Boston Weekly News-Letter: Featuring the Rev. George Whitefield and the First Great Awakening, Plus Georgia’s Oglethorpe Expedition against the Spanish

1740 Issue of The Boston Weekly News-Letter, Featuring the First Great Awakening and Rev. George Whitefield, Plus Georgia's Oglethorpe Expedition against the Spanish

Boston: John Draper. New=England, The Boston Weekly News-letter, April 3, 1740. Complete in 2 pp., Subscriber's name "Rev.d Mr. Samll Cooke" penned in the margin.

A fresh example of this colonial paper in Very Good+ condition with untrimmed (deckled) edges (light scattered foxing and some stains in the blank margins; paper is strong), and a noteworthy provenance. A scarce opportunity to own a very early issue of America's first successful newspaper.

Content:

Great Awakening begins to take hold in America (Philadelphia)

p1/c1. A lengthy treatise on public morality by "LAICUS."

p2/c1. Rev. George Whitefield mentioned.

Good currency/coinage content from Massachusetts p2/c1

Excellent Georgia & Florida content – Gov./Gen. James Oglethorpe's Expedition against the Spanish at St. Augustine p1/c2

The Boston Weekly News-Letter(1704-1776)founded by John Campbell, then postmaster at Boston, was the oldest regularly published newspaper in America. The only paper to precede it was Public Occurrances Both Foreign and Domestick, which published just a single issue in 1690 before being suppressed & destroyed by the Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay (the only surviving issue is in London).

The subscriber, Samuel Cooke (1709-1783) graduated from Harvard College in 1735, was ordained, and began a forty-five year preaching career. He married Sarah Porter in 1740, Anna Cotton in 1742, and Lucy Bowes in 1762. He delivered Harvard's Dudleian Lecture in 1767. In 1770, he preached the Election Day Sermon to the Massachusetts General Court and Council, with Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson in the audience, courageously challenging British injustice.