Anthony Haswell (printer)
Encyclopedia
Anthony Haswell was an English
immigrant to New England
, where he became a newspaper, almanac and book publisher, the Postmaster
General of Vermont
and one of the Jeffersonian printers imprisoned under the Sedition Act of 1798
.
on 6 April 1756, the second son of shipwright William Haswell and his first wife Elizabeth Dawes. In late 1769/early 1770, following his remarriage, the father took Anthony and his brother William to Boston
and apprenticed them before returning to Portsmouth: Anthony as a potter, William as a shipwright. William soon followed their father back to England and would serve for four decades in the Royal Navy
while Anthony was left alone in America, his only local kin being his father's cousin William Haswell, a Royal Navy Lieutenant with a young daughter Susanna Haswell (later Rowson)
and son Robert Haswell
.
Witnessing the Boston Massacre
, Anthony became interested in the politics of the time. He left his potter's position, in August 1771, and was apprenticed to printer Isaiah Thomas
, who published the radical Massachusetts Spy at the Boston location currently occupied by the Union Oyster House
. Haswell is said to have been a member of the Sons of Liberty
and to have composed ballads for the movement. In April 1775 Thomas was forced to evacuate his press from Boston, moving to Worcester
where publication continued. During Thomas's Revolutionary War
service the paper was leased and from August 1777 to June 1778, Anthony Haswell published it under the banner of Haswell's Massachusetts Spy. Haswell also served in the Revolutionary War although the details of this service have been lost.
In 1778 Haswell married Worcester native Lydia Baldwin and following Thomas's return, the family went to Hartford
and then Springfield
, where in 1782 Haswell teamed with Elisha Babcock to found the Massachusetts Gazette. The following spring, however, he was enticed by the government of Vermont to relocate to Bennington.
in 1791 placed the mail under Federal control. He alternated with a Windsor
colleague as official government printer.
In Bennington, he and David Russell founded the Vermont Gazette, which Haswell published with several breaks until the time of his death. The pair built the state's first paper mill. Haswell shortly gained a certain notorietry by publishing Ethan Allen
's controversial deist tract, Reason, the Only Oracle of Man: Or, A Compendious System of Natural Religion in 1785. Over the following years he tried to extend his business, opening offices in Vergennes
and Litchfield, Connecticut
and founding the first Rutland newspaper, The Herald of Rutland, in 1792 only to have the printing office burn after just fourteen issues, dooming the project. An attempt at a monthly magazine also failed.
's Democratic-Republican Party, becoming one of the leading printers of the movement. As such, he was targeted under the Sedition Act of 1798. Specifically, following the arrest of Congressman Matthew Lyon
, Haswell published an advertisement for a lottery intended to raise the fine levied against Lyon, decrying the "oppressive hand of usurped power" from a "hard-hearted savage." Haswell also republished a claim made in Benjamin Franklin Bache
's Philadelphia Aurora
that the government had employed Tories
. As a result he was arrested, dragged from his house in the middle of the night by Federalist
marshal Jabez Fitch (the same "oppressive hand" Haswell had condemned). Haswell was feeling ill, and felt the weather to be cold and moist; so he requested a chance to get his coat before riding to Rutland some 50 miles away in order to sit in a jail cell and await trial; this request was refused. In a trial conducted at Windsor on 5 May 1800 by Supreme Court Justice
William Paterson he was found guilty of seditious libel
, sentenced to a two month imprisonment, and fined $200.
The Haswell case has since been frequently mentioned in studies relating to freedom of the press, and was cited by Justice Goldberg
in his concurring opinion to the Supreme Court
's New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
decision. Haswell's release was heralded by the residents of Bennington who, it is said, had delayed the Fourth of July
celebration several days so that it would coincide with Haswell's liberation.
In 1801, Haswell sent letters to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, requesting government printing work. He reported that while his paper's circulation had once been 1400 per week, "[t]he unhappy political divisions which for some years past have afflicted our country, have been peculiarly injurious to me," and that he had been "reduced to distress, and almost to penury.". He indicated that, in spite of some community support, personal and family illness as well as the effects of his imprisonment left him unable to pay for new type
, and he was considering abandoning printing. He did receive the government printing concession, and continued as a printer for another decade and a half, briefly attempting another magazine as well as producing several books, notably Memoirs and Adventures of Captain Matthew Phelps.
Haswell took an interest in his community, allowing his son to be used as a test subject for smallpox vaccination
in 1801. He experienced a religious conversion in 1803, joining the Bennington church after 20 years as a non-participant. In the same year, he became Clerk of the Vermont House of Representatives
, serving for one year. He was also active in the Vermont Masonic
movement. In April 1815, his wife Betsy died, never having recovered from the delivery of her youngest child just over a month before, and Anthony followed her the next year, dying 26 May 1816. He and both his wives are buried in Bennington.
Haswell's children included Nathan Baldwin Haswell, a noted Vermont Masonic leader, and James Madison Haswell, a Baptist
missionary to Burma.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
immigrant to New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, where he became a newspaper, almanac and book publisher, the Postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...
General of Vermont
Vermont Republic
The term Vermont Republic has been used by later historians for the government of what became modern Vermont from 1777 to 1791. In July 1777 delegates from 28 towns met and declared independence from jurisdictions and land claims of British colonies in New Hampshire and New York. They also...
and one of the Jeffersonian printers imprisoned under the Sedition Act of 1798
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution's reign of terror and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams...
.
Immigration and Revolution
Anthony Haswell was born in Portsmouth, EnglandPortsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
on 6 April 1756, the second son of shipwright William Haswell and his first wife Elizabeth Dawes. In late 1769/early 1770, following his remarriage, the father took Anthony and his brother William to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and apprenticed them before returning to Portsmouth: Anthony as a potter, William as a shipwright. William soon followed their father back to England and would serve for four decades in the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
while Anthony was left alone in America, his only local kin being his father's cousin William Haswell, a Royal Navy Lieutenant with a young daughter Susanna Haswell (later Rowson)
Susanna Rowson
Susanna Rowson, née Haswell was a British-American novelist, poet, playwright, religious writer, stage actress and educator....
and son Robert Haswell
Robert Haswell
Robert Haswell was an early American maritime fur trader to the Pacific Northwest of North America. His journals of these voyages are the main records of Captain Robert Gray's circumnavigation of the globe...
.
Witnessing the Boston Massacre
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre, called the Boston Riot by the British, was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five civilian men. British troops had been stationed in Boston, capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, since 1768 in order to protect and support...
, Anthony became interested in the politics of the time. He left his potter's position, in August 1771, and was apprenticed to printer Isaiah Thomas
Isaiah Thomas
Isaiah Thomas , was an American newspaper publisher and author. He performed the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Worcester, Massachusetts and reported the first account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord...
, who published the radical Massachusetts Spy at the Boston location currently occupied by the Union Oyster House
Union Oyster House
Ye Olde Union Oyster House, open to diners since 1826, is the oldest restaurant in the United States of America. It is located at 41-43 Union Street, Boston, Massachusetts. The building was listed as a National Historic Landmark on May 27, 2003....
. Haswell is said to have been a member of the Sons of Liberty
Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty were a political group made up of American patriots that originated in the pre-independence North American British colonies. The group was formed to protect the rights of the colonists from the usurpations by the British government after 1766...
and to have composed ballads for the movement. In April 1775 Thomas was forced to evacuate his press from Boston, moving to Worcester
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
where publication continued. During Thomas's Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
service the paper was leased and from August 1777 to June 1778, Anthony Haswell published it under the banner of Haswell's Massachusetts Spy. Haswell also served in the Revolutionary War although the details of this service have been lost.
In 1778 Haswell married Worcester native Lydia Baldwin and following Thomas's return, the family went to Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
and then Springfield
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
, where in 1782 Haswell teamed with Elisha Babcock to found the Massachusetts Gazette. The following spring, however, he was enticed by the government of Vermont to relocate to Bennington.
Vermont
Haswell arrived in Bennington in 1783, becoming the second printer in Vermont. He had been offered the postal franchise and was shortly appointed Postmaster General of Vermont, in which role he continued until Vermont's admission to the UnionUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1791 placed the mail under Federal control. He alternated with a Windsor
Windsor, Vermont
Windsor is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,756 at the 2000 census.-History:One of the New Hampshire grants, Windsor was chartered as a town on July 6, 1761 by Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth. It was first settled in August 1764 by Captain Steele Smith and...
colleague as official government printer.
In Bennington, he and David Russell founded the Vermont Gazette, which Haswell published with several breaks until the time of his death. The pair built the state's first paper mill. Haswell shortly gained a certain notorietry by publishing Ethan Allen
Ethan Allen
Ethan Allen was a farmer, businessman, land speculator, philosopher, writer, and American Revolutionary War patriot, hero, and politician. He is best known as one of the founders of the U.S...
's controversial deist tract, Reason, the Only Oracle of Man: Or, A Compendious System of Natural Religion in 1785. Over the following years he tried to extend his business, opening offices in Vergennes
Vergennes, Vermont
Vergennes is a city located in the northwest quadrant of Addison County, Vermont, in the United States. Bordered by the towns of Ferrisburgh, Panton and Waltham, as of the 2000 census the city population was 2,741. It is the smallest of Vermont's nine cities in terms of population...
and Litchfield, Connecticut
Litchfield, Connecticut
Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, and is known as an affluent summer resort. The population was 8,316 at the 2000 census. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are located within the town...
and founding the first Rutland newspaper, The Herald of Rutland, in 1792 only to have the printing office burn after just fourteen issues, dooming the project. An attempt at a monthly magazine also failed.
Sedition
As the politics of the early Republic developed, Haswell fell into the camp of JeffersonThomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
's Democratic-Republican Party, becoming one of the leading printers of the movement. As such, he was targeted under the Sedition Act of 1798. Specifically, following the arrest of Congressman Matthew Lyon
Matthew Lyon
Matthew Lyon , father of Chittenden Lyon and great-grandfather of William Peters Hepburn, was a printer, farmer, soldier and politician, serving as a United States Representative from both Vermont and Kentucky....
, Haswell published an advertisement for a lottery intended to raise the fine levied against Lyon, decrying the "oppressive hand of usurped power" from a "hard-hearted savage." Haswell also republished a claim made in Benjamin Franklin Bache
Benjamin Franklin Bache (Journalist)
Benjamin Franklin Bache , son of Richard and Sarah Bache and the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was an American journalist. He headed the openly Jeffersonian publication, the Philadelphia Aurora, which is notable for being some of the impulse behind the Alien and Sedition Acts...
's Philadelphia Aurora
Philadelphia Aurora
The Philadelphia Aurora was a triweekly newspaper published in Philadelphia from 1794 to 1824. The paper was founded by Benjamin Franklin Bache, who served as editor until his death in 1798. It is sometimes referred to as the Aurora General Advertiser...
that the government had employed Tories
Loyalist (American Revolution)
Loyalists were American colonists who remained loyal to the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. At the time they were often called Tories, Royalists, or King's Men. They were opposed by the Patriots, those who supported the revolution...
. As a result he was arrested, dragged from his house in the middle of the night by Federalist
Federalist
The term federalist describes several political beliefs around the world. Also, it may refer to the concept of federalism or the type of government called a federation...
marshal Jabez Fitch (the same "oppressive hand" Haswell had condemned). Haswell was feeling ill, and felt the weather to be cold and moist; so he requested a chance to get his coat before riding to Rutland some 50 miles away in order to sit in a jail cell and await trial; this request was refused. In a trial conducted at Windsor on 5 May 1800 by Supreme Court Justice
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States...
William Paterson he was found guilty of seditious libel
Seditious libel
Seditious libel was a criminal offence under English common law. Sedition is the offence of speaking seditious words with seditious intent: if the statement is in writing or some other permanent form it is seditious libel...
, sentenced to a two month imprisonment, and fined $200.
The Haswell case has since been frequently mentioned in studies relating to freedom of the press, and was cited by Justice Goldberg
Arthur Goldberg
Arthur Joseph Goldberg was an American statesman and jurist who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the United Nations.-Early life:...
in his concurring opinion to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
's New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 , was a United States Supreme Court case which established the actual malice standard which has to be met before press reports about public officials or public figures can be considered to be defamation and libel; and hence allowed free reporting of the...
decision. Haswell's release was heralded by the residents of Bennington who, it is said, had delayed the Fourth of July
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
celebration several days so that it would coincide with Haswell's liberation.
Subsequent life
Haswell's arrest occurred during a period of crisis for himself and his family. His first wife, Lydia, had died the year before, in April 1799, and Anthony had remarried in September to Betsy Rice, adopting two of her children. However, his legal and financial problems led to his daughters by Lydia being adopted out; three died during this period.In 1801, Haswell sent letters to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, requesting government printing work. He reported that while his paper's circulation had once been 1400 per week, "[t]he unhappy political divisions which for some years past have afflicted our country, have been peculiarly injurious to me," and that he had been "reduced to distress, and almost to penury.". He indicated that, in spite of some community support, personal and family illness as well as the effects of his imprisonment left him unable to pay for new type
Movable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....
, and he was considering abandoning printing. He did receive the government printing concession, and continued as a printer for another decade and a half, briefly attempting another magazine as well as producing several books, notably Memoirs and Adventures of Captain Matthew Phelps.
Haswell took an interest in his community, allowing his son to be used as a test subject for smallpox vaccination
Smallpox vaccine
The smallpox vaccine was the first successful vaccine to be developed. The process of vaccination was discovered by Edward Jenner in 1796, who acted upon his observation that milkmaids who caught the cowpox virus did not catch smallpox...
in 1801. He experienced a religious conversion in 1803, joining the Bennington church after 20 years as a non-participant. In the same year, he became Clerk of the Vermont House of Representatives
Vermont House of Representatives
The Vermont House of Representatives is the lower house of the Vermont General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Vermont. The House comprises 150 members. Vermont legislative districting divides representing districts into 66 single-member districts and 42 two-member...
, serving for one year. He was also active in the Vermont Masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
movement. In April 1815, his wife Betsy died, never having recovered from the delivery of her youngest child just over a month before, and Anthony followed her the next year, dying 26 May 1816. He and both his wives are buried in Bennington.
Haswell's children included Nathan Baldwin Haswell, a noted Vermont Masonic leader, and James Madison Haswell, a Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
missionary to Burma.
Sources
- Robert J. Brugger, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison, Secretary of State Series, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, vol. 1, p. 58
- John J. Duffy, Samuel B. Hand, Ralph H. Orth, The Vermont Encyclopedia, UPNE, 2003, p. 153
- Todd A. Farmerie, "The Family of William Haswell, Father of Immigrant Anthony Haswell of Bennington, Vermont", New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 155, pp. 341–352 (October 2001)
- Isaac Jennings, Memorials of a Century, Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1869, pp. 303–307
- Barbara B. Oberg, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton: Princeton University Press, vol. 34, pp. 75–77, 601-601.
- John SpargoJohn SpargoJohn Spargo was a British-born American socialist political activist, orator, and writer who later became a renowned expert in the history and crafts of Vermont...
, Anthony Haswell: Printer — Patriot — Ballader: A Biographical Study with a Selection of his Ballads and an Annotated Bibliographical List of his Imprints. Rutland, VT: The Tuttle Co., 1925. - Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 63–64.
- Jacob G. Ullery, Redfield Proctor, Charles H. Davenport, Hiram Augustus Huse, Levi Knight Fuller, Men of Vermont: An Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters and Sons of Vermont, Brattleboro, Vt.:Transcript Publishing Company, 1894, p. 64
- Francis WhartonFrancis WhartonFrancis Wharton was an American legal writer and educationalist.He graduated at Yale in 1839, was admitted to the bar in 1843, became prominent in Pennsylvania politics as a Democrat, served as assistant attorney-general in 1845. In Philadelphia, he edited the North American and United States...
, State Trials of the United States during the Administrations of Washington and Adams. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1849, pp. 684–687.