INFORMATION CIRCULAR
                                            (revised 1957)

 
                       THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

                         CONSTITUENT SERVICES
               SERIAL & GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS DIVISION          




               The New-Hampshire Gazette, Portsmouth

                            October 7, 1756

The New-Hampshire Gazette, With the Freshest Advices Foreign and
Domestick, Numb. 1, Thursday, October 7: 1756, was the first
newspaper published in New Hampshire.  The Gazette was
established by Daniel Fowle, who went to Portsmouth after a brief
imprisonment at Boston, where he was charged with printing and
selling a pamphlet severely criticizing some members of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives. 
     The Library of Congress has a photostat of the original and
four reprints which seem to be from a single typesetting,
although no two are on the same quality paper.  On October 6,
1856, The Gazette held a centennial celebration and reprints of
its first issue were made and distributed from the original
press, which was set up in a hayrack and operated during the
parade.  This reprint was probably copied by those produced later
since all examined have the same variances from the original. 
One reprint carries below its imprint this line: "Stereotyped by
H. 0. Houghton & Co., Riverside, Cambridge, 1856."

     A fifth reprint, made from plates borrowed from the New
Hampshire Historical Society, appears in The New-England
Historical & Genealogical Register and Antiquarian journal,
volume 26, April 1872, as an illustration for "The New-Hampshire
Gazette, the Oldest Newspaper in America," communicated by Frank
W. Miller, Esq.  The separate printing of the same article,
Boston, 1872, also has the reproduction. 
     The Portsmouth Athenaeum and the Massachusetts Historical
Society, Boston, have the only known original copies.  A
comparison of the several reprints in the Library of Congress
with a photostat of the original in the Massachusetts Historical
Society shows that they differ in various details.  The original
reads as follows:

    Title uses a hyphen in "New-Hampshire".
    Page 1, paragraph 4, line 3, "Knowlege" is spelled without "d".
    Page 1, last line, "Complaint on that Score".
    Page 2, line 5, "gence, provided they be sent free from
Charge".    Œ
    Page 2, column 1, paragraph 4, last line, "French
between 4 & 5000". 
    Page 2, column 2, paragraph 6, last line, "ries eight Guns,
besides Swivels, and is a good Sailer".    

     Copies differing from these details are reprints and of little
monetary value. 







                             U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1957
.