Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -

Sale 2708 - Lot 129

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(MASSACHUSETTS.) Issues of the Independent Chronicle from the period of Shays's Rebellion. 17 issues, each 4 pages (19 x 11½ inches) on one folding sheet; stitch holes in margins, minor wear; subscriber's name written above masthead in some issues. Boston: Adams & Nourse, September 1786 to April 1787
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Additional Details

These newspaper issues cover the Shays's Rebellion armed tax revolt which roiled western Massachusetts. Includes issues dated 21 and 28 September; 12, 19 and 26 October; 2 November; 7, 15, 21, and 28 December 1786; and 11 January; 15 February; 1, 8, 15, and 23 March; and 12 April 1787. Every issue includes editorials or news coverage relating to the unrest. For example, the first issue includes "The Petition of Robin Hood," reprinted from a western Massachusetts newspaper. The 2 November 1786 issue includes "A Friendly Address to the Insurgents in the County of Hampshire." "Intelligence from Worcester" in the 7 December 1786 issue reports on rebel checkpoints and militia parades: "Shaise with his party marched to Rutland, and took possession of the barracks." The 12 April 1787 issue includes a report of six death sentences issued to participants in the rebellion.

The early movement toward a national constitutional convention is also addressed. The 15 February 1787 issue contains an editorial: "How long . . . are we to continue in our present inglorious acquiescence in the shameful resistance that some of the States persist in, against federal and national measures?"

The original subscriber who received these issues was "Thomas Wait, printer," who had founded Maine's first newspaper in 1785. A few of these issues are marked up in early manuscript, presumably highlighting articles for inclusion in Wait's Cumberland Gazette. For example, the 21 December 1786 issue has some articles bracketed, sections crossed out, and one "Boston" report amended to read "from London." Early newspapers relied heavily on recycling articles from other papers, and here we see the process in action.

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