In 1690, an enterprising Bostonian was not supposed to just up and start a newspaper—at least not without permission from the British government.
But that didn’t stop Benjamin Harris, a Boston shopkeeper with a history of flouting government restrictions on printed material back in England.
Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick published its first issue on September 25, 1690, in Boston. According to the Massachusetts Historical Society, it was America’s first newspaper, and Harris promised readers that a new issue would be published each month.
The first issue of Public Occurrences was three pages long, with a variety of local news stories.
There was a detailed description of the “very tragical” news that a widower in Watertown hung himself in “the Cow-house.” And then there was an item about “the barbarous Indians … lurking about Chelmsford” who were suspected of kidnapping two children.
But the juiciest tidbit was about the French royal family:
“France is in much trouble (and hear) not only with us but also with his Son, who has revolted against him lately, and has great reason, if reports be true, that the Father used to lie with the Son’s wife.”
The newspaper’s first issue was also its last.
Colonial officials took notice of the new publication, and within days issued an order “strictly forbidding any person or persons for the future to set forth any thing in Print without License first obtained” from the government.
The only surving copy of the newspaper is housed in London, according to a 1922 report in The Boston Globe.
It wasn’t for another 14 years that Boston published its second newspaper, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Boston News-Letter was first published in April 1704, with the blessing of colonial authorities. In large type across the masthead read: “printed with authority.”
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