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The Boston News-Letter

The Boston weekly founded in 1704, the first continuously published newspaper in British North America and a near-contemporary colonial witness to golden-age piracy.

From1704ToDate not establishedAlso writtenBoston News-Letter; The Boston News-Letter (Boston, Mass.); The News-Letter

The Boston News-Letter was a weekly newspaper printed at Boston in Massachusetts Bay, founded in 1704. It is the first continuously published newspaper in the British colonies of North America; an earlier Boston paper, Publick Occurrences of 1690, was suppressed after one issue, so the distinction is continuity, not priority. The inaugural number is dated 24 April 1704 and carries a dateline spanning 17 to 24 April, one issue under two conventions. The piracy-relevant run is 1704 to 1726.1

The paper and its makers

Its founder and first editor was John Campbell, a Scotchman who was a bookseller and the town's postmaster in Boston; the first number ran from Monday 17 April to Monday 24 April 1704. Bartholomew Green, of Boston's leading printing family, was Campbell's printer and printed the paper until 3 November 1707. The masthead carried the words "Published by Authority". Isaiah Thomas, who reprints it, takes that line cautiously rather than as prior inspection of every issue: there were licensers of the press at the time, and the phrase, he presumes, "means nothing more than this; what appeared in the publication was not disapproved by the licensers".2

Publication was suspended from May 1709 to the start of 1710, a gap noted in bibliographic records.3

What an issue contains

The first number was half a sheet of pot paper, and the paper expanded later. Its whole contents were an extract from The London Flying Post about the Pretender, the queen's speech to both houses of parliament on that occasion, a few articles under the Boston head, four short paragraphs of marine intelligence from New York, Philadelphia and New London, and one advertisement. It was Campbell's design that the paper should give "a selected, regular succession of foreign events", and he was at "great Charge ... for several Setts of Public Prints, by sundry Vessels from London".4

The Blackbeard issue

Edward Thache was killed in action at Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina, on 22 November 1718 in the Old Style calendar, in the boarding fight with Lieutenant Robert Maynard's force. The News-Letter is said to have carried the story about three months later, in an issue dated 23 February to 2 March 1719, under a Rhode Island dateline of 20 February, an issue not yet located in the run. The report opens with a long single sentence, then the close combat and the display of Thache's severed head. It is taken as the fullest near-contemporary printed narrative of the engagement, a standing that is likely rather than settled, and the text on which later retellings rest.5

The paper is also drawn on for the wreck of the Whydah, Samuel Bellamy's ship, lost off Cape Cod in April 1717, and for the Boston trials of the crew who survived; the use is scholarly, with no issue yet quoted. More broadly the paper documents the machinery ranged against piracy in New England: the vice-admiralty courts, the naval presence, the proclamations and rewards, and the trials and hangings of captured men. It carried items on Edward Low's company in 1723.

Reliability and cautions

Its strength is that it is a contemporary artefact from inside the Atlantic world it describes. Four cautions govern every citation. It took its foreign news from the London prints brought in by ship and ran months behind, Campbell telling his readers in August 1719 that "this time 12 Months, we were then 13 Months behind with the Foreign News beyond Great Britain, and now less than Five Months". Its "Published by Authority" standing meant only that what appeared had not been disapproved by the licensers, so it is no warrant for accuracy. Much of what it printed repeated an earlier source instead of testifying independently, the same wording turning up in other colonial papers, the earlier source often an item relayed from the London press. Its dates are Old Style, and its year was at first reckoned from March, number 664 beginning the year 1717 with January; that can mislead by up to eleven days and, near the new year, by a whole one. Each item is best read as a dated pointer, checked against the Admiralty records, the Colonial Office papers and the court records.6

Survival and access

The run survives unusually complete for an early American newspaper. The Library of Congress catalogues it under control number sn83020400, as The Boston News-Letter (Boston, Mass.), spanning 1704 to 1726, with about 1,196 issues recorded. The Readex Microprint Corporation reproduced it on microopaque and microfilm. Issue-level shelfmarks vary by repository and must be taken from the holding institution's own catalogue.7

It is a core title in the American Antiquarian Society and Readex Early American Newspapers digital programmes, and the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester and the Massachusetts Historical Society at Boston hold significant originals and reproductions.8

What the sources cannot yet give is the paper's own Whydah reporting: no 1717 issue or wording has been pinned to a date, so the connection rests on scholarly use. How often the paper carried official proclamations, and how often piracy, across the golden-age decades has not been counted, and how far it leaned to the government's view of pirates is not settled. Who edited and printed it after 3 November 1707 is not established. The early issues have not been consulted; the founder, the printer and the masthead phrase are as Isaiah Thomas gives them in his history of printing.

What the evidence does not settle

Boston News-Letter's Bellamy report

  • Exact 1717 issue reporting the Whydah wreck unidentified

Editorial and printing succession

  • Printer and editor succession not established against primary sourcesUnverified

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The Boston News-Letter was founded at Boston in 1704, its first number dated 24 April 1704, and is the first continuously published newspaper in the British colonies of North America. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Library catalogue: Catalogue record, The Boston News-Letter (Boston, Mass.) 1704 to 1726, Library of Congress, control number sn83020400
  2. The Boston News-Letter was begun by John Campbell, a Scotchman who was a bookseller and postmaster in Boston, its first number running from Monday 17 April to Monday 24 April 1704 and carrying the masthead line "Published by Authority". Bartholomew Green was Campbell's printer and printed the paper until 3 November 1707, after which John Allen printed it until the Boston fire of October 1711 destroyed his printing house, when it returned to Green's house in Newbury Street. Isaiah Thomas, who reprints the masthead, glosses the authority line cautiously rather than as prior inspection of every issue: at that time there were licensers of the press, and the phrase, he presumes, "means nothing more than this; what appeared in the publication was not disapproved by the licensers". Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Press history quoting the paper itself: Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, with a Biography of Printers, second edition, volume 2 (Albany, 1874), Newspapers, Massachusetts, Boston, pages 12 to 15, read in a scanned copy on the Internet Archive: "John Campbell, a Scotchman, who was a bookseller and postmaster in Boston, was the first who began and established a publication of this kind. It was entitled... The Boston News-Letter. Published by Authority. From Monday April 17, to Monday April 24, 1704"; "Green was Campbell's printer, and Boone was for some weeks his publisher"; "Bartholomew Green printed the News-Letter for Campbell until November 3, 1707"
  3. Publication of the Boston News-Letter was suspended from May 1709 to the start of 1710. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Serial catalogue: Serial catalogue note of suspension from May 1709 to 1 January 1710 (union catalogue serial record, Stanford SearchWorks 1992522)
  4. The first number of the Boston News-Letter was half a sheet of pot paper whose whole contents were an extract from The London Flying Post about the Pretender, the queen's speech to both houses of parliament on that occasion, a few articles under the Boston head, four short paragraphs of marine intelligence from New York, Philadelphia and New London, and one advertisement. It was Campbell's design that the paper should give "a selected, regular succession of foreign events", and he was at "great Charge ... for several Setts of Public Prints, by sundry Vessels from London". Official proclamations as a standing category, and the recurrence of piracy across the golden-age decades, are established by nothing read here. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Press history quoting the paper itself: Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, with a Biography of Printers, second edition, volume 2 (Albany, 1874), pages 12 to 17, read in a scanned copy on the Internet Archive, for the contents of number 1 and for Campbell's advertisements of 1719 quoted there
  5. Edward Teach was killed at Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina, on 22 November 1718 in the Old Style calendar, and the Boston News-Letter is said to have carried the account about three months later, in an issue dated 23 February to 2 March 1719 under a Rhode Island dateline of 20 February, an issue not yet located in the run. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Colonial newspaper and modern reporting: The Boston News-Letter, issue of 23 February to 2 March 1719, as described in "Published by Authority: The Boston News-Letter, 1704 to 1776," Readex, accessed 2026; "Blackbeard's Final Battle: Sorting Facts, Fiction," Kevin Duffus, Coastal Review, 2020; "How a Boston Newspaper Covered the Death of Blackbeard," Ryan Teague Beckwith, accessed 2026
  6. The Boston News-Letter took its foreign news from the London prints brought in by ship and ran months behind. Campbell told his readers in August 1719 that "this time 12 Months, we were then 13 Months behind with the Foreign News beyond Great Britain, and now less than Five Months", and that a subscriber would be "accommodated with all the News of Europe &c, contained in the Publick Prints of London that are needful for to be known in these parts". Its year was at first reckoned from March: number 664 begins the year 1717 with January, the paper having previously begun the year with March. That it reported at second and third hand specifically from ship captains is established by nothing read here. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Press history quoting the paper itself: Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, with a Biography of Printers, second edition, volume 2 (Albany, 1874), pages 15 to 17, read in a scanned copy on the Internet Archive; Thomas notes at page 15 that number 664 begins the year 1717 with January and that the News-Letter had previously begun the year with March, and quotes Campbell's advertisements of 12 January and 10 August 1719
  7. The Boston run is catalogued by the Library of Congress under control number sn83020400 as The Boston News-Letter (Boston, Mass.), spanning 1704 to 1726 with about 1,196 issues recorded, and was reproduced on microopaque and microfilm by the Readex Microprint Corporation. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Library catalogue: Catalogue record, The Boston News-Letter (Boston, Mass.) 1704 to 1726, Library of Congress, Washington DC, control number sn83020400
  8. It is a core title in the American Antiquarian Society and Readex Early American Newspapers digital programmes, and the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester and the Massachusetts Historical Society at Boston hold significant originals and reproductions. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Repository catalogues: Online catalogues of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, accessed 2026; Readex Early American Newspapers programme