Isaiah
Thomas....The Patriotic Printer !
Not
forgetting the ‘anguazil’ !!
…………………………………………………………….
Isaiah Thomas laid his rifle on the ground of the village
green and rested himself against a tree trunk. He estimated that it must be
nearly two o’ clock...stars winked above, leaves rustled in the slight breeze.
The evening was pleasantly warm. Insects gambolled in the darkness. April 19th. 1775. It was to be an
historic date in American history.
Over
an hour previous Paul Revere had ridden pell-mell into Lexington, this small
village in Massachusetts, and announced to the Reverend Jonas Clarke that 700 British
troops, resplendent in their colourful uniforms, were on their way! “The
Red-coats are coming,” he had told them breathlessly. “ Their goal is to attack
Concord and destroy the military supplies we have stored there.”
But
to reach that neighbouring town the British would pass through Lexington.
Since
the initial alarm had been given some of the men had returned to their
homes...and wives. Some found themselves back in Buckman’s tavern. Lookouts had been posted. Paul Revere had
galloped on to warn the people of
Concord... “riding into the history books.”
There were only about one hundred and thirty of them, these patriotic men of Lexington. But ringing in each heart were the words of Patrick Henry, a self-taught, twenty-year old lawyer, who had thundered out in the Virginia legislature just a month previously, “Give me liberty or give me death!!”
THE STAMP ACT !
When the British Parliament
had decreed their infamous Stamp Tax on the American colonies a decade earlier the seeds of discontent had
been sown. It was not the Tax....the
American colonists recognised their responsibility to pay Britain for the cost
of their defence against the French and the Indians, “but they opposed the principle of the Parliament being able to
tax them without their consent.”(Beliles. p. 129)
Feelings ran high, some
Americans siding with the British and some taking a strong stand against them. Effigies
of notable authorities were burned. Sympathisers on one side were tarred and
feathered by those on the other. Martial law was imposed in some cities.
Newspaper offices became a target for attack.
Printing presses were often destroyed by mobs.
More than once Isaiah Thomas
had been summoned to appear before magistrates for articles in his ‘seditious’
newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy. Whilst
Mills and Hicks issued The Massachusetts
Gazette, sympathetic to the British position, Isaiah Thomas had sided with
the colonists.
AWAITING
THE CONFLICT
And
now here he was among the Lexington
defenders. He was not a professional soldier.
Hardly any of them were. True,
John Parker, 45, had seen action during
the French and Indian war. But Jonas Parker ... who would be dead
before daylight,...was the local
wrestler. And Caleb Harrington
would soon be dead “on the doorstep of the church where he had
run for powder.” ( Adams p. 21) Just ordinary everyday citizens who had
suddenly been called upon to take a stand for the things in which they most
surely believed.
But
Isaiah Thomas would survive this skirmish, for such it must be called, and
return to his trade. Little did he realise, as he sat there in the darkness,
that historians would one day refer to
him as “the leading printer and
publisher of his day.” ( Thomas. p. x)
He had been born 26 years
earlier, January 19th 1749 to be exact, near Boston ,
Massachusetts. Moses Thomas, his father
had deserted the family and left his wife to raise five children. Young Isaiah was apprenticed ...at the age
of six!!...to Zechariah Fowle whom he
described as “a singular man, very irritable and effeminate, and better skilled
in the domestic work of females than in the business of a printing house......”
In July 1754, whilst Isaiah was still employed in this printery,
Zechariah and his brother Daniel issued a
small pamphlet, without their name attached . No wonder! It was called The
Monster of Monsters and had to do with some of the British
magistrates. Isaiah Thomas recorded for
posterity that, “when purchasers
inquired of hawkers where the Monster came from all the reply was, ‘It dropped
from the moon.’ ” (Thomas. p. 132) The
Fowle brothers escaped prosecution... but Isaiah’s young eyes were opened to
the dangers of being a print-shop proprietor!
For eleven years Isaiah learned this craft ... observing that Zechariah Fowle “was an
indifferent hand at the press, ( and) was never in the printing house when he
could find a pretence to be absent.”(Thomas. p. 133) But during that time 20,000 copies of The New England Spelling
Book were printed. And Hymns and Spiritual Songs by Puritan
hymnist, Isaac Watts. Zechariah apparently did a few things right ....
In 1770 Isaiah was made a partner
in the firm. The partnership was dissolved three months later due to a
disagreement. Isaiah , now aged 21,
purchased the press and types.
But now commences his
‘vagabond’ days...travelling to various parts of America
( which at that time was scattered along the East coast), working for printers here and printers
there, and arguing with them!
In Halifax, Nova Scotia , for example, he worked on the Halifax Gazette. The Dutchman, named
Henry, who was the proprietor of this
newspaper “was a very unskilful printer.” Isaiah tells us, “To add to his want
of knowledge or abilities in his profession he added indolence...”( Thomas p.
156) But it was during this time the Stamp Act was issued resulting in
“spirited and successful opposition ” among those in the American colonies. (
ibid.)
Isaiah wrote a critical article and printed it in the Halifax Gazette. Henry, the
Dutchman, who had not even seen the offensive article found
himself hauled before the British
magistrates.
And so was Isaiah ! He tells us what happened ........
Q. Why came you here?
A. Because I was sent for.
Q. What is your name?
A. Isaiah Thomas.
Q. Are you the young Englandman who prints for Henry?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How dare you publish in the Gazette that the people of
Nova Scotia are displeased with the Stamp Act ?
A. I thought it was true.
Q. You had no right to think so. If you publish anything
more of such stuff, you shall be punished. You may go...... ( Thomas. p. 157)
..................................
Of course Isaiah felt so
strongly about the matter that before long he was in trouble again.
A strange sentence occurs in his account of what transpired...a sheriff is sent to take him before the magistrate , and as he “was about to obey the orders of this terrible anguazil” he decided not to do so. Anguazil !! Even my 1920-page Oxford dictionary misses out on that one !!
In 1767 he moves to New
Hampshire for five months and then back to Boston where he joins forces again
with his old mentor, Zechariah Fowles.
By now war with Britain
seemed inevitable. Many clergymen ,
known as the ‘Black regiment’ because of the black robes they wore, preached
vehemently against King George III. Some denounced him as Anti-Christ. And some
actually laid a pistol on the pulpit
alongside their Bible.
Thomas Paine, atheist and
political activist, wrote of the British monarch as “the royal brute of
England.... How impious is the title of sacred majesty,” he added, “applied to
a worm!” ( Stout. p. 15)
Then came the famous ...or
infamous, depending on whose side you are on ..... Boston Tea Party. Britain had now widened the tax to include
tea ... and the Americans
decided to show their displeasure. The tea had arrived
at the Port of Boston. Disguised as
Indians a group of patriots boarded the ships and dumped the tea overboard.
Not only were the battle
lines now drawn but the various colonies of America began to
achieve a unity they had not
previously known . Political cartoons
appeared for the first time in
the newspapers of the day lampooning
Britain and urging the colonies to join forces. . The United States of America would soon result.
THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.
Now
Isaiah Thomas sits awaiting the advance of the British troops. It is about
2:00am when the church bells summon the men of Lexington to readiness. Both
Captain Parker, of Lexington, and Major
John Pitcairn , leader of the Red-coats, have ordered their men not to fire
unless fired upon. ( Adams. p. 21)
But
in the darkness a shot rings out. A nervous finger has squeezed the trigger.
Whether British or American, nobody knows. It has been refereed to as ‘the shot
that echoed around the world.’ And for “a few minutes” ...that is all... the
battle takes place. When it is over eight Americans lie dead, or dying. The
British had one soldier, slightly wounded.
At
Concord, however, a different story was to be told. There the British troops
“would be rebuffed and sent reeling back to Boston in disarray and defeat.”
(ibid.)
But the Revolutionary War would drag on another six years until George Washington finally defeated the British at Valley Forge.
Isaiah Thomas continued to
print during those years of turmoil, defending the patriots and informing the
public as to how the war was progressing.
His business prospered.
It is remarkable to read that
sometime after the war he had “sixteen
presses in use, seven of them in Worcester,
Mass. and five at his company’s printing house in Boston. They printed three newspapers in the
country, a magazine in Boston; and they had five book stores. He erected a paper-mill and set up a
bindery. “(Thomas. p. 182)
Numerous editions of the
Bible were printed, the most interesting being his “Heiroglyphic Bible” in
1788. It is described as “the most ambitious woodcut book produced in America
up to that time, one of the sixty-five children’s book titles produced by this
pioneer printer of children’s literature ...” ( Internet.) Only four copies are
known to exist.
It is not to be thought of as
decorated with Egyptian
heiroglyphics, but numerous pictures on
every page... most of them in place of
the words!
In 1810 he published his own book, The
History of Printing in America, an invaluable resource for those interested
in the printing industry. And, I might add, for the information contained in
this article!
Twenty-one years later, on
April 4, 1831, this pre-eminent printer of early America died.
His son, Isaiah, Jnr.
continued to publish The Massachusetts
Spy, print books and operate the book stores.
Let Isaiah Thomas have the last word .....”For the liberty of the press I am now an advocate, but I
still, as I ever did, hold the opinion that a line should be drawn between the
liberty and licentiousness of the press.” (Thomas p. 130-1)
Amen, Isaiah, amen !
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The History of Printing in
America by Isaiah Thomas. 650 pp. Weathervane Books. Reprinted 1970.
America’s Providential
History by M. Beliles & S.
McDowell 294pp. Providence Foundation. 1996.
Yankee Doodle went to
Church by J.L. Adams. 222pp. Flemming revell Pub. 1989.
Christian History
Magazine ( Vol. 15, No. 2) Article by Harry Stout. 1996.
Plus Encyclopaedias and Internet articles.
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