 | NEW YORK. The history of printing in America, with a biography of printers, and an account of newspapers ... |  |
ALBANY.
A newspaper was first published in this city in 1772.[18]
Alexander and James Robertson were its publishers.
The publication of it ended in 1775. The Robertsons,
as has been observed under the head Connecticut, &c., were,
in 1773, concerned in printing The Norwich Packet; and it
is not improbable that, at the same time, one of them resided
in Albany and conducted the Post-Boy. In 1776,
they joined the royalists in the city of New York.
This paper was begun in 1771; hence Albany was the second city in
the State of New York, into which printing was introduced. It is inferred
that these printers were not established here till late in the season,
from the fact that the city charter was printed this year in New York by
Hugh Gaine. The only work that I have seen of their printing is the city
ordinances of 1773, which is better executed than the charter by Gaine.
A book store was kept before the revolution by Stuart Wilson, in a Dutch
house on the upper corner of North Pearl and State streets.
The next paper here was the New York Gazetteer and Northern Intelligencer,
which was first published in May, 1782, by Balentine & Webster.
It was printed on a sheet of short demy, with pica and long primer types,
at 13s. ($1.62 1/2) a year. Advertisements of subscribers were to be inserted
three weeks gratis. Balentine was addicted to intemperance, and
Webster separated from him at the end of a year. The former then enlarged
the size of his paper, but abandoned it after one year, when Webster
returned from New York, and began the publication of the Albany
Gazette, which was continued until 1845, The only works printed by Balentine
& Webster, that have come to light, are a pamphlet, by the Rev.
Thomas Clarke, of Cambridge, Washington county, entitled Plain Seasons,
being a dissuasive from the use of Watts's version of the Psalms, in worship,
and an Almanac for 1783. The only work known of Balantine's
press, is an Almanac of 1784. Mr. Webster began an Almanac in 1784,
for the year following, entitled Webster's Calendar, or the Albany Almanac,
which is still published, and is the oldest almanac extant in the United
States.—M.
The copies of this paper are entitled The Albany Gazette as far as they
can be found. The publication seems to have begun in November, 1771.
The earliest copy that has been discovered after a search of many years,
is No. 8, dated Jan. 20, 1772, and there are a few copies of about that date
preserved in the collection of the Albany Institute. In one of these the
publisher, "from motives of gratitude and duty," apologized to the public
for the omission of one week's publication, and hoped that the irregularity
of the mail from New York, since the first great fall of snow, and
the severe cold preceding Christmas, which froze the paper prepared for
press, so as to put a stop to its operation, would sufficiently account for
it. Alexander Robertson died at Port Roseway, Nova Scotia, Nov. 1784,
aged 42. James returned to Edinburgh, and was in business there in 1810,
and although I have endeavored to trace him since, all effort has failed.—M.
| NEW YORK. The history of printing in America, with a biography of printers, and an account of newspapers ... | |