HUSBAND NOTES:
BIOGRAPHY-OCCUPATION: Richard Pierce of Boston was a printer. He published for Benjamin Harris on 9/25/1690 the first edition of a newspaper, which the second never appeared. Upon looking up Benjamin Harris in the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia the following information was found which ties to Richard Pierce. Harris, Benjamin the founder of American journalism, Benjamin Harris, fl. 1673-1716, was a London journalist and printer before emigrating to Boston in 1686. A year later he published his first book, an almanac printed by Samuel Green. In September 1690, Harris published "Publick Occurrences both Forreign and Domestick", a 2-leaf folio containing news, gossip, and very little political comment. The folio was to appear at least once a month, but Harris had published his first issue without a crown license, and publication of further issues was suspended. The same year he published the New England Primer, a text used in the 19th century in the United States. In 1695, Harris returned to England; until The Boston News-Letter was founded in 1704, there was no other American newspaper.
!SPOUSE-CHILDREN: Genealogical Directory of the First Settlers of New England, Volume III, by James Savage, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1965. (page 430), Tifton Tifton, Tift Public Library, Tifton, Georgia.
!OCCUPATION: Wroth, Lawrence C., The Colonial Printer, 1964.
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