''The Boston News-Letter'', first published on April 24, 1704, is regarded as the first continuously published newspaper in the
colony of Massachusetts. It was heavily subsidized by the British government, with a limited circulation. All copies were approved by the Royal governor before publication. The colonies’ first newspaper was ''
Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick'', which published its first and only issue on September 25, 1690. The ''
Weekly Jamaica Courant
The ''Weekly Jamaica Courant'', published as ''The Weekly Jamaica Courant, with News Foreign and Domestick'', was the first newspaper published in colonial Jamaica and the West Indies, and the second regular newspaper in the British settlements ...
'' followed in
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley Inte ...
from 1718. In 1726 the ''
Boston Gazette'' began publishing with
Bartholomew Green, Jr., as printer.
History
The ''News-Letter''’s first editor was
John Campbell, a bookseller and postmaster of Boston. Campbell had been actively writing and sending "newsletters" of European occurrences to New England governors for a year or more and thought it would save trouble to print them for all. The ''News-Letter'' was originally issued weekly as a half sheet, a single page printed on both sides, , dated "From Monday, April 17, to Monday, April 24, 1704." The printer was
Bartholomew Green.
During its early years, the ''News-Letter'' was filled primarily with news from London journals describing English politics and the details of European wars. As the only newspaper in the colonies at the time, it also reported on the sensational death of
Blackbeard the pirate in hand-to-hand combat in 1718.
In 1707, John Allen took care of printing the paper.
In 1722 the editorship passed to Green, who focused more on domestic events. After his death in 1732, his son-in-law John Draper, also a printer, took the paper's helm. He enlarged the paper to four pages and filled it with news from throughout the colonies. He conducted the paper until his death in 1762, at which time his son,
Richard Draper
Richard Draper (1726–1774) was an early American Boston printer and an editor of '' The Boston News-Letter''. Together with his father and his nephew Draper printed and published ''The News-Letter''. In the years leading up to the American Rev ...
, became the editor. Richard died in 1774, and his widow,
Margaret Green Draper, published the ''News-Letter'' for the rest of its existence.
[
In 1768, as the controversies between the American colonies and Britain were mounting, Richard Draper merged ''The Massachusetts Gazette'' with ''The Boston Post-Boy'', which began functioning as a ]Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
newspaper that gave voice to the Loyalist views. At this time the royal colonial government directed Draper to include the inscription "Published by Authority" in the ''Gazettes heading.[ Thomas, 1874, v. 2, p. 26]
Richard Draper had been an ardent loyalist
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British C ...
and firmly supported Britain during the controversies among the colonies during the 1770s. His widow had shared his feelings, and when the young man she installed as editor, Robert Boyle, showed sympathy with the Revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
, she replaced him with John Howe. Howe served as Mrs. Draper's editor until the British evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776, taking John Howe and Margaret Draper with them. With the British withdrawal, the ''News-Letter'' ceased to exist. The British government gave Margaret Draper a life pension.[
]
Varying titles
* ''The Boston news-letter''. April 24, 1704 – December 29, 1726.
* ''The Weekly news-letter''. January 5, 1727 – October 29, 1730.
* ''The Boston weekly news-letter''. November 5, 1730 – August 25, 1757.
* ''The Boston news-letter''. September 1, 1757 – March 18, 1762.
* ''The Boston news-letter, and New-England chronicle''. March 25, 1762 – March 31, 1763.
* ''The Massachusetts gazette''. And ''Boston news-letter''. April 7, 1763 – May 19, 1768.
* ''Boston weekly news-letter''. May 26, 1768 – September 21, 1769.
* ''The Massachusetts gazette; and the Boston weekly news-letter''. September 28, 1769 – February 29, 1776.[
]
References
Further reading
* Steven J. Shaw. Colonial Newspaper Advertising: A Step toward Freedom of the Press. ''The Business History Review'', Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1959), pp. 409–420
* Thomas S. Martin. The Long and the Short of It: A Newspaper Exchange on the Massachusetts Charters, 1772. ''The William and Mary Quarterly'', Third Series, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan. 1986), pp. 99–110
External links
Article on ''The Boston News-Letter''
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boston News-Letter, The
Publications established in 1704
Newspapers published in Boston
Defunct newspapers published in Massachusetts
18th century in Boston
1704 establishments in Massachusetts
1776 disestablishments in Massachusetts
Newspapers of colonial America