Background
Hugh Gaine was born of Scotch-Irish parentage at Belfast, Ireland.
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Hugh Gaine was born of Scotch-Irish parentage at Belfast, Ireland.
At Belfast, Ireland, Hugh Gaine learned the printing art.
Upon completion of his indenture, Gaine sailed for America, landing in New York City in 1745, “without basket or burden. ” He found work with James Parker and remained with him until 1752, the year in which for a few months he had a partnership with William Wey- man, another printer, in the bookselling business.
Gaine then established himself as printer and bookseller “on Hunter’s Key, ” making several removals in 1753, 1754, and in 1757, when he went to “Hanover Square, near the Meal Market, ” to a three-story house which he purchased on April 30, 1759. Here he conducted a printery, book-shop, and a general store, to which he added patent medicines in 1760.
His place of business carried the sign of “Bible & Crown” and bore that of royalty until after the evacuation of New York by the British in 1783, after which it was known as “the Bible. ”
Gaine promptly laid the foundations of a prosperous business in 1752, by beginning the series of Hutchin’s almanacs and establishing his newspaper, the New-York Mercury, which lived through November 10, 1783. He had difficulties with the Assembly of New York, because he printed some of its proceedings without authority, and was reprimanded, November 14, 1753.
It was in this period that he printed in his paper the political essays known as the “Watch Tower” (1754 - 55). When in 1768-70, another ecclesiastical tilt occurred, Gaine printed only the effusions of the Episcopalians. Twice he had contact with stamp acts: once when the New York Assembly levied a tax on vellum, parchment, and paper, which Gaine promptly charged against his subscribers (1757-59), and again in 1765, when he issued his newspaper without its title but with a substituted heading, “No Stamped Paper to be had, ” on November 4, 11, and 18.
In 1776, when the British were about to capture New York City, he removed some of his equipment to Newark, New Jersey, and printed there seven issues of his newspaper, as a Whig organ, while his regular paper continued to appear in New York, but managed by Ambrose Serle, under Sir William Howe’s direction, as a royalist sheet. Gaine regained control on November 11 and retained it from that time until the end (1783).
On January 15, 1768, Gaine became public printer to the province. His public work embraced the printing of journals or votes, session laws, collected statutes, and speeches and proclamations of the governor, as well as paper currency. He also was an official printer to the City of New York.
In 1773, he, in partnership, set up a paper-mill at “Hempstead Harbor on Long-Island. ” In 1800 he gave up the printing business but continued as a bookseller.
He died in his eighty-first year and was buried in his family plot in the yard of Trinity Church.
Gaine's place of business carried the sign of “Bible & Crown”. Gaine began the series of Hutchin’s almanacs and established his newspaper, the New-York Mercury. He printed in his paper the political essays known as the “Watch Tower”. In 1773 he, in partnership, set up a paper-mill at “Hempstead Harbor on Long-Island. ”
Though Scotch-Irish, Gaine chose the Anglican Church and party rather than the Presbyterian, and thus became involved in a bitter controversy with William Livingston, John Morin Scott, and William Smith, after which, under a truce, he carried on his newspaper as a “free press, ” open to both parties.
In his private relations, Gaine was an active Mason, a member of the St. Patrick Society (then Protestant), and a vestryman of Trinity Church.
At the beginning of the Revolution, Gaine had leanings toward the Whigs, and perhaps expediency and property interest were chiefly responsible for his change of heart, though it seems certain that his later ardor for the British cause was sincere.
Gaine owned much real estate, including a fine large country seat on Manhattan Island, on Kings Bridge Road.
Gaine married first, on October 24, 1759, Sarah Robbins, by whom he had a son and two daughters; and second, in September 1769, a widow, Mrs. Cornelia Wallace, by whom he had two daughters.
