The Massachusetts Spy was a newspaper in Boston that first appeared only a few years before the start of the American Revolution. The Spy's publisher, Isaiah Thomas, became notorious for his paper's attacks on Tories and for his defiance of royal authority.
Apprentice in Boston
Thomas was just 21 when he brought out the first issue of the Spy in 1770. His destitute mother, abandoned by her husband, apprenticed Isaiah, at age 7, to Zechariah Fowle, a printer of ballads and small books. In the printing office, equipped with a press, a “tattered dictionary,” and an “ink-stained Bible,” Isaiah stood on a bench so he could reach the boxes of type. Isaiah labored in this office for about ten years, living a Boston apprentice boy’s life. He nearly drowned twice. Once, an old black man fished him out of a cistern. Later, an oyster vendor near the docks plucked him out of the sea. Like other apprentice boys in Boston, he took part in the annual November 5 Pope Day shenanigans. One year, during the brawling, a chunk of brick struck him in the head. Dazed, he fell. In the dim light, the frenzied mobs might have trampled him to death if a man stumbling over him had not pulled him out of the mayhem.
Ran Away to Halifax
After butting heads with his master, Thomas fled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and found work for a printer there. In Halifax, Thomas used the press—without his master’s permission—to take pot shots at the controversial Stamp Act, the scheme by British authorities to tax Americans. The sheriff visited the printing office and Thomas soon left Halifax for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, then returned to Boston. Within a few weeks, he was off to Wilmington, North Carolina, where he won the promise of a partnership with a woman who owned a coffee house. But on a trip to Charleston, South Carolina, Thomas forgot the partner, met and married another woman, and soon returned to Boston.
The Spy quickly became strident in attacking Tories, those friendly to the government, and in supporting the Whigs, the faction aggressively challenging British authority.
Attacks on William Tryon
Three contributors to the Spy in 1771 and 1772 were especially vehement in needling the Tories. These submitted articles under the names Centinel, Leonidas, and Mucius Scævola. All three took turns beating up on William Tryon, the royal governor of North Carolina. Tryon was, said Leonidas, a “traitor and villain” for trying to put down the Regulators, a group of backcountry rebels. For attacks on Tryon, the Spy was condemned in North Carolina to be “publicly burned under the gallows by a common hangman."
Mucius Scævola got the attention of Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson and the governor’s Council. In an issue of the Spy of late November 1771, Mucius Scævola asserted that the governor had no legitimate authority.
Two days after the article appeared, a messenger showed up at the Spy asking Isaiah Thomas to come immediately to the Council chamber. Thomas said he was too busy. The messenger reappeared an hour later with the same request. Thomas had the same answer. The messenger reappeared a third time stating that Thomas was now ordered to appear at the chamber. Thomas asked if the order was in writing. The messenger said no. Thomas replied: “Then, sir, with all due respect to the Governor and Council, I am engaged in my own concerns and shall not attend.”
Hutchinson and the Council directed the attorney general to prosecute Thomas. But a grand jury would not go along: The jury found nothing in the article that was false.
Move to Worcester
Just before the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Thomas moved his press and type to Worcester and began publishing a paper with the motto “Americans! Liberty or Death! Join or Die!”
By 1778, Thomas resumed publishing the Spy in Worcester. In 1780, Thomas was drafted as a soldier. However, deciding that dodging bullets did not fit in with his long-term plans, he sent his apprentice in his place. He later suspended publication of the Spy for two years because of, of all things, taxes, including a stamp tax, on newspapers.
Thomas became an important book publisher and, with partners, operating sixteen presses, five bookstores, a paper mill, and a bindery. Thomas also wrote The History of Printing in America, which for more than a century remained the best book in its field. He helped establish the American Antiquarian Society, a library for historians, and was its first president. He also contributed to the society's library. Thomas one day walked into a store in Boston that sold songs and bought one copy of every ballad on the shelves. That is the basis of the Society’s collection secular songs.
Thomas’s personal life was less successful. In 1777, he divorced his first wife. She was, he said, “destitute of that affection and regard for him which is necessary to render a State of Matrimony easy and happy.” In 1779, he married a war widow. After she died, he married a third time but the couple separated after two years.
Thomas died in 1831. The Spy continued publishing until 1904.
Sources:
Thomas, Benjamin Franklin. Memoir of Isaiah Thomas. Boston, Munsell, 1874.
Goddard, Delano A. "The Pulpit, Press and Literature of the Revolution." In: Winsor, Justin. Memorial History of Boston. Vol. III. Boston, Ticknor and Company, 1881..
York, Neil L. “Tag-Team Polemics: The ‘Centinel’ and His Allies in the Massachusetts Spy.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. 107 (1995). 85-114.
Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere’s Ride. New York, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Metzger, Bruce M. “Three Learned Printers and their Unsung Contributions to Biblical Scholarship.” The Journal of Religion. Vol. 32, No. 4 (Oct. 1952). 254-262.
Shipton, Clifford K. “The American Antiquarian Society.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr. 1945). 164-172.
Basch, Norma. Framing American Divorce: From the Revolutionary Generation to the Victorians. Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1999.
Brian Deming - Brian Deming has a master’s degree in American history from Northwestern University. He has taught U.S. history and media history at ...
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