Samuel Hall

Samuel Hall

HALL, Samuel, printer, born in Medford, Massachusetts, 2 November, 1740; died in Boston, 30 October, 1807. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Daniel Fowle, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and subsequently went to Newport, Rhode Island, where in 1761 he formed a partnership with Ann, the widow of James Franklin, which continued until 1768. In that year he published the "Essex Gazette" in Salem. In 1775 he removed to Cambridge and issued the "New England Chronicle," and in the following year resided in Boston. He again published the "Salem Gazette" in 1781, and in 1785 the "Massachusetts Gazette." In 1789 he went to Boston and opened a book store, which he sold in 1805 to Lincoln and Edmunds. His journals were of much service to the patriot cause during the Revolution.

From The Medford Historical Register, Volumes 25-26. "Jim Franklin, Ben's Big Brother." page 43.

The spiritual heir of James Franklin was Samuel Hall, who, Isaiah Thomas says, married a daughter of the Franklin home. Samuel Hall entered at once upon the affairs of the printshop in Newport, and his obituary of Ann Franklin would show her to be among the queens of American womanhood. Samuel Hall afterwards established the Essex Gazette, Salem, and at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War printed newspapers and official proclamations for the army and the province. He established a bookstore, printshop and book bindery in Boston. He became the printer of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and was regarded as one of the most correct compositors and proof-readers in Boston. He died in 1807, leaving a second wife, and "next of kin," Elizabeth, wife of William Barnes of Brookfield, who was without doubt the granddaughter of James and Ann Franklin. Samuel Hall was born in Medford, 1740; he and a brother, Jonathan, were, early in childhood, orphans. The brother Jonathan died in young manhood. They were brought up among their mother's relatives, the Fowle family, who were printers.

Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM

From PRINTING IN CAMBRIDGE SINCE 1800 BY NORMAN HILL WHITE, JR. Read January 27, 1920

FROM 1692, when Samuel Green retired as manager of the college press, there was no printing done in Cambridge for over a hundred years, except that done by the brothers Samuel and Ebenezer Hall in 1775, under the direction of the Committee of Safety. The Halls were called to Cambridge from Salem in May of that year, shortly after the commencement of the war, and installed in the college, the Committee of Safety ordering "that the Quartermaster-General be directed to clear that chamber in Stoughton Hall occupied by S. Parsons, Jr., as a printing office for Messrs. Hall."

Here the two brothers printed for the approximate period of a year for the State Convention and the army, both at that time with headquarters in Cambridge. They also continued to print their weekly paper, the Essex Gazette and New England Chronicle. After the British army left Boston in 1776, Samuel Hall moved from Cambridge to that city — alone, as his younger brother Ebenezer died at the age of twenty-seven, during February of that year.

Sources

1. 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 (Google eBook). Isaiah Thomas 1810. Page 261

Links

• http://tarquintarsbookcase.blogspot.com/2010/05/samuel-hall-printer...

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