In these unsettled times, when there’s no limit to the volume of news produced daily for our consumption, it’s comforting to think of an era when news was published only once a week and came packaged in easily digested 4-page doses. Let’s see what the Maryland Gazette’s printers, Anne Catharine Green and her son William, had for their readers 250 years ago.
In 1770, news traveled only as fast as a horse could run or a ship could sail, so the latest outside stories were already dated by the time they were printed here. February and March Gazettes described increasingly violent scuffles between British soldiers and townspeople in Boston and New York, but a detailed report on the Boston Massacre wasn’t published in Annapolis until April 5th, a full month after it occurred. The cause of the unrest? In part, tension over colonial boycotts of taxed imports.
There were some local incidents (stay tuned!), but no bloodshed. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom in the April 5, 1770 Maryland Gazette. Ads informed fans about upcoming horseraces.
Genteel parents considered whether their children would benefit most from Mr. L’Argeau’s dancing lessons (ok, doom for some kids!):
or Mr. Dumont’s French classes (gloom for the rest!):
Some readers probably wondered, as I do, whether the broken timepiece found in the Annapolis prison was William Nichol’s lost watch.
You can explore the Maryland Gazette at http://aomol.msa.maryland.gov/html/mdgazette.html.
Glenn E. Campbell HA Senior Historian
