Background
Samuel Kneeland was born on January 31, 1697 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, the son of John and Mary (Green) Kneeland. His mother was a granddaughter of the early colonial printer, Samuel Green.
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Samuel Kneeland
Edit ProfileEducation
Samuel Kneeland served his apprenticeship with his uncle Bartholomew Green.
Career
About 1718 Kneeland established a printer shop of his own. From 1720 to 1727 he printed the Boston Gazette, the second newspaper in the colonies, first issued in 1719 from the press of James Franklin. On March 20, 1727, he began to publish as well as to print The New England Weekly Journal, the fourth newspaper to be established in New England. Some three months after starting this publication, he formed a partnership with his cousin Timothy Green; and, according to Isaiah Thomas, the chief authority on Kneeland's career, Green managed the affairs of the printing office for the next four or five years while Kneeland devoted himself to conducting a bookstore on King Street.
In 1736 Kneeland and Green again became printers of the Boston Gazette, and in 1741 they purchased the ownership of it and merged it with their other publication, the Weekly Journal. At the end of 1752 Green withdrew from the firm and Kneeland continued alone. He published the paper under the title, The Boston Gazette, or Weekly Advertiser till 1755, when the provincial tax on printed paper made it unprofitable to do so any longer; but publishing this newspaper was far from being his chief activity.
He was for many years official printer for the provincial government, and many public documents still exist that were issued from his press. He was the printer of many books, and the claim has been made that he printed the first edition of the Bible in English in North America. This claim was vigorously denied by George Bancroft and others, but the opinion of those who later investigated the matter seems to be that the tradition of a Bible surreptitiously printed in Kneeland's shop and sold under the imprint of Thomas Baskett, king's printer, has some basis in fact. Another claim that seems to have more in the way of direct evidence to sustain it is that Kneeland also printed the first religious periodical in America. This was the Christian History, which Kneeland and Green printed in 1743 for Thomas Prince, Jr.
Achievements
Connections
In 1721 Kneeland married Mary Alden, great-granddaughter of John and Priscilla Alden. He had a large family, for he was survived by four sons and five daughters.
