Background
Samuel Hall was born on November 2, 1740, in Medford, Massachusetts, where his ancestor, John Hall, settled about 1675. He was the son of Jonathan Hall and Anna Fowle.
Samuel Hall was born on November 2, 1740, in Medford, Massachusetts, where his ancestor, John Hall, settled about 1675. He was the son of Jonathan Hall and Anna Fowle.
After serving his term as apprentice to his uncle, Daniel Fowle, printer of the New Hampshire Gazette, Hall went to Rhode Island.
Hall became Anne Franklin's partner in the publication of the Newport Mercury, beginning with the issue of August 17, 1762. After Mrs. Franklin's death on April 19, 1763, Hall continued the paper with success until March 1768 when he sold it to Solomon Southwick.
In April of that year Hall established the first printing house in Salem, Massachusetts, where, on August 2, he began the publication of the Essex Gazette, announcing his purpose to promote "a due sense of the Rights and Liberties of our Country. " Intensely Whig in sympathy, the Essex Gazette was an able agent of the colonial cause.
When Isaiah Thomas, printer of the Massachusetts Spy, was forced to move his paper from Boston to Worcester, the Provincial Congress persuaded Hall and his brother Ebenezer, who had been his partner since 1772, to accommodate it and the army by moving to Cambridge. Accordingly the New England Chronicle or Essex Gazette was founded at Stoughton Hall in May 1775.
In April 1776 Hall moved his paper to Boston, calling it the New-England Chronicle. In June he sold out to Powars & Willis, who rechristened the paper the Independent Chronicle.
Five years later, October 18, 1781, he began the publication of the Salem Gazette, succeeding Mrs. Crouch's paper of the same name and probably taking over her press and types. The heavy tax on advertising influenced him to discontinue his business in Salem with the issue of November 22, 1785, and with the hope of better opportunities, to establish again a printing house and paper in Boston.
The first issue of his Massachusetts Gazette appeared November 28, 1785. In September 1787 he sold it to J. W. Allen, his partner since June. Except for a short period, April 23 to October 15, 1789, when he published in French for J. Nancrède the Courier of Boston, he thereafter confined himself to the printing and sale of books, blanks, and pamphlets. As a publisher he is known for his children's books.
In 1805 he retired from active business, selling his establishment to Brooks & Edmands. Samuel Hall died on October 30, 1807, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Quotes from others about the person
"The country had no firmer friend in the gloomiest period of its history, as well as in the days of its young and increasing prosperity, than Samuel Hall" (Buckingham, post, I, 228).
Samuel Hall was married to Sarah Franklin, by whom he had a daughter. His second wife was Mary Hurd.