CHAPTER V
BEGINNINGS IN COLONIES (continued)
In the printing-plants of the newspapers mentioned in the preceding chapter were trained many of the pioneers who founded newspapers in the other colonies. Especially was this true of the plant owned by Benjamin Franklin who, on several occasions, helped his apprentices to establish their newspapers. Just what financial relations existed between Franklin and these printers must be a matter of conjecture. The partnership agreement of The Pennsylvania Chronicle showed that a third interest had been set aside for Franklin should he desire to avail himself of the offer. This policy of Franklin really made him the first owner of a "string of newspapers." The reason why New Jersey did not have a printed newspaper until after the Colonial Period closed is easily given: there was no demand, for the New York and Pennsylvania papers met all the needs. The Revolution, however, changed matters, and New Jersey came forward with financial assistance for the establishment of its own newspaper. Mention has been made in an earlier chapter of the written newspaper publicly posted in a tavern which supplemented in New Jersey the printed sheets from other colonies. The expressed hope of an early Governor of Virginia that his colony would not have a newspaper "these hundred years" was not fulfilled: the success of the newspapers in other colonies led to the establishment of The Virginia Gazette.
GENERALLY A GAZETTE
The mention of the term Gazette recalls the popularity of this word as a title for a newspaper. In nine of the thirteen colonies the first paper was a Gazette: these colonies were Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia. In the four remaining colonies where the first newspaper had another name, the second paper to be established had the word Gazette in its title.
