William Goddard (October 10, 1740 – December 23, 1817) was an early American patriot, publisher, printer and postal inspector. Born in New London, Connecticut, Goddard lived through the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, during which he opposed British rule of the colonies through his actions and publications. He was a major figure in the development of the colonial postal system, which became the U.S. Post Office after the American Revolution.
Goddard served as an apprentice printer under James Parker. In 1762, he became an early American publisher who later established four newspapers during the American colonial period, including the Pennsylvania Chronicle, Pennsylvania Gazette, and The Constitutional Courant,, which frequently gave voice to the various patriotic causes. As a printer and publisher Goddard was highly critical of the Stamp Act in 1765 and joined the Sons of Liberty to that end. For a short time he was also a postmaster of Providence, Rhode Island. Goddard's newspaper partnership with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia later played an important role in the development of a new postal system in the soon to be united colonies. Through his association with Franklin, who was then serving as postmaster of British North America in Philadelphia, Goddard played a major role in the introduction of new postal routes, reforms and other improvements to the colonial postal system, efforts which are often only attributed to Franklin.
Early life
Goddard was born to a well-to-do family on October 10, 1740, in New London, Connecticut.Malone, 1931, v. 7, p. 341 He was the son of William Giles Goddard, a wealthy doctor and the postmaster of New London, and was himself once postmaster of Providence for two years.Thomas, 1874, Vol. I, p. 201 His mother was Sarah Updike Goddard, the daughter of Lodowick Updike, whose English and Dutch ancestors were among the first settlers of Rhode Island,Thomas, 1874, Vol I, p. 203 and who was also well educated and later ran the family printing business.Baltimore Heritage, August 5, 2010
Goddard had an older sister, Mary Katherine, who was involved with the family business because she was inspired by her father to become a printer. William served as an apprentice printer for six years under James Parker starting in 1755 and worked in his New Haven, Connecticut, print shop.Ashley, 1985, p. 249 A few months after his arrival, he was given an assignment to travel through Connecticut to determine what it would cost to set up post offices for the colonial forces during the French and Indian Wars.
Goddard later worked in Parker's printing house in New York City in 1758, where he functioned as a journeyman.Thomas, 1874, p. 202 Samuel Farley arrived from Bristol, England, in 1760, and the following year established the New-York American Chronicle, a newspaper for which Goddard and Charles Crouch became his journeymen in his print shop. Then, in 1762, a fire gutted Farley's print shop, destroying most of his supplies, ending his newspaper.Thomas, 1874, p. 305
Goddard's father died in 1762 and soon after his mother moved the family to Providence, Rhode Island. Goddard opened his first printing office in Providence in July with a £300 loan from his mother, becoming the first printer of the city. With the help of his mother and sister, he started The Providence Gazette and Country Journal, with the first issue being printed on October 20, 1762.Library of Congress, July 19, 2010 He competed for Rhode Island's business with Franklin's press already established in Newport.Frasca, 2006, p. 148 This was the only newspaper printed in Providence before 1775.Thomas, 1874, Vol I, p. 83Carroll, 1907, pp. XXXVI, 5, 9 Goddard was the publisher and editor of Providence's first newspaper and his friend John Carter was the printer.Thomas, 1874, Vol. I, pp. 203–204Woods, 2019, pp. 1–5
As a newspaper printer and publisher, Goddard subscribed to the ideal of a free and open press. However, his commitment to the ideal was tempered; he maintained that a free and open press "does not consist in publishing all the trash which every rancorous, illiberal, anonymous scribbler" submitted to a newspaper, and that any such freedom had to be employed with a measure of discernment and a responsibility to the truth.Martin, 1994, p. 522
Career
Goddard quit the family's printing company in Rhode Island because he was not making the income that he expected. He suspended the newspaper with issue number 134 on May 11, 1765, and left his mother in charge of the business. He found a job with the New York City publisher John Holt and became a silent partner with him. After a couple of months, he returned to Providence and published on August 24, 1765, an issue of the Gazette about the controversy of the Stamp Act of 1765. The newspaper was on the verge of going out of business, until Goddard published number 135 on August 9, 1766. At that time the newspaper was published under the name of "Sarah Goddard & Company," and the Stamp Act had been repealed. Later, Goddard then sent Samuel Inslee to assist his mother in the family business, but he retired with the issue printed on September 19, 1767. His friend John Carter, who had just left Franklin's print shop in Philadelphia, became a partner with the Goddard's family business. Carter assisted in printing the weekly newspaper until, he purchased the business from them in November 1768.Ashley, 1985, p. 251 He became the successor of Goddard's Providence Gazette newspaper and started publishing it alone, beginning with issue of November 12, 1768.Thomas, 1874, p. 295 Goddard's mother died on January 5, 1770.Ashley, 1985, p. 253
In 1765 Benjamin Franklin was in London as an agent for Pennsylvania. When he opposed the enactment of the Stamp Act in 1765, knowing beforehand, however, that passage of the controversial bill was inevitable, he acquiesced, while actually working for its repeal and appealing to colonial sentiment.Isaacson, 2003, p. 222National Archives, Essay In the meantime the people of Pennsylvania suspected Franklin of supporting the Act. To counter the criticism aimed at Franklin over his apparent involvement in the passage of the Stamp Act William Goddard reprinted almost the entire collection of Franklin essays from London papers in the Pennsylvania Chronicle which summarized Franklin's involvement and underlying opposition to the passage of this act.Crane, University of Michigan, pp. 207, 211Zimmerman, 1957, p. 352 The role Goddard and Franklin played through the Pennsylvania Chronicle in relation to the Stamp Act marked a significant change in Pennsylvania colonial history and its politics, as the passage of the act effected a division in the Quaker Party which had always prevailed in the Pennsylvania Assembly.
Goddard meanwhile had joined the Sons of Liberty. Goddard was an anti-imperialist and a defender of the freedom of the press.Adelman, 2010, p. 725Miner, 1962, p. 3 He fought both the Loyalists and the Patriot to maintain freedom of the press and freedom of expression.McKerns, 1989, p. 274 Just before the Stamp Act of 1765 was to take effect in November, Goddard founded The Constitutional Courant which openly criticized the act in strong language. Under the assumed name of Andrew Marvel, Goddard secretly had the newspaper printed at Woodbridge, New Jersey, in the shop of James Parker, which was released on September 21, 1765.Thomas, 1874, Vol. II, pp.130-131Frasca, 2006, p. 147 Its release caused much alarm and controversy resulting in extensive discussion and deliberations when it was sold on the streets of New York City. It consisted primarily of two essays that bitterly condemned the stamp tax. Goddard opened a print shop in June 1766 in Philadelphia in partnership with Joseph Galloway and Thomas Wharton and rented one of Franklin's old print presses. Galloway was the speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly and promised Goddard the government's printing jobs, and Wharton was a successful merchant.
Goddard purchased the first printing press made in the American colonies in 1769 from Isaac Doolittle after the latter successfully manufactured the large iron screw required in the pressing mechanism of the printing press. This marked the beginning of printing press manufacturing in America.Wroth, 938, p. 84
Goddard established as the mouthpiece of the Anti-Proprietary party the Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser on January 26, 1767. He founded the Pennsylvania Chronicle to rival David Hall's Pennsylvania Gazette and William Bradford's Pennsylvania Journal, who became silent partners with Goddard. During this time Goddard had employed Isaac Collins in his print shop.Thomas, 1874, Vol. I, P. 260Lee, 1923, pp. 59–60 The Galloway and Wharton partnership soon dissolved over disagreements about debts, and Goddard continued the newspaper alone until the last issue, number 368 on February 8, 1774. Goddard published a seventy-two-page pamphlet The Partnership in 1770, accusing his partners Galloway and Wharton, two of the city's most creditable citizens, of attempting to destroy his business.Miner, 1962, p. 98 In retaliation, Galloway and Wharton had Goddard imprisoned for debt in September 1771, having to serve three weeks.Goddard, 1770, title page
Goddard's Philadelphia business was floundering, so he decided to start over again. He bought the printing equipment and type from the widow of Nicholas Hasselbach, Baltimore's first printer, who had unexpectedly died a few years before. He then established Baltimore's first newspapers the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, with the first issue on August 20, 1773.Culter, 1914, p. 1835 The newspapers were printed with the type obtained from Hasselbach.Wroth, 1922, p. 114 He informed his readers that he would publish all kinds of material of intelligence, foreign or domestic, that would be of interest to the Publick, like notices of the departure of ships, current prices of goods, the course of exchange, accidents, deaths, and events of every kind. Goddard wanted to devote more time to the development of the colonial postal system, so he turned over the management of the Journal to his sister. It was published under her name Mary Katherine Goddard, starting on May 10, 1775.Malone, 1931 p. 342 It later became a semi-weekly on March 14, 1783. Goddard would again take over the publication of the newspaper on January 2, 1784.
Goddard's association with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia would play an important role in the development of the Continental Congress postal system in the soon to be united colonies. Franklin was postmaster of Philadelphia from 1759 to 1775, when he was dismissed by the British Crown for exposing the letters of Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Goddard's postal system ideas and concepts replaced the existing British postal system and helped Franklin to introduce many of the reforms and improvements needed in the colonial postal system currently in use.Huebner, 1906, p. 135–137Bellis, 2006, Essay Goddard was given the post of surveyor in the system, and his sister was named postmistress of Baltimore, making her the first woman appointed to a federal office of the United States.
In 1778, paper became very scarce because of the American Revolutionary War, prompting Goddard to establish a paper factory near Baltimore, making his own paper for the Maryland Journal.Cutter, 1915, p. 1835Weeks, 1916, p. 96 While Goddard was working for the post office, his sister Mary, in his absence, managed and edited the Maryland Journal single handedly. In its issue of May 5, 1778, appears the following notice: "Rags for the paper-mill near this town are much wanted, and the highest price will be given for them by the printer", and again "Cash will be given in exchange for rags at this office."Journalism Department, University of Rhode Island, 2010Leonard, 1950, pp. 488–499