History
The News-Letter’s first editor was John Campbell, a bookseller and postmaster of Boston. Campbell had been actively writing and sending “news letters” 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, 8 inches (200 mm) x 12 inches (300 mm), printed on both sides and dated “From Monday, April 17, to Monday, April 24, 1704.” It was printed by 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, became editor. Richard died in 1774, and his widow, Margaret Green Draper, published the New-Letter for the rest of its existence.
Richard Draper had been an ardent loyalist and firmly supported the mother country in the stormy times of the 1770's. His widow shared his feeling, and when the young man Robert Boyle, whom she installed as editor, showed sympathy with the Revolution, she replaced him by John Howe, who conducted it until the British evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776. John Howe and Margaret Draper left with the British at that time, and the News-Letter ceased to exist. The British government gave Margaret Draper a life pension.
Read more about this topic: The Boston News-Letter
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