 First issue of the Newport Mercury | |
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Gatehouse Media |
| Founder(s) | James Franklin |
| Publisher | The Newport Daily News |
| Founded | June 19, 1758 |
| City | Newport, Rhode Island |
The Newport Mercury, was an early American colonial newspaper founded in 1758 by Ann Smith Franklin (1696–1763), and her son, James Franklin (1730–1762), the nephew of Benjamin Franklin. The newspaper was printed on a printing press imported by Franklin's father, James Franklin (1697–1735), in 1717 from London.[1] The Mercury may be the first newspaper published by a woman in the colonial United States.[2] The Mercury was the also first paper to publish poetry by an African American woman, Phillis Wheatley.[3]
The Mercury was published regularly up to the time the British Army occupied Newport in December 1776, when the press and types were buried. After the British evacuated Newport in November 1779, the Mercury was issued again.[4]
Since the Mercury ceased publication during the Revolutionary War, and was acquired by Edward A. Sherman in 1928, Hartford Courant (founded 1764) and the Mercury's publisher have a longstanding debate over which is older. The Courant has long identified itself as the longest "continuously published" newspaper in the United States and most scholarly articles attribute it as such.[5]
- ^ Parker Winship, George (October 1914). "Newport Newspapers in the Eighteenth Century". Bulletin of the Newport Historical Society. 14: 1–19.
- ^ Leclerc, Michael (March 2017). ""My Granddaughter's Father" Elizabeth (Hall) Barnes, of Brookfield, Massachusetts, and James and Ann (Smith) Franklin of Boston and Newport, Rhode Island" (PDF). Rhode Island Roots: 2–19.
- ^ Vrabel, Jim (2004). When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac. Northeastern University Press. p. 66. ISBN 9781555536213.
- ^ Thomas, Isaiah (1810). The History of Printing in America With a Biography of Printers, and an Account of Newspapers: to which is Prefixed a Concise View of the Discovery and Progress of the Art in Other Parts of the World: in Two Volumes, Volume 2. Isaiah Thomas. ISBN 9780608398136.
- ^ (8 August 2013). Which N.E. paper is oldest is consequence of definition, New England Newspaper and Press Association e-Bulletin