire him and/or shut down the paper mill.

What could make this situation more difficult? Religion! As I noted back here, Horton and his wife were founding members of Litchfield’s Methodist Episcopal Society.

A week after printing Horton’s letter about Election Day, the Federalist Litchfield Monitor evidently ran a piece arguing that the man’s “brethren, who are Methodists, believe him to be a pious, honest, sober citizen for they have proved him and known his ways…”

That 5 Feb 1806 issue of the Litchfield Monitor isn’t in the newspaper database I can access, if it survives at all. I’m quoting from the 5 March Witness, the town’s Republican newspaper.

That issue of the Witness published a letter from four men; one of them, John Stone, had already written to contradicting Horton’s account of 1804. Together those men certified “That said Horton for two years past, or more, has not been considered by the Methodist society in this town as a member of said society.”

The Litchfield Monitor responded on 12 March with two letters. The first said that Horton was being “assailed with all the malice of Democracy, because he was too honest to sell himself to the tools of Alexander Wolcott.” Those four Methodists had written about Horton’s church membership merely “to serve the purpose of their party.”

Alexander Wolcott (1758-1828) was the leader of Connecticut’s Republicans. That year he accused the Federalists of having “priests and deacons, judges and justices, sheriffs and surveyors, with a host of corporations and privileged orders, to aid their elections.” There was no love lost between the parties.

Then came a letter from Horton himself, declaring

Within two years last past, the Methodists…made application to me to become their Leader. . . . I told them that my business was such, that I could not conveniently attend their meetings on week day, and that my constitution would not admit of my being out so far from home in the night, &c.

I have repeatedly attended their Sabbath preaching, and have cast in my mite at their contributions, and had requested John Stone several years ago to call on me when there were any collections to be made.

Another of the certificate signers, Horton said, had carried his contribution to “a poor Methodist Preacher” in a distant town. He concluded:

I am grieved to the heart, to find that men can be so infatuated as to testify as they and others have done, with the notorious design, to wound my feelings, and to murder my reputation.—I do not write this to prejudice you against them, but to let you know how far I am innocent as to what they have testified.

Horton did not, however, attempt to directly deny what Stone and others had written about his dilemma in 1804.

It appears that everyone in Litchfield now knew the real situation. Horton felt dependent enough on Deming that not only had he stopped voting for Republicans, but he also refused to acknowledge feeling any pressure from Deming. This was, after all, before secret ballots.

Later in 1806, Deming sold the paper mill to the partnership of Federalist lawyer Aaron Smith, shopkeeper Timothy Peck, and Horton. After two years Peck and Horton bought Smith out. That evidently restored the papermaker’s political independence.

Life in Litchfield went on. The Federalists lost power nationally, then even in New England. Horton retired from the mill. The election of 1824 shook up the national parties, producing a new duality of Democrats and Whigs.

When Horton died in 1837, the Litchfield Enquirer praised him as a “revolutionary officer” and a veteran of the Boston Tea Party. It also said, “As in ’75, so in ’37, he was a zealous and staunch whig.”

“Could not, while in the employment of Mr. Deming, act on the republican side”

Elisha Horton’s letter detailing what he would have said in court about Julius Deming, quoted yesterday, was actually a response to a previous publication.

Sometime around the turn of the year 1806, Horton testified in a court case that hinged on whether Deming had tried to influence votes in favor of the Federalists.

That day didn’t go well. As in his letter, Horton evidently complained of “a violent pain in my head.” Deming’s political opponents thought that was just a lousy excuse for evasiveness.

On 8 Jan 1806, the Republican Witness newspaper of Litchfield, Connecticut, published an item headlined “Cure for the Headache; Or a Spur for a Dull Memory.” It was a letter from a local man named John Kilborn saying:

That a few days before freeman’s meeting [i.e., Election Day], in the Spring of 1804, I was in company with Mr. Elisha Horton, of Litchfield, at the Paper-mill then owned by Julius Deming, Esq; Mr. Horton then being under the employ of said Deming, as principal workman in said mill.

Mr. Horton remarked to me that he had been requested to use his influence with the republicans to put forward as general an attendance at the approaching election as possible; but that his situation was such with Mr. Deming, that he could not consistently with his interest, pursue that open line of conduct,…that he was convinced from what Mr. Deming had repeatedly manifested to him when speaking to him on the subject of politics, that he would actually discharge him in case he was known to be active with the republicans. . . .

he observed that but a few days before this, Mr. Deming had conversed with him very fully on politics, and had spoken freely of republicans, and declared so sure as republicanism prevailed in Connecticut, he should quit all business and retire to private life;…that he [Horton] was so fixed in business and had expended so much in repairing a convenient dwelling, expecting to continue a long time in said business, that to be turned aside [i.e., laid off], would greatly injure him…

Some of Kilborn’s story matched Horton’s—they agreed that Deming disliked the rise of Republican politics in Connecticut and threatened to retire from business if it continued. But Kilborn said Horton had told him something that Horton denied in court and in his letter: that Deming would fire him for being a Republican voice, and he couldn’t afford to make his boss that angry.

Horton saw one solution to his dilemma, Kilborn wrote: “he was very desirous that some republican should set forward and purchase the paper-mill of Mr. Deming, so that he could continue in business, and at the same time act freely in politics.”

On Election Day, Kilborn wrote, Horton told him about another conversation with Deming, in which the factory owner identified his manager as “a committee-man” for the Republicans and Horton had denied that. Again, that matched Horton’s version of events.

But then Kilborn said Horton did something he hadn’t told the court: that he “immediately left the store, and went to see Mr. Moses Seymour, jr. and had earnestly solicited him to purchased the Paper-Mill.” Seymour (1776–1824, shown above) was the head of the local Republicans.

Moses Seymour, Jr., himself wrote a letter published in the Witness on 24 February:

On the morning of Freeman’s meeting day in April 1804, Mr. Elisha Horton called on me (his feelings appearing to be much agitated) and requested me to purchase Mr. Deming’s paper mill, as he told me he wished for his own sake, that it might be shifted into other hands; that he could not, while in the employment of Mr. Deming, act on the republican side of politics; that he believed from what Mr. Deming had said, that he would discharge him from his employment provided he so acted, which would be a great damage to him as he had laid out considerable money in repairs, expecting to continue in his business; he said he dare not stay and vote that day; I told Mr. Horton he best knew what Mr. Deming had said to him; and if he believed his fears well founded, I could not advise him to stay and vote.

In that same issue, John Stone told the same story that Kilborn had. So did Amos Parmalee, Jr., who added:

On the day of the late trial for a libel on Esq. Deming, previous to the commencement of the trial, I saw Mr. Horton at Timothy Peck’s store. I observed to him that I was requested to attend this trial and testify what he (Horton) had confessed to me requesting Mr. Deming’s influencing his voting. He then requested me to step one side with him in private; which I did.—He then addressed me thus: “what I told you about Esq. Deming was a confidential matter—I expect the lawyers will question me whether Mr. Deming has influenced me; but I am not obliged to answer them.”

The clear implication of the letters in the Witness was that Horton had curtailed his political behavior and his honesty in order to stay in Julius Deming’s favor. Because Deming remained his boss.

TOMORROW: Horton’s community reputation.

“Vote for those you in conscience think to be good men”

On 29 Jan 1806, the Litchfield Monitor, the Connecticut town’s Federalist newspaper, published a long letter from papermaker Elisha Horton.

Horton had been called as a witness in the libel trial between local magistrate and merchant Julius Deming and the town’s other newspaper, the Witness. That Republican paper had accused Deming of intimidating voters.

Evidently, Horton hadn’t testified to his liking, or other people’s liking. His letter said:

The following is a simple state of facts, which I had recollected, and committed to writing, previous to giving in my evidence, at the late Court.—I had accidentally left the writing at home—and partly owing to a violent pain in my head, and partly to my being interrupted when giving in my testimony, I could not relate the same so fully to the Court as I could have wished.

June, 1802, if I mistake not, I took the charge of Mr. Julius Deming’s Paper-mill—and from that time until the fall of the year 1803, Mr. Deming had not opened his mouth to me upon politics.—Freemen’s meeting day [i.e., Election Day], I went in his Store, and observed to him thus:—Esq. Deming, I have come to vote this day, just as I did in old times,—I have seen no Nominations, or list of Candidates on either side, and shall vote for those I think to be good men, or best qualified for office.

Mr. Deming replied, “I never shall blame you for voting as you please; but hope you will be conscientious in voting, or vote for those you in conscience think to be good men.” . . .

During the winter [of 1804], many of both parties were inquisitive, to learn of me, on which side I should vote—I uniformly told them that I should not vote on either side—that I should not attend meeting.

In the spring of the year, Orin Stone, came to the mill, with a line as he said from M. S. jr. informing me, that I was appointed as one of their [the Republicans’] Committee, and wishing me to act accordingly.—I refused, desiring him to give my respects to Mr. S. and tell him I wished to be excused.

Other articles tell me “M. S. jr.” was local merchant Moses Seymour, Jr. (1774-1826). His father had been one of Litchfield’s Revolutionary leaders and was still serving as town clerk.

Freemen’s-meeting day arrived, and having little or no help in the mill, I concluded to go into town, and see Mr. Deming concerning a pair of Writing Moulds [frames for papermaking], which were expected on from Philadephia—…After conversing about them, and I was about to leave the store,—‘And shall you not stay to meeting?’ (said Mr. Deming.)—

No, replied I; I think not.

“Well, (said Mr. Deming) if you do stay and vote, I tell you now, as I told you the last year, vote for the men you in conscience think to be good men.”

I then, for the first time, introduced the subject of politicks to Mr. Deming, this: ‘Squire Deming, I am dissatisfied.

“At what?” (replied he)—

At certain principles which are prevailing among the democrats (said I)—

Mr. Deming seemed a little surprised, and said—“Why I am informed that you are one of their Committee.”

I answered, they have appointed me, but I have refused to act as one. I observed to Mr. Deming that I had voted several times on the Democratic side; as I was dissatisfied with some of the measures towards the close of Adams’s administration, but was now more dissatisfied with the democratically principles which are prevailing among us.

Mr. Deming observed,—“Mr. Horton, I have never said but a little to you upon politicks.”—

Not half so much as I wish you had, said I.—

Mr. Deming then observed to me,—that “there was something very alarming in the new order of things which designing men were endeavouring to introduce into this state;”—adding, that “he had formerly transacted business on a very large scale,” &c.—“that he had already lessened his business in a great measure;”—and concluded thus,—That should the State of Connecticut be revolutionized, he should still lessen his business, or give up all his business abroad, and retire to private life.

The same evening a report was circulated in the western part of this town (and perhaps in other places) that Mr. Deming had threatened me in a very pointed manner, that if I presumed to vote on the democratic side, he would immediately turn me out of his employ—Mr. Arunah Blakeslee called upon me the same evening to know the truth of the report: I denied it then,—I deny it now,—and shall deny it as long I live.

Blakeslee was from the west side of Litchfield. I can’t find anything else about him, so he doesn’t appear to have been prominent, just an interested voter.

TOMORROW: Contrary voices.

(The photograph above shows Julius Demings’s 1790s house as it looks today, courtesy of Dan Sterner’s handsome Historic Buildings of Connecticut.)

Elisha Horton, Litchfield’s Tea Partier

As I looked for evidence of Elijah Houghton at the Boston Tea Party, I noticed that right before him on the more expansive lists was Elisha Horton.

In an old Yankee dialect, those names sound awfully similar. I half-wondered if people heard “Elisha Horton” and thought it meant “Elijah Houghton.” 

But Elisha Horton’s name doesn’t appear on the lists in Traits of the Tea Party or Francis S. Drake’s Tea Leaves, either. So I did more digging.

Elisha Horton was born on 11 Feb 1757 in Milton, son of Enoch and Hepzibah Horton.

That town was the site of Massachusetts’s first paper mill, set up in 1731. By 1763 those mills were said to be “in a ruinous Condition,” but because a supply of paper was “very advantageous to the Province” the Massachusetts General Court granted mill owners James Boies and Richard Clarke £100 to rebuild. Daniel Vose, Stephen Crane, and others added more mills in 1771 and 1773, which required more workers. 

I mention those mills because in later life Horton ran a paper mill in Litchfield, Connecticut. That suggests he spent his teen years training at the papermaking complex in Milton, but there’s no certain evidence of that.

The Rev. A. K. Teele’s 1887 history of Milton includes a “Muster Roll of Capt Daniel Voses Company of the Train in Milton of Col. [Lemuel] Robinsons Regiment that traveled to Roxbury and served as a Standing Company in the defence of Liberty before the Standing Army was compleated after the battle of Concord.”

One of the matrosses, or artillery privates, on that militia list was Elisha Horton. Those men served one to three months at the start of the siege of Boston.

That was quite possibly the eighteen-year-old Elisha Horton, but he didn’t mention that time when he applied for a Revolutionary War pension in 1818. Then again, he didn’t have to since he could point to continuous service in the Continental Army from February 1777 to June 1784. During that time Horton rose from private to sergeant major to ensign, the lowest level of officer. With his pension application he included his commission signed by Thomas McKean as president of the Continental Congress.

By 1788 Horton settled in Salisbury, Connecticut. Four years later he moved to the Bantam Lake area of Litchfield, where the merchant Julius Deming had financed a paper mill. From then until 1818 Horton managed that mill, becoming a co-owner after 1806. He and his wife Hannah helped to found the town’s Methodist Episcopal Society.

In 1818 Elisha Horton retired from and sold his interest in the mill. He then supported himself on his local property holdings. He also applied for a pension from the federal government for his Revolutionary service.

Hannah Horton died in 1824, and in the following year the sexagenarian Elisha married a woman in her early thirties named Marilla Bradley. Ultimately she lived until 1860, applying for a federal pension as a Revolutionary soldier’s widow.

Elisha Horton died on 30 Nov 1837. His estate was listed as insolvent, possibly because of the financial panic of that year. But he was still respected by his neighbors, and the 9 December Connecticut Courant ran this death notice:

In Litchfield, on the 30th ult. [last month], Mr. Elisha Horton, aged 81—a revolutionary officer and pensioner. He was one among the two or three survivors of those daring spirits who were engaged in throwing the tea into Boston harbor previous to the declaration of independence—the first overt act which preceded the revolution.

When two Boston newspapers, the Courier and the Traveler, reported Horton’s death the following week, they identified him as a “native of Boston” and a Revolutionary officer, but they didn’t mention the Tea Party. Did that mean the publishers of those papers didn’t believe that aspect of his life?

By 1837 Joshua Wyeth had coined the term “Tea Party,” and George Robert Twelves Hewes had become celebrated for his two as-told-to books about it. The event was famous. More and more people were trying to connect themselves or their ancestors to it. Eventually being at the Tea Party was almost a requirement for being a Patriot in Boston, producing false or exaggerated claims.

Was Horton truly involved in destroying the tea? It would have been unusual for a teen-aged apprentice from Milton to get into the action at Griffin’s Wharf—though not impossible. Did young Elisha witness the event, or pass on stories about it, and his neighbors came to assume he’d been part of it? Did Horton claim to be involved to bolster his patriotic reputation, knowing that no one in Litchfield was likely to contradict him?

Given his long service in the Continental Army and his local stature, I doubt Elisha Horton felt a strong need to burnish his credentials. However, we can’t assess the stories he told his neighbors since they don’t survive. We can’t be certain the report of him being part of the Tea Party is true, but we do know it dates back to 1837.

“A good amount of the Franklin Papers”

For anyone who cares about preserving the papers of important Founders, Valerie-Anne Lutz recounted quite a heart-stopping adventure for the American Philosophical Society in January.

Lutz wrote about Benjamin Franklin’s surviving papers:

When Franklin left for London in 1764 1776, he left his papers with his friend and fellow Pennsylvania Assembly member Joseph Galloway. Galloway kept the papers in his vault, a stone building on his property, along with some of his family’s papers and early Bucks County records.

By the time of the American Revolution, Galloway, a Loyalist, believed that the colonies should remain under British rule. This led to his departure for England in 1778 and the confiscation of his estate in 1779. The property was raided by either British or Continental forces, or both, who broke into Galloway’s vault, stole some of the papers, and left others scattered about the grounds. . . .

The letterbooks were, unfortunately, never found. For this reason, most of Franklin’s papers consist of letters to Franklin, rather than letters from Franklin. However, [son-in-law Richard] Bache was able to rescue a large amount of materials, which represent a good amount of the Franklin Papers that eventually found their way to APS.

In his will, Franklin left his papers to his grandson, William Temple Franklin, known as Temple. Intending to publish his grandfather’s papers, Temple set off for London with a portion of them, but left the largest portion with family friends, the Fox family, near Philadelphia. . . . In 1840, Charles Pemberton Fox and his sister Mary Fox gave the collection to the American Philosophical Society, where they have been ever since. . . .

A somewhat smaller collection of Franklin Papers held by the Fox family was overlooked for another 25 years. During the Civil War, the family sold some old papers from their barn to a paper mill. A house guest, identified as Mrs. Holbrook, noticed that some of the papers bore Franklin’s handwriting. She rescued them and left the papers to her son, George O. Holbrook, who, with the encouragement of physician S. Weir Mitchell, sold the collection to the University of Pennsylvania in 1903.

As for the papers that William Temple Franklin took to London, they were discovered in the 19th century in a tailor shop below where Temple had lived, where they were being used as clothing patterns. They were rescued, and after a series of legal issues, eventually were donated to the Library of Congress.

The Papers of Benjamin Franklin project built from these collections and added documents saved elsewhere to create as full a picture of the man’s correspondence and writings as possible. And we can enjoy the result through Founders Online.

Also recommended, though not as adventure reading: Jack Hitt’s article “In the Franklin Factory,” about the Papers of Benjamin Franklin as it operated about twenty-five years ago, published in Quick Studies: The Best of Lingua Franca.

“The First BIBLE ever printed in America”?

As I quoted yesterday, Isaiah Thomas grew up as an apprentice printer hearing stories about how his master, Zechariah Fowle, had helped to secretly print a New Testament in the late 1740s.

Thomas also heard about a complete Bible completed by another Boston printing partnership, also surreptitiously, by 1752.

However, it’s worth noting that in his History of Printing in America (1810), Thomas admitted about the New Testament publication, “I have heard that the fact has been disputed.” While he claimed John Hancock had owned a copy of the full Bible, he couldn’t point to any extant examples or describe how they might be recognized.

Indeed, in 1770 another Boston printer publicly denied the existence of any previous American-made Bible. The 3 Dec 1770 Boston Evening-Post included a large advertisement that began:

The First BIBLE ever printed in America.

PROPOSALS
For printing by Subscription, in a most beautiful and elegant Manner, in two large Volumes Folio.
The HOLY BIBLE,
Containing the OLD and NEW TESTAMENTS,
Or a FAMILY BIBLE,
With Annotations and Parallel Scriptures.
By the late Rev. SAMUEL CLARK, A.M.

The following paragraphs promised large and elegant type and paper manufactured in America—or “superfine Imperial Paper” for those few ready to pay double for extra quality. The book was to be delivered in seventy installments of five pages each, starting two weeks after three hundred people had subscribed.

The printer making this offer was John Fleeming, late of the Boston Chronicle, now working out of “his PRINTING OFFICE, in Newbury-street, nearly opposite the WHITE-HORSE Tavern, Boston.” He had married Alice Church in August and was probably looking for a way to support a family.

The annotator Samuel Clarke (1626-1701) had been a Nonconformist minister in Britain who first published his edition of the Bible in 1690. That book was reprinted in Glasgow in 1765, which is probably how Fleeming, a Scotsman, got the text. The Rev. George Whitefield praised Clarke’s work, and of course Americans widely admired Whitefield. Indeed, almost half of Fleeming’s advertisement was a quotation from Whitefield.

Within the next two months, the same ad appeared in many other New England newspapers and in New York. However, Fleeming must not have collected the subscriptions he hoped for. In modern terms, his Kickstarter campaign failed. That edition was never published.

In 1782 the Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken likewise announced that he would print the first English Bible in America. And he actually completed the job that September. The Continental Congress and George Washington both praised the enterprise. Many copies survive.

Obviously Fleeming and Aitken didn’t acknowledge the editions that Isaiah Thomas had heard about. Thomas would have said that was because the Kneeland and Green Bible, and the Rogers and Fowle New Testament that preceded it, had been disguised as London publications in order to get around a special grant to certain British printers.

In different writings Thomas specified that the Boston Bible appeared in 1749 and carried the imprint “London: Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty”—but that man didn’t start publishing Bibles until the 1760s. Was this a mistake for Thomas Baskett, who did issue Bibles in the 1740s? Or is its main significance as evidence that Thomas hadn’t actually seen the Bible he believed did exist?

Many book collectors have searched for the fake Baskett Bible that was actually printed in Boston. Presumably this means finding a Bible with a London Baskett imprint but with typography that didn’t match copies known in Britain.

However, only one candidate for such a book has been found, surfacing in 1895, according to an article in the Boston Globe. Three decades later, Dr. Charles L. Nichols’s close examination showed that was actually a genuine Baskett Bible from 1763 that someone had altered by removing one volume’s title page and clumsily changing the date on the other to 1752. See his findings delivered to the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

Nonetheless, as Nichols stated in a follow-up paper for the American Antiquarian Society (P.D.F. download), he remained convinced that there was a Bible published surreptitiously in Boston, even if Thomas didn’t have all the details right.

Subsequent scholars, including Randolph C. Adams in The Colophon in 1935 and Harry Miller Lydenberg in the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America in 1954, were more skeptical. They concluded that Thomas’s report was simply wrong.

Perhaps the digitization of books will produce the anomalous copy of a Baskett Bible that collectors have sought. More likely, however, Zechariah Fowle just lied to little Isaiah about how he’d labored long and hard over a secret publication of the Bible.

Tapping into Revolutionary Networks

At the Junto blog, Jordan E. Taylor interviewed Framingham State professor Joseph Adelman about his new book, Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763–1789.

Many books have studied the political printing of the Revolutionary era through biography of exceptional figures like Benjamin Franklin or Isaiah Thomas, or through studies of how political essays were written and spread. But how ordinary printers did the work to put those essays into readers’ hands hasn’t gotten so much attention.

Adelman told Taylor:

To understand the materiality of these texts and how they operated in the real world, it is helpful to actually see them in physical form. In the introduction I work through how printers laid out a weekly newspaper, which is difficult to see through a view of single pages in PDF form. I also was able to see (literally!) some important developments in newspaper runs by being able to see the size and quality of the paper, for example. . . .

As for my favorite find, I’d have to say the story from the Stamp Act crisis about Boston radicals who in February 1766 tried a piece of stamped paper for treason and then ceremonially hanged and burned it. It may be my favorite story of the entire Revolution, both because it’s so Boston and because it encapsulates so much about how Americans in the 1760s viewed print and paper (it could commit crimes!).

Here’s how Adelman described the main argument of Revolutionary Networks:

Much of the book examines how printers (and their collaborators) created both formal and informal mechanisms to circulate news and information, through the post office, committees, and the networks that printers developed—with one another, with political leaders, with economic elites, and others.

A second thread that runs through the book is the changing conception of freedom of the press, and especially its relationship to the business practices of the printing trade. Dating back to the early eighteenth century and Benjamin Franklin’s “Apology for Printers,” printers portrayed themselves as mechanics who set type and pulled the press, but remained outside of the political debate. The Revolution brought that to an end. Independence also forced printers, and political leaders to reframe their thinking about the press from its position as opposition against a distant government to its standing as a constituent part of the new republics.

Finally, the thing that ties everything together is the overlap between commercial and political interests. It seems a truism to say that out loud, but for printers those concerns interacted in complicated ways, both across the group as a whole and for individuals over time.

Taylor’s review of Revolutionary Networks for the Junto is here. We can also hear Joe Adelman speaking about his book on the podcasts Ben Franklin’s World and New Books in American Studies.

Settling James Jackson’s Estate

The last installment of The Saga of the Brazen Head ended on 12 Sept 1735 with James Jackson drowning on a trip home from Maine. He left his wife Mary with two sons under the age of five.

James left no will, so on 25 September a probate judge appointed three people to administer the estate: William Speakman, baker; John Deacon, blacksmith; and Mary Jackson, widow. Speakman and Deacon’s names don’t appear in the probate file again.

Mary Jackson in turn appears to have hired Leonard Jarvis, whose gravestone at Copp’s Hill illustrates this posting, to inventory the estate and settle some debts.

In January 1736, Jackson submitted a six-page inventory of her husband’s property. He owned no real estate. The hardware in the store started with “36 Pair of Large Brass Candlesticks” and totaled £1,469.11.8, plus about £100 of founder’s tools and raw metals. The household goods included a mahogany card table, an “old fashioned” looking glass, and 39 pieces of pewter tableware. All told, Jackson valued her late husband’s property at a little over £1,700.

That wasn’t the end of the probate process by a long shot, however.

In August 1737 the probate judge questioned five men about the Jackson estate, asking if they knew of any property not included in the inventory. From three of those men came news of:

• “old Iron & old brass carried into the Cellar to the value of one hundred weight”
• “some brass Patterns which were never shown to the Apprizers by William Who is run away”
• “old Cocks that came to be mended & a pair of old Hinges”

In November 1737 the court summoned Richard Fry, then back in Boston and feuding with Samuel Waldo. Fry owed money to the Jackson estate, with the security being a parcel of paper—“but it being So Bad that its for ye most part unvendible.” For papermaking fans, this parcel consisted of reams of “Large bag paper,” “Small Capp,” “Best Sorted Whited Brown,” “Whited Brown,” and a “Bundle.” Mary Jackson had sold most of the bag paper and best whited brown. The probate court empowered a committee to examine and value the rest.

The court had already commissioned those same men to sort out the debit side of the estate. On 24 July 1738, the Boston Gazette ran this notice:

The Commissioners to Examine the Creditors Claims to the Estate of Mr. James Jackson, late of Boston Founder, deceased, will meet once a Month at the usual time and place for Four Months longer, to Receive said Claims, of which the Creditors are to take notice.

The commissioners filed their report in October 1738. They found that the James Jackson estate owed eighty-four creditors a total of £2,696.5.10. The biggest creditor, with over £1,650 due, was the wealthy merchant Charles Apthorp. The second largest, owed only £228, was James Bowdoin.

In yet another document for the probate court, Mary Jackson reported the total amount due to her husband as £1,787.6.9, and that she had collected £221 and a penny since his death. In that filing Jackson also included a list of expenses since her husband’s death, including payments to the commissioners and others who helped settle the estate, wages for a nurse, “weeds” for mourning, and necessary household expenses. That was enough for the judge to declare the estate settled in 1739.

Mary Jackson’s expense list reveals some details of her husband’s brazier business. She paid rent to William Dummer for the shop, separate from other rent, probably for where the family lived. She reported “the Expence of maintaining 7 persons during the Shops being shut up wch. was 4 Weeks.” I’m guessing those seven people included the five men interrogated about things removed from Jackson’s estate, plus the elusive William.

The four weeks’ closure sheds new light on this advertisement that had appeared in the Boston Gazette on 27 Oct 1735:

MARY JACKSON, the Widow of the late James Jackson Founder, at the Brazen Head in Cornhill Boston, sells all sorts of Founders Ware, and all sorts of bright Braziers Ware, and likewise Casteth all sorts of Mill Brasses.

Having kept the Sign of the Brazen Head closed for a month, all the while paying the skilled staff to stay on, Mary Jackson had opened for business again.

TOMORROW: Mary Jackson, businesswoman.

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.

“Next Door to Brazen Head”

Yesterday I related how the brazier James Jackson came to Boston from London and by December 1734 opened a shop called the Brazen Head, after its brass-covered sign.

That November, Benjamin Franklin directed a letter “To Mr. Henry Price At the Brazen Head Boston, N.E.” Price, a tailor, had come to Boston from England in 1723. Ten years later he founded the town’s first Freemasons’ lodge, having been named “Provincial Grand Master of New England and Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging” during a trip home. Franklin was writing on Freemasonry business.

I’ve found no other links between Price, the Brazen Head, and Jackson. Six years later Price advertised under the sign of “the Golden Fleece, in Kingstreet,” which was appropriate for his work as a tailor. It’s conceivable that Franklin just mixed up his mythological metallic signs. It’s also possible that Price and Jackson lived close together, and the Brazen Head was already a neighborhood beacon useful for directing mail.

Certainly it’s no surprise that a shiny brass head hung out on the town’s main street would become a landmark. Within five years, neighboring shopkeepers used Jackson’s shop sign to direct customers to their own businesses.

Here, for example, is an advertisement from the 7 Sept 1736 New-England Weekly Journal:

Several Sorts of Glass Bottles, as also good velvet Corks, To be Sold by Mr. Belthazar Bayard, next Door to Brazen Head in Cornhill, Boston.

Bayard married Mary Bowdoin, and the couple were both eventually buried in the Bowdoin family tomb in the Granary Burying-Ground, shown here. Mary was a first cousin of Gov. James Bowdoin, commemorated on the plaque now affixed to that tomb.

Back to the Brazen Head. Here’s another advertisement from the 12 Nov 1739 Boston Evening-Post:

Just published,
An excellent SERMON on Regeneration, Preached to a numerous Audience, by George Whitefield, A.B. of Pembroke College, Oxford. Printed in London; Reprinted in Boston, and Sold by Charles Harrison, over-against the Brazen Head in Cornhill.

The eye-catching shop sign also meant that Jackson had less occasion to advertise his main business of brasswork. But, as was standard for Boston shopkeepers, he undertook to sell other things and needed to promote those goods. For example, the Boston Gazette for 23 June 1735 ran this notice:

JAMES JACKSON, Founder,
At the Sign of the Brasen Head in Cornhill Boston makes and sells all sorts of Founders’ Wares, also Mends, Tinns, Buys or Exchanges all sorts of Copper, Pewter, Brass, Lead or Iron by wholesale or retail. Likewise a two Wheel’d Chaise well finish’d, and lin’d with Scarlett broad Cloth, with a good Harness, also a Chair lin’d with red Morocco Leather, with a good Harness, and both new, to be Sold reasonably by said Jackson.

A couple of weeks later, 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

Which brings us to papermaker Richard Fry, one of Massachusetts’s more contentious characters in the 1730s and ’40s.

TOMORROW: The controversies of Richard Fry.

Talks to Take in about the Townshend Tariffs

This month’s Lowell Lecture Series at the Old South Meeting House, presented by the Paul Revere Memorial Association, focuses on how the new duties of 1767 roiled the British Empire. The series is titled “Lead, Glass, Paper, & Tea: The Townshend Acts and the Occupation of Boston.”

(That leaves out one category of dutied goods—painter’s colors. That really only affected specialized merchants like the Gore family. But since I spoke about the Gores at Old South a few years back, I feel obligated to stick up for their concerns.)

Here are the talks, starting tomorrow evening and continuing on each Wednesday.

5 September
“A certain sloop called the Liberty”: Charles Townsend, John Hancock & the Boston Madeira Party
On June 10, 1768, the King’s Commissioners of Customs seized John Hancock’s sloop Liberty and its smuggled cargo of Madeira wine. William Fowler, Jr., Distinguished Professor of History, Northeastern University, will describe how the Commissioners, fearing for their lives, fled to the safety of Castle William, while John Adams argued his case in defense of Hancock and Liberty at the Old State House.

12 September
Paul Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl: An American Icon
American patriot Paul Revere is wrapped in a swirling mixture of myth and poetry through which history often descends, but as a craftsman he left behind tangible traces as well. Gerald W. R. Ward, Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Emeritus, at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, will relate the story behind Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl, crafted in 1768 to commemorate the “Glorious 92” legislators who bravely opposed King and Parliament’s imposition of the Townshend Acts.

19 September
Liberty Teas and Nervous Collectors: The Townshend Acts in Boston
From the emergence of “homegrown” industries in response to British taxes on imports, to harassment of officials by the Sons of Liberty, the Townshend Acts set the stage for tensions that would erupt in 1770 with the Boston Massacre. Learn how these new laws impacted 18th-century Bostonians’ everyday life in an interactive, first-person presentation featuring costumed actors from the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum!

26 September
Tyranny Unmasked: The Townsend Acts in Britain, Ireland & America
The Townshend Acts marked a new radical phase in the crisis that eventually destroyed Britain’s American empire. Occupied Boston was the toast of radical patriots throughout George III’s dominions, and observers began to wonder whether Britain’s days as an imperial power were numbered. University of New Hampshire Professor of History Eliga Gould will tell the fascinating story of this transformation—as it appeared to Bostonians and from the standpoint of people on the far shores of the Atlantic.

All these talks are scheduled to begin at 6:30 P.M. They are free and open to the public, thanks to the historical organizations involved and the Lowell Institute.