Benjamin Edes

Benjamin Edes (October 14, 1732 – December 11, 1803) was a journalist and political agitator. He is best known, along with John Gill, as the publisher of the Boston Gazette, a newspaper which sparked and financed the Boston Tea Party and was influential during the American Revolutionary War.^[1]

Biography

Early life

He was born on October 14, 1732 in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was one of seven children of Peter Edes and Esther Hall.^[2] His great-grandfather was John Edes. He was born in England, March 31. 1651, son of Rev. John Edes, rector of Lanford. Essex County, England and a graduate of St. Johns College, Cambridge, England. He relocated to Charlestown circa 1674. John was a ship carpenter and lived in Charlestown; by wife Mary Tufts, the daughter of Peter Tufts, a prominent early citizen of Medford, Massachusetts, he had the following children: John, Edward, Mary, Peter, Jonathan and Sarah Edes.^[3]

Benjamin received a modest education before moving to Boston, Massachusetts in 1754.

Marriage

He married about 1754, at Boston, Massachusetts, Martha Starr, who was christened on June 22, 1729 at the Brattle Street Church^[4] in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Joseph Starr and Margaret Bulman. She was the great great granddaughter of Dr. Comfort Starr of Boston, a founder of Harvard College and a surgeon who emigrated from Ashford, Kent, England.^[5] He is buried on Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts at King's Chapel Burying Ground, the oldest cemetery in the city, established in 1630.^[6][7][8] Benjamin and Martha were the parents of ten children.^[2]

Career

Edes and Gill became the proprietors of The Boston Gazette and Country Journal on April 7, 1755. The Gazette was established on December 21, 1719 by William Brooker. Edes made the paper a leading voice favouring American independence.^[9] Edes was part of The Sons of Liberty, a secret society of American patriots in Revolutionary America.^[10] Andrew Oliver said, "The temper of the people may be surely learned from that infamous paper". Governor Bernard advised the arrest of both Edes and Gill as publishers of sedition. Edes fought British policy through written attacks on the Stamp Act, the tea tax, the Townshend Acts, and other oppressive measures.^[11] During the Siege of Boston, Edes escaped to Watertown, Massachusetts where he continued to publish the Gazette until 1798, 43 years after he started.^[12]

The two editions of the poems of Martha Wadsworth Brewster were printed by Edes and Gill in 1757 and 1758. She was a poet and writer, and one of the earliest American female literary figures as well as the first American-born woman to publish under her own name.^[13] Susannah Carter, the author of book The Frugal Housewife, or, Complete woman cook was first published in 1765 in Dublin, and was first reprinted in North America in 1772 by Edes and Gill illustrated with prints made by Paul Revere.

Death

He died on December 11, 1803 in Boston, Massachusetts. He is buried at Copp's Hill Burying Ground located on Copp's Hill in Boston.

Notes

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References

• Church in Brattle Square. The Manifesto church: Records of the church in Brattle square, Boston, with lists of communicants, baptisms, marriages and funerals, 1699-1872. Publisher: The Benevolent fraternity of churches, 1902.
• Cutter, W.R. Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1910.
• NEHGS. New England historical and genealogical register, Volume 16. Author New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1862.
• Schmidt, Gary D. A passionate usefulness: the life and literary labors of Hannah Adams. University of Virginia Press, 2004 ISBN 0-8139-2272-0