Jonas Green (died 1767) was a colonial American printer and newspaper publisher together with his wife Anne Catherine Hoof Green in Maryland. He was a strong opponent of The Stamp Act.
Green was born in Boston into a family of printers. He was the son of Timothy Green, who removed from Boston and settled at New London in 1714, and great-grandson of Samuel Green, another printer at Cambridge. [1]
The family tradition had been begun in Massachusetts by his great-grandfather, Samuel Green, [2]
who was himself the successor to the earliest printers in the North American colonies, the Dayes of Cambridge. Samuel Green started his printing business in 1649 and producing a number of notable works, including Elliot's New Testament, translated into the Native American language. [2]
Jonas Green moved to Maryland in 1738, and became the Province's official printer. [2]
Green was a protégé of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.
He became the publisher of the Maryland Gazette. Its early masthead read as follows:
Money was sometimes hard to come by, so Green sometimes traded an ad or a subscription for supplies. His wife, Anne Catharine Green, also helped to make ends meet by selling homemade chocolates at the post office. [3]
Green, a born troublemaker, hated the Stamp Act, which among other things directly taxed his newspaper. Refusing to pay, he published the Gazette with what was then a blaring headline: "The Maryland Gazette Expiring: In Uncertain Hopes of a Resurrection to Life Again." Green wrote that because of the Stamp Act, the newspaper "will not any longer be published." In the bottom right-hand corner of the page, where the tax stamp should have been placed, there appeared instead a skull and crossbones. Calmer heads persuaded Green to return to publishing as part of the struggle against tyranny, and he later resumed publication under this banner headline: "An Apparition of the late Maryland Gazette, which is not dead, but only sleepeth." Defenders of this newspaper's claim as "the oldest in the nation" say this brief interruption of publication was not a business decision as much as a deliberate political statement by a determined and courageous publisher. [3]
Green is generally known for his printing of Bacon's Laws of Maryland and for reviving Parks' newspaper, the Maryland Gazette. [2]
When Green died in 1767, his jobs as editor and publisher were taken over by his wife, Anne Catherine Hoof Green, making her the first woman to hold either of the top jobs at an American newspaper.[ citation needed ] A strong supporter of Colonial rights, she continued her husband's policy of operating an independent newspaper under the nose of the royal governor in Annapolis. Ultimately, she published the newspaper for eight years while raising 14 children. The newspaper stayed in the Green family for 94 years.
Jonas Green's house, where the Gazette was published for many years, still stands on Charles Street in downtown Annapolis, marked by a small historical plaque. [4]
Jonas Green Park is a former Maryland state park now owned and operated by Anne Arundel County. Located on the Severn River in Annapolis at 2001 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd., at the end of the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail, it was established on June 6, 2009, and offers a visitors center, a cartop boat launch site, environmental plantings, and a fishing pier. In November 2018 the park was renamed the Jonas and Anne Catharine Green Park. [5]
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Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, 25 miles (40 km) south of Baltimore and about 30 miles (50 km) east of Washington, D.C., Annapolis forms part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 census recorded its population as 40,812, an increase of 6.3% since 2010.
Samuel Ogle was the 16th, 18th and 20th Proprietary Governor of Maryland from 1731 to 1732, 1733 to 1742, and 1746/1747 to 1752.
Daniel Fowle was a colonial American printer and publisher before and during the American Revolution, and the founder of The New Hampshire Gazette. He printed Samuel Adams' newspaper, The Independent Advertiser. He was jailed for printing a damaging account on the conduct of various Massachusetts representatives and after his trial, he lost his license to print. Dismayed with the Massachusetts government he subsequently chose to remove from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and established The New Hampshire Gazette. During the course of his printing career Fowle employed several apprentices. Using his newspaper, he openly criticized the Stamp Act in 1765. After American independence was established he was commissioned to print the state laws of New Hampshire.
Anne Catherine Hoof Green was a printer and publisher in Maryland.
The Gazette, founded in 1727 as The Maryland Gazette, is one of the oldest newspapers in America. Its modern-day descendant, The Capital, was acquired by The Baltimore Sun Media Group in 2014. Previously, it was owned by the Capital Gazette Communications group, which published The Capital, Bowie Blade-News, Crofton-West County Gazette, and Capital Style Magazine.
Lawrence Counselman Wroth was an American historian and the author of The Colonial Printer, the definitive book on the American printing trade during the period of 1639 through 1800. Though he wrote hundreds of articles or books, Wroth was also a librarian and research professor.
Jonas Green Park is a public recreation area on the Severn River owned and operated by Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The park sits at the east end of the Naval Academy Bridge on Maryland Route 450 just outside the city of Annapolis. The former state park bears the name of Jonas Green, Maryland’s public printer during the colonial period. It was turned over to the county in 2009. The park offers a visitors center, cartop boat launch site, and fishing pier. It is the southern terminus of the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail.
William Goddard 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.
Michael MacNamara was an Irish-American lawyer and politician in Colonial Maryland, who had three terms as mayor of Annapolis. He was a Loyalist, his interests aligned with those of the ruling Calvert family, the Barons Baltimore, whose rule was overthrown following the American Revolution.
Walter Dulany was a politician in Colonial Maryland, who was mayor of Annapolis from 1766 to 1767. His family house and land at Windmill Point later became the location for the United States Naval Academy.
Samuel Kneeland (c.1696–1769) was an American printer and publisher of The Boston Gazette and Weekly Journal. Kneeland obtained much of his work printing laws and other official documents for the Province of Massachusetts Bay colonial government for about two decades. He printed the first Bible in the English language ever produced in the American colonies, along with many other religious and spiritual works, including the Book of Psalms. He was also noted for introducing a number of innovations to newspaper printing and journalism. He was one of many colonial printers who were strongly opposed to and outspoken against the Stamp Act in 1765. Kneeland, primarily, along with his sons, were responsible for printing the greater majority of books, magazines and pamphlets published in Boston during his lifetime.
William Parks was an 18th-century printer and journalist in England and Colonial America. He was the first printer in Maryland authorized as the official printer for the colonial government. He published the first newspaper in the Southern American colonies, the Maryland Gazette. He later became authorized as the official printer for the colonial government of Virginia. Parks was also the publisher and printer of the first official collection of the authentic 1733 set of Virginia's laws, and the first colonial publisher and proprietor of The Virginia Gazette newspaper. During his lifetime Parks established four new newspapers in the colonies. He also worked with Benjamin Franklin on several projects related to printing, most notably, the establishment of a paper mill in Virginia, the first such mill south of Pennsylvania.
Dinah Nuthead was a colonial printer based in the Province of Maryland. She is believed to be the first woman to be licensed as a printer in the Thirteen Colonies.
Clementina Rind was a Colonial American woman who is known as being the first female newspaper printer and publisher in Virginia. Living and working in Williamsburg, Virginia, she took the printing press established by her husband, William Rind, after his death in 1773. Clementina continued to print The Virginia Gazette and also published Thomas Jefferson's tract A Summary View of the Rights of British America.
David Hall was a British printer who immigrated from Scotland to America and became an early American printer, publisher and business partner with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. He eventually took over Franklin's printing business of producing official documents for the colonial province of Pennsylvania and that of publishing The Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper that Franklin had acquired in 1729. Hall formed his own printing firm in 1766 and formed partnership firms with others. He published material for the colonial government.
Hugh Gaine was an 18th-century early American printer, newspaper publisher and bookseller. He founded and was printer of The New York Mercury and the New York Royal Gazette. As a printer and journalist Gaine remained neutral when the idea of American independence was at issue, which became a source of trouble for him at times. Subsequently figures like Philip Freneau, a Revolutionary poet, had very little affection for Gaine, while some historians question his loyalties. During his time in New York City Gaine's printing business became the most prolific, lasting more than forty years.
Early American publishers and printers played a central role in the social, religious, political and commercial development of the Thirteen Colonies in British America prior to and during the American Revolution and the ensuing American Revolutionary War that established American independence.
The Massachusetts Gazette was a colonial American newspaper established by Richard Draper, printer for the royal governor and council in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. As the American Revolution drew closer, it was commissioned by the colonial government to lend its support for the measures of the British ministry. It was one of the few Loyalist newspapers operating during the years leading up to the revolution.
Samuel Hall (1740-1807), was an Early American publisher and printer, newspaper editor, and an ardent colonial American patriot from Bedford, Massachusetts who was active in this capacity before and during the American Revolution, often printing newspapers and pamphlets in support of American independence. Hall was the founder of The Essex Gazette, the first newspaper published in Salem, Massachusetts in 1768. He often employed his newspaper as a voice supporting colonial grievances over taxation and other actions by the British Parliament that were considered oppressive, and ultimately in support of American independence.
