The ''Boston Gazette'' (1719–1798) was a newspaper published in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, in the British North American colonies. It was a weekly newspaper established by William Brooker, who was just appointed Postmaster of Boston, with its first issue released on December 21, 1719. The ''Boston Gazette'' is widely considered the most influential newspaper in early American history, especially in the years leading up to and into the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

. In 1741 the ''Boston Gazette'' incorporated the ''New-England Weekly Journal'', founded by Samuel Kneeland, and became the ''Boston-Gazette, or New-England Weekly Journal''. Contributors included:

Samuel Adams Samuel Adams ( – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, an ...

Paul Revere Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, Sons of Liberty member, and Patriot and Founding Father. He is best known for his midnight ride to a ...

, Phyllis Wheatley.

Publishing

Publishers, and men acting on their behalf, included: (dates are approximate) * William Brooker (1719) * Benjamin Edes, Ben Franklin, James Franklin (1719) * Philip Musgrave (1720) * Thomas Lewis (1725–26) * Henry Marshall (1726–27) * Bartholomew Green Jr. (1727–32) * John Boydell (died December 11, 1739) (1732–36) * Timothy Green (1736–41) * Samuel Kneeland (1720–53) * John Gill (1755–75) DAR Patriot # A044675 * Benjamin Edes (1755–94) * Benjamin Edes, Jr. (1779–94) * Peter Edes (1779 – c. 1784) Obituary of Patrick Carr 1770

The paper's masthead vignette, produced by

shows a seated

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...

with Liberty cap on staff, freeing a bird from a cage. Motto: ''"Containing the freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestic"'' This issue is often reprinted. "After the Revolution he paperlost its great contributors and its tone and policy were changed. It bitterly opposed the adoption of the constitution of the United States and the administration of Washington. The paper declined in power, interest and popular favor, till, after a long struggle, in 1798, it was discontinued for want of support." It was noted for its many spirited and often controversial political essays. Like most newspapers of its era it often published ads for the sale of slaves and notices of runaway slaves and runaway

indentured servants Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment, ...

Hutchinson Letters leak

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

acquired a packet of about twenty letters that had been written to

Thomas Whately Thomas Whately (1726 – 26 May 1772), an English politician and writer, was a Member of Parliament (1761–1768), who served as Commissioner on the Board of Trade, as Secretary to the Treasury under Lord Grenville, and as Under-secretary of Stat ...

, an assistant to Prime Minister

George Grenville George Grenville (14 October 1712 – 13 November 1770) was a British Whig statesman who rose to the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain. Grenville was born into an influential political family and first entered Parliament in 1741 as an ...

. Upon reading them, Franklin concluded that Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson and his colonial secretary (plus brother-in-law) Andrew Oliver, had mischaracterized the situation in the colonies, and thus misled Parliament. He felt that wider knowledge of these letters would then focus colonial anger away from Parliament and at those who had written the misleading letters. Franklin sent the letters to

Thomas Cushing Thomas Cushing III (March 24, 1725 – February 28, 1788) was an American lawyer, merchant, and statesman from Boston, Massachusetts. Active in Boston politics, he represented the city in the provincial assembly from 1761 to its dissolution ...

, the speaker of the Massachusetts assembly, in December 1772.Morgan, p. 187 He specifically wrote to Cushing that the letters should be seen only by a few people, and that he was not "at liberty to make the letters public." The letters arrived in Massachusetts in March 1773, and came into the hands of

, then serving as the clerk of the Massachusetts assembly. By Franklin's instructions, only a select few people, including the Massachusetts

Committee of Correspondence The committees of correspondence were, prior to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, a collection of American political organizations that sought to coordinate opposition to British Parliament and, later, support for American independe ...

, were to see the letters.Bailyn, p. 239 Alarmed at what they read, Cushing wrote Franklin, asking if the restrictions on their circulation could be eased. In a response received by Cushing in early June, Franklin reiterated that they were not to be copied or published, but could be shown to anyone A longtime opponent of Hutchinson's, Samuel Adams informed the assembly of the existence of the letters, after which it designated a committee to analyze them. Strategic leaks suggestive of their content made their way into the press and political discussions, causing Hutchinson much discomfort. The assembly eventually concluded, according to

John Hancock John Hancock ( – October 8, 1793) was an American Founding Father, merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot of the American Revolution. He served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third Governor of t ...

, that in the letters Hutchinson sought to "overthrow the Constitution of this Government, and to introduce arbitrary Power into the Province", and called for the removal of Hutchinson and Oliver. Hutchinson complained that Adams and the opposition were misrepresenting what he had written, and that nothing he had written in them on the subject of Parliamentary supremacy went beyond other statements he had made.Alexander, p. 152 The letters were finally published in the ''Boston Gazette'' in mid-June 1773, causing a political firestorm in Massachusetts and raising significant questions in England.Penegar, p. 29

American Revolution

For years before the first shots were fired at Lexington Green,

Joseph Warren Joseph Warren (June 11, 1741 – June 17, 1775), a Founding Father of the United States, was an American physician who was one of the most important figures in the Patriot movement in Boston during the early days of the American Revolution, ...

, Josiah Quincy, James Otis, Edes and Gill were writing article after article in the ''Boston Gazette,'' rebelling against royal authority. Adams wrote so many articles, under so many pen names (at least 25), historians don't even know exactly how many he wrote. It was the ''Boston Gazette'' that hired

to create his famous engraving of the

Boston Massacre The Boston Massacre (known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street) was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which a group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing t ...

. The British officials resented the ''Boston Gazette'' as they feared it undermined their authority. British officers placed the paper's name on a list of enemy institutions to be captured, and if possible, laid waste. Those "trumpeters of sedition", Edes and Gill, were to be put out of business once and for all. The

Sons of Liberty The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It pl ...

met at the ''Boston Gazette''. It was there that they darkened their faces, disguising themselves as Mohawk Indians before setting out to dump British tea into Boston Harbor (The

Boston Tea Party The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...

). Samuel Adams practically lived at the ''Boston Gazette''.

Varying Titles

* ''Boston Gazette'' (Dec. 21, 1719-Oct. 19, 1741). * ''Boston Gazette'' or ''New England weekly journal'' (Oct. 20, 1741). * ''Boston Gazette'' or ''Weekly journal'' (Oct. 27, 1741-Dec. 26, 1752). * ''Boston Gazette'' or ''Weekly advertiser'' (Jan. 3, 1753-Apr. 1, 1755). * ''Boston Gazette'' or ''Country journal'' (Apr. 7, 1755-Apr. 5, 1756). * ''Boston Gazette'' or ''The Country journal'' (Apr. 12, 1756-Dec. 30, 1793). * ''Boston gazette'', and ''Weekly republican journal'' (Jan. 6, 1794-Sept. 17, 1798). In recent years, the ''Boston Gazette'' print shop of Edes & Gill has been recreated and is open to the public as a museum in Boston.

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * Patricia Bradley. The ''Boston Gazette'' and slavery as revolutionary propaganda. ''Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly''. 22 Sep 1995. Vol.72,Iss.3;p. 581(16). * Brigham. History and Bibliography of American Newspapers. 1968. * * * Mary Farwell Ayer, Albert Matthews. Check-list of Boston newspapers, 1704–1780. Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1907. * TOLD IN ADS; Newspaper Notices a Source of History. Paul Revere Advertised Sale of Best Psalm Tune. First Umbrella Picture in ''Boston Gazette''. ''Boston Daily Globe'', Mar 29, 1914. p.SM15. * Holmberg, Georgia McKee. "British-American Whig Political Rhetoric, 1765–1776: A Content Analysis of the ''London Gazette'', ''London Chronicle'', and ''Boston Gazette''" (dissertation). University of Pittsburgh, 1979. * Walt Nott. From "uncultivated Barbarian" to "poetical genius": the public presence of Phillis Wheatley. ''MELUS''. Fall 1993. Vol.18,Iss.3;p. 21(12). * Sandra Moore. The ''Boston Gazette and Country Journal'': Voice of resistance and mouthpiece of the Revolution (dissertation). University of Houston, 2005 * *

External links

* https://archive.org/details/bostongazetteorc269bost: Bound volume of "Boston Gazette or Country Journal" from John Adams Library (June 26, 1775 - December 9, 1776) * http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIIIs2.html (Issue for: October 17, 1768):

' essay on John Locke's statement "Where Law ends, Tyranny begins". * http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch3s4.html (Issue for: February 27, 1769) contained Samuel Adams' essay on the right of revolution. * http://www.bostonmassacre.net/gazette/ (Issue for: March 12, 1770): report on the

. * http://earlyamerica.com/review/winter96/massacre/ (Issue for: March 12, 1770) * http://www.masshist.org/revolution/doc-viewer.php?item_id=851&old=1&mode=nav (1776) * http://dlib.nyu.edu/maassimages/maass/jpg/001162s.jpg (1777) * https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/vc006437.jpg (1780) * http://bostongazette.org/ ''Boston Gazette'' print shop of Edes & Gill museum website {{Authority control Publications established in 1719 Newspapers published in Boston 18th century in Boston Defunct newspapers published in Massachusetts Publications disestablished in 1798 1719 establishments in Massachusetts Newspapers of colonial America