Today, should one want to figure out what’s going on, there are plenty of sources to turn to, from The Wanderer, for local goings-on, to The Boston Globe for more state-wide news, to the big APs, NBCs, and Foxs focusing national/international coverage. However, at the time of the nation’s founding, how would we have figured out what is going on and how long after the fact would we be hearing about it?
Firstly, as is the case with Paul Revere’s famous ride, word of mouth was crucial and generally the first means by which revolutionary Yankees would hear about what was going on. Word traveled fast, for the time, but electronic (radio and telegraph) means for information transfer were a ways off, so news could only travel as quickly as a horse; for international news, as quickly as an English frigate.
When the fields of the Battles of Concord and Lexington settled north of us here in the Tri-Town, the information had to travel about 70 miles until it reached us. This means it was about a day’s ride, so it’s likely the locals in the area probably started hearing about it a couple days later.
For a bit more concise information, beginning in Boston in 1772 were the formation of “Committees of Correspondence.” Samuel Adams and others in the Sons of Liberty organized these committees from Faneuil Hall, which would become present in many towns across first the state, and then the Thirteen Colonies. These committees, made up of town representatives, sought out information of injustice or exploitation by the hand of the British and distributed it to their local government bodies and town peoples. Nearing the start of the war itself, there was a network of nearly 100 towns across Massachusetts with such committees especially around Boston and on the South Coast.
Finally, is the distribution of printed news in the form of pamphlets, posters, and newspapers. The first regularly printed newspaper in America was The Boston News-Letter, first printed and circulated by Postmaster John Campbell in 1704. There had been others before it, but it was the first that resembles what we expect to see as a regular flow of news.
The big newspapers of the time were based out of Boston, Cambridge, Salem, and Worcester. There was the Boston Gazette, The Massachusetts Spy, The New England Chronicle, and dozens of others. The Providence Gazette was also nearby and began printing in 1762. The proliferation of these newspapers would prove to be instrumental in the spread of information and drumming up support for revolutionary causes, especially militia recruitment.
Of course, there was also The Royal Gazette, published and printed out of New York City from 1777 to 1783. The city was held by the British for most of the war and was a staging post to spread pro-British leaflets and papers.
Unlike today, it was generally a small operation handled by the printer and some apprentices without much monetary feedback to be gained. Often, the Continental Congress or Officers’ after-action reports would be sent directly to newspapers to be circulated. Speaking of, the town of Rochester, then including the lands of Marion and Mattapoisett, voted to uphold and grant powers to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775. It is also said to have sent a larger-than-average number of volunteers from the Plymouth area to serve in the army.
All in all, there were many ways in which the average American would get their news. Literacy was exceptionally high, being well over 90% for adults during the time (at least in New England), meaning there was no setback in picking up a paper or pamphlet as one may suspect. Generally, it would take a while for the information to trickle in from across the colonies, there was immense effort from Congress to expedite information. If you had read a number of troops were in a standoff in Virginia (i.e. Boston, New York, Yorktown) you would have to anxiously wait a number of days to hear the final results. Did newspapers win the war? They certainly helped.
Revolutionary News
By Sam Bishop