 | RHODE ISLAND. The history of printing in America, with a biography of printers, and an account of newspapers ... |  |
NEWPORT.
This town was the fourth in New England where a press
was established, and the second from which a newspaper
was issued.
Rhode-Island Gazette.
This was the first paper issued in the colony. No. 1 was
published September 27, 1732, printed on a small sheet of
pot size, from a pica type much worn. Its contents were
generally comprised on half a sheet. The day of publication
was Wednesday. Imprint, "Newport, Rhode-Island:
Printed and Sold by James Franklin, at his Printing-House
under the Town-School-House, where Advertisements
and Letters to the Author are taken in."
The Gazette was discontinued the 24th of May, 1733,
seven months from its first appearance.[1]
Some attempts
without success.[2]
First published about September, 1758,[3]
gained a permanent
establishment. It was printed on Mondays by James
Franklin, son of the printer of The Rhode Island Gazette,
generally on paper of crown size, folio, but usually consisting
of half a sheet only. When the publisher died, in
August, 1762, the Mercury was continued by his mother,
Anne Franklin, until she went into partnership with
Samuel Hall, under the firm of Franklin & Hall, in Thames
street. Mrs. Franklin died in April, 1763. Hall then became
the proprietor of the Mercury, and published it until
1768.
Under the management of Hall, the Mercury made a
more respectable appearance than before. It was printed
handsomely and correctly; its columns were filled with
Well selected intelligence from the papers printed in the
neighboring colonies, and due attention was paid to domestic
information. Advertising customers increased, and its
circulation became more extensive.
In 1768, Hall resigned the Mercury to Solomon Southwick,
who conducted it until several years subsequent to
the revolution. During the war, while the British troops
possessed Newport, Southwick set up a press at Attleborough,
Massachusetts, and there published the Mercury.
and reestablished his press.[4]
This paper, when first published, had a large cut of the
figure of Mercury in its title. Hall exchanged it for a
small king's arms. Southwick enlarged the king's arms,
and added to the title: "Containing the freshest advices,"
&c. His printing house was" in Queen Street, near the
Middle of the Parade."
Southwick continued the Mercury on the respectable
ground on which it was placed by Hall; and, during the
contest for the independence of our country, he conducted
it with firmness and patriotic zeal. Southwick's successors
have continued the Mercury to this time (1810). It
is the fourth oldest paper now published in the United
States.[5]
This would be eight months; but it does not seem to have been
regularly published; No. 17 is dated Jan. 25, No. 19 Feb. 22, No. 20
March 1.—M.
The press used by the Franklins was preserved in the office of the
Mercury to a late period, and an effort was made to sell it for $100 by
the administrator of the Barbers; but the claim that it was the press on
which Benjamin Franklin wrought, could not be verified, and it remained
unsold in a worm-eaten and disabled condition in 1858.—M.
It is stated (Hist. Mag., IV, 87), that the British plundered his office of
£200. Another report (Newport Mercury, Sept. 12, 1858), states that before
leaving the island, Southwick buried his press and types in the garden in
the rear of the old Kilburn House, in Broad street; that a tory, having
knowledge of the fact, gave the enemy information, and they were dug up,
and used by the British during their stay, and that copies of a paper published
by them are preserved in the Redwod Library.—M.
Henry Barber, who published the Mercury in 1780, learned printing
of Southwick. The family emigrated from England, and settled in Westerly,
K. I. He died Sept. 11, 1800, and was succeeded by his sons, William
and John H.; they were finally succeeded by William Lee Barber,
the son of John H., who died Dec. 27, 1850, aged 25, and the paper, which
had been published by them almost uninterruptedly during seventy years,
passed out of the family. It is still continued, and is the oldest paper in
the country except the New Hampshire Gazette, which is two years its
senior. See vol. 1, pp. 199–201.—M.
The following item is clipped from the Boston Daily Advertiser of Nov.
15, 1872: "The Newport Mercury was sold to-day to John P. Sanborn, who
for two years past has been the editor of the Daily News of this city. F. A.
Pratt, the former owner of the Mercury, has been connected with it for
thirty years, and from its columns has reaped a profitable harvest with
which he will retire from the journalistic field. It is rumored that the day
is not far distant when the Mercury will be issued as a morning daily."—H.
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