Rag Linen | Online Museum of Historic Newspapers

After extensive archive and internet research, including a few email exchanges with the British Library, it is my conclusion that the first official British newspaper report of the actual July 4th Declaration was published in the August 10 to 13, 1776, London Chronicle.  While the full printing of the Declaration appeared four days later in the August 17 issue of the Chronicle, the August 13 issue features on page three a brief, but hugely significant and historically important breaking news announcement:

Advice is received that the Congress resolved upon independence the 4th of July; and, it is said, have declared war against Great Britain in form.

With this, the people of England learned for the first time that America had officially declared itself independent.  According to history.com, news of the Declaration arrived in London on Saturday, August 10, 1776, and, at approximately 1300 words, took some time to typeset.  The London Gazette also published an August 10 to 13, 1776, issue, but it lacked any mention of the Declaration.  As the official court organ, and perhaps to avoid royal embarrassment, the Gazette also refrained from printing the entire text of the Declaration while other “Mother Country” newspapers jumped at it, including the London Chronicle (Aug 17 – first in Europe), Edinburgh Advertiser (Aug 20), Edinburgh Evening Courant (Aug 21), Belfast News-Letter (Aug 27), etc.  Click the article image to enlarge and read the first British news of America’s July 4th independence, as reported in the London Chronicle, August 13, 1776.

As research for his forthcoming book 1775, Derek W. Beck uncovered photos of Dr. Joseph Warren’s skull, which support the idea that Warren was shot facing his enemy, at close range, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. As Beck summarizes:

“Dr. Joseph Warren was shot in the face, looking at his assailant, and given the exit wound, he undoubtedly died instantly. He made no final speeches. He was not shot in the back of the head while retreating. Whether he rallied a few steadfast Yanks to give a final volley into the oncoming British is unknown, but Dr. Warren certainly died facing the swarm of redcoats as they poured over the Breed’s Hill redoubt toward him.”

J.L. Bell also writes about Warren’s death and Beck’s photographic discovery on his Boston 1775 blog. According to Bell:

“After the doctor was killed at Bunker Hill, the British forces put his body in a shared grave, and then after the siege of Boston—on 4 Apr 1776, in fact—the Americans dug him up again… Physicians, including Warren’s brother John, examined this skull in some detail in 1776 to be sure the body was actually his; eventually Paul Revere identified his dental work.”

As Rag Linen’s contribution to the conversation, below are two newspaper reports of great significance and insight to the subject matter of Warren’s death. The top photo, from the 1775 June 29 New England Chronicle (printed in Cambridge, MA, at Harvard College, 3.5 miles west of Breed’s Hill), is a first report of Warren’s death. The second photo, from the 1776 April 25 New England Chronicle (printed in Boston), is the news of Warren’s reinterment and identifying his body by two false teeth. The last paragraph is the latter report is difficult to read so I provided a transcription below.

The last paragraph, difficult to read because of an archival repair to the paper, is transcribed below:

Though the Body (which our savage enemies “scarce privileged with earth enough to hide it from the birds of prey”) was disfigured, when taken up, yet was sufficiently known by two artificial teeth, which were set for him a short time before his glorious exit.

This is a quick follow up to my previous post that featured the 1775 April 17 issue of the Boston Evening-Post. That issue, published by Thomas and John Fleet two days before the Battle of Lexington and Concord, turned out to be its second to last issue under the Fleet brothers.

From the same issue, below is an excerpt containing a variety of local news, including the adjournment of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, which was meeting in Concord. The right column also includes details of “Parties of Minute Men” who captured 29 Tories and forced them to “behave better”.

Without any mention in the issue, the 1775 April 6 edition of Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy — featuring the famous serpent “Join or Die” cartoon in the name plate — was his last from Boston.  As the colophon states, it was printed at the “South-Corner of MARSHALL’s-LANE, leading from the MILL-BRIDGE into UNION STREET,” Boston.

In the colophon, Thomas also boasted having “the greatest CIRCULATION of any in New-England.”  While the average subscriber base of New England newspapers was closer to 600 in 1775, the Patriot Boston Gazette and Massachusetts Spy saw their numbers skyrocket during the Revolutionary crisis. The Spy claimed one of the largest circulations in colonial America with 3500.

On the eve of war, 10 days after his last Boston issue, Thomas moved his presses a safe distance from Boston — 42 miles west to the country town of Worcester.

During his rush of packing and moving, Thomas apparently only had time and funds to order two advertisements in other Boston newspapers.  The first ran in the 1775 April 10 issue of the Boston Post-Boy.  The second published a day after Thomas’s actual move date, 1775 April 17, in the Boston Evening-Post.  The second ad, pictured below, “begs the continuance of the favors of his good Customers.”

Unfortunately, Thomas’s begging didn’t work.  By 1780, the circulation of the Massachusetts Spy sank to between 300 and 500, a total circulation loss of about 90 percent in five years. Click here for more details and sources of 18th century newspaper circulations.

Thomas’s advertisement in the Evening-Post also claimed the move from Boston to Worcester was temporary. “As soon as the tranquility of this unfortunate Capital is restored, he intends returning to this Place and serving them as usual.”   That never happened.

According to the American Antiquarian Society, which Thomas founded in 1812, “after the war, Thomas continued to live and work in Worcester. In partnership with former apprentices, he owned several printing offices and bookstores, as well as paper mills and a bindery, employing over one hundred and fifty people. Thomas published newspapers, broadsides, sheet music, periodicals, pamphlets, and a yearly almanac. He produced over four hundred book titles for both adult and juvenile readers, including the first dictionary printed in America and the first American edition of Mother Goose’s Melody (1786). Thomas was Worcester’s postmaster from 1775 to 1801. He joined the Order of Freemasons in Worcester in 1793 and became Grand Master of Massachusetts in 1802. In that year, at the age of fifty-three, Thomas retired to pursue his interests in the history of the young nation and in the origins of printing.”

***Speaking of revolutionary printing, a colonial-era print shop will be opening April 15, 2011, on Boston’s historic Freedom Trail. Rag Linen is honored to have a seat on the new shop’s executive board. For more details about the Printing Office of Edes & Gill, visit bostongazette.org (we also designed their website).

The below advertisement was published in the bottom right-hand corner, page three, of the 1775 April 17 issue of the Boston Evening-Post, which turned out to be its second to last issue.  Published by Thomas and John Fleet, the Evening-Post concluded its run on April 24, 1775, with this passage: “The unlucky transactions of the last week are so variously related, that we shall not at present undertake to give any particular account thereof.  The Printers of the Boston Evening Post hereby inform the Town that they shall desist publishing the papers after this day, till matters are in a more settled state.”

About three weeks after George Washington learned of Benedict Arnold’s treason, the Boston Gazette published an issue loaded with juicy details. Among the articles was an extract from Nathanael Greene’s orders, mis-dated September 16, 1780, instead of September 26.  Below is the extract:

The September 24 to 28, 1779 issue of the Edinburgh Advertiser gives readers a true first draft of history as it reports, perhaps for the first time anywhere, the famous naval victory by John Paul Jones in the Bonnehomme Richard over the HMS Serapis, known as the Battle of Flamborough Head.  This newspaper report is also of great significance because of its proximity to the event. The Advertiser was printed only 200 miles from Flamborough Head in Edinburgh, the closest major city to the battle, which supports the thought that this is likely the first worldwide report. Below is an excerpt from this exciting issue.

Later in the issue, in an extract of a letter from Newcastle, Sept. 25, we learn “Paul Jones’s squadron spread terror on the English coast wherever he appeared, the inhabitants burying and removing their most valuable effects and getting ready to depart as soon as he landed. It is amazing that this daring adventurer should have continued on our coasts for a month terrifying the people and capturing their property, without the least attempt to disturb him. Two fifty gun ships would have taken the whole of his squadron. Surely the British ministry are fast asleep!”

Paul Revere was a silversmith, engraver, political activist and express rider known for alarming Boston’s countryside on the night of April 18, 1775. Far less known about Revere is his military role during the Revolutionary War.

According to The Life of Colonel Paul Revere, Volume 1, by Elbridge Henry Goss: “When the British troops evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776, the Continental Army “endeavored to make useless the cannon at Castle William — now Fort Independence — and the other fortifications, by breaking off the trunions, and in other ways disabling them. At the request of General Washington, Revere repaired the damages; and he also invented a new carriage for them. At this time a regiment of artillery, consisting of ten companies, was raised for the defence of the town, with its headquarters at Boston. This was also called the ‘Massachusetts State’s Train.’ Revere immediately entered the service, being commissioned at first, April 10, 1776, as Major in the First Regiment of Militia. A month later, however, May 10, he was transferred to the Artillery Regiment; and not long after, November 27th, he was promoted to the position of Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment… In the artillery service which Revere entered, he remained; fulfilling his various duties with the utmost conscientiousness. He was detailed on many occasions for important duties, and was several times placed in command at Castle William.”

From what I have been able to find, only one brief mention of Revere’s promotion to Lieutenant Colonel ever made the Boston newspapers.  The one-liner was tucked away on the third page of the December 5, 1776 issue of The Continental Journal, printed by John Gill on Queen Street. Below is that one Boston newspaper announcement of Revere’s military promotion.

UPDATE:  Please consider donating a symbolic $76 to help the Paul Revere House renew and expand its historic facilities. It’s a true historic treasure and $76 will go a long way.  If you’re a loyal reader of Rag Linen, a fan of Paul Revere, or a history buff of any kind, please consider it.  Thank you! Donate your symbolic $76 today.

Supplementing his weekly Massachusetts Spy newspaper, perhaps to satisfy a demand for more hard-hitting anti-British essays and illustrations, Isaiah Thomas printed the first issue of Royal American Magazine in January 1774.  The magazine was published every month until the eve of the Revolutionary War and featured Paul Revere and John Hancock among its many contributors.

“Besides the usual variety of general literature, this work contains a faithful summary of the public transactions of Boston during that eventful year, and great value is added to the work by the public documents preserved in its pages,” according to Samuel Burnside, Memoir of Isaiah Thomas, Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society.

Below is an early — possibly the earliest — advertisement for the premier issue of Royal American Magazine, as published in Thomas’ Massachusetts Spy on October 14, 1773.

The October 16, 1781 Pennsylvania Packet includes several early October reports about the American and French forces surrounding Cornwallis at Yorktown.  Here is the first one from that issue.

The 235th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord is quickly approaching, so the unveiling of this collection is very timely.  Below is the introduction to Rag Linen’s Battle of Lexington and Concord collection.

“The New England militia were elaborately organized and actively led. On the morning of April 19, 1775, they stood against Thomas Gage’s Regular Infantry in fixed positions and close formations at least six times. Twice the Regulars were broken. In the afternoon, the American leaders changed their tactics. Now facing a larger enemy and artillery, they forged a moving ‘circle of fire’ around the British force and maintained it for many hours — an extraordinary feat of combat leadership with citizen soldiers.

“After the fighting was over, many of these same men, including Paul Revere and Thomas Gage, fought the second battle of Lexington and Concord. This was a contest for what their generation was the first to call popular opinion, and even more decisive than the battle itself. Yankee leaders were victorious in spreading their version of events through the colonies. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine all testified that the news of Lexington was, in Adam’s phrase, their revolutionary Rubicon,” according to Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer (1994).

Rag Linen’s Battle of Lexington and Concord collection provides evidence of the rush, by both sides, to influence public opinion via the rapid dissemination of letters, newspapers and commentary. The collection features an exciting mix of primary source material from the days, weeks and months following April 19, 1775.

The first item, the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal dated April 27, 1775, is the only one of its kind known to exist in either institutional or private hands. It includes extracts from three letters, two of which may be whole, and one that was penned on the same day as the battle. Also featured is a London newspaper printing Gen. Gage’s official battle account. American newspaper printers, after reading Gage’s report, took their turn correcting and commenting on his version of events. As part of the counterpoint, the Connecticut Journal on August 23, 1775, prints: “To reason on the facts, which are now indisputable, is to talk which will better suit some future opportunity. The public have but to ponder on the melancholy truths thus attested by government. The sword of civil war is drawn and if there is truth in Heaven, THE KING’S TROOPS UNSHEATHED IT.” Click here to view the collection.

The May 9, 1775 Pennsylvania Evening Post (Philadelphia) included a short description of the Massachusetts and Connecticut delegates arriving in New York en route to Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress, which was the congress that managed colonial affairs during the Revolutionary War and declared independence from Britain 14 months later.

Dateline: New York, May 8, 1775

“They were met a few miles out of town by a great number of the principal gentlemen of the place, in carriages and on horseback, and escorted into the city by near a thousand men under arms; the roads were lined with greater numbers of people than were ever known on any occasion before. Their arrival was announced by the ringing of bells, and other demonstrations of joy. They have double centries placed at the doors of their lodging.” See the full article below.

Later in the same issue, under the dateline Philadelphia, May 9, we read about the arrival of the delegates from Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, etc.

Last week, J.L. Bell wrote on  his Boston 1775 blog about Gen. George Washington’s arrival in Cambridge to take command of the Continental Army. Washington was accompanied by Gen. Charles Lee, an experienced British officer who was bitter about not being appointed Commander in Chief and, according to Wikipedia, had nothing but the utmost disdain for Washington. The Boston 1775 blog post references a letter in which Lee wrote: “We arrived here on Sunday before dinner. We found every thing exactly the reverse of what had been represented.”

Lee’s privately-shared frustration with the actual state of the army may have also been publicly evident from his short one-paragraph response to his welcome address.  By comparison, Washington wrote a three-paragraph response. Certainly, this may be an analytical stretch, but it’s interesting to read Lee’s private critical assessment and compare it to his public response, as published in the June 29 to July 6, 1775 New England Chronicle. This newspaper was printed from Stoughton Hall at Harvard College in Cambridge, making it the likely first report of Washington’s July 3rd arrival.

Washington’s response, printed in the same issue, is straight forward and sympathetic to the circumstances under which the army was formed.  As J.L. Bell comments, the army was still reeling from the Battle of Bunker Hill.  In the second paragraph of his response, Washington states:

“The short space of time which has elapsed since my arrival does not permit me to decide upon the state of the army. The course of human affairs forbids an expectation that troops formed under such circumstances, should at once possess the order, regularity and discipline of veterans — Whatever deficiencies there may be, will I doubt not, soon be made up by the activity and zeal of the officers, and the docility and obedience of the men. These qualities united with their native bravery and spirit will afford a happy presage of success, and put a final period to those distresses which now overwhelm this once happy country.”

Click the detail image above or this link to read the entire page from the July 6, 1775 New England Chronicle that features the welcome addresses and responses from Washington and Lee upon their arrival at Cambridge.