Benjamin Edes (October 14, 1732-December 11, 1803), along with his partner John Gill, printed one of the most important anti-British newspapers in pre-revolutionary America, the Boston Gazette. Edes and Gill took over the Gazette from printer Samuel Kneeland and published their first issue of Massachusetts's second oldest paper on April 7, 1755. They continued to print the paper together until the British occupied Boston in 1775.
Born in Charlestown on October 14, 1732, Edes learned the printing trade as an apprentice in Boston. In 1754, Edes and Gill opened their own print shop and printed a prospectus for a new paper, the Country Journal. Before they could print their first issue, Kneeland offered the Gazette to the pair since Gill had served as an apprentice in Knee - land's shop and had married the printer's daughter. The pair called their paper the Boston Gazette, or Country Journal. In 1756, they altered the name, substituting and for or in the nameplate. It continued to operate under that name until the American Revolution.
Edes was the principal member of a group called the Loyal Nine, which organized following Parliament's passage of the Stamp Act in March 1765. The act required newspapers and other important documents to be printed on stamped paper. The Loyal Nine, along with similar ones in other cities, soon became known collectively as the Sons of Liberty. Realizing the power of the press, Edes turned his into a mouthpiece of opposition to the tax and Britain. The Loyal Nine organized a series of protests that led to anti-Stamp Act riots in August.
The repeal of the Stamp Act did not diminish Edes' involvement with the Patriot cause. He took the lead in the printing partnership, turning the Gazette into a mouthpiece of revolution. Fellow Boston printer Isaiah Thomas called Edes a "warm and a firm patriot." John Adams, who wrote under pseudonyms in the paper, said that Edes, Gill, and Samuel Adams spent hours in the Gazette office "cooking up paragraphs, articles, occurrences, &c., working the political engine."
After the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, publication of the paper ceased. Edes escaped the city with his printing wares and resumed publication of the Gazette in Watertown in June. There he also published works for the provincial congress of Massachusetts. In November 1776, after British troops left Boston, Edes returned to the city to publish the Gazette, and the partnership with Gill, who went in hiding when Boston was occupied, was dissolved. In 1779, Edes formed a partnership with his sons, both of whom began papers that folded. Edes continued to publish the Boston Gazette until 1798.
Inflation, depreciation of paper currency, and his sons' failed newspaper attempts soon left Edes with little capital. His monetary woes, coupled with the rise of new printing offices in Boston and old age, ended the Gazette's run. Edes died on December 11, 1803. According to Thomas, "No publisher of a newspaper felt a greater interest in the establishment of the United States than Benjamin Edes; and no newspaper was more instrumental in bringing forward this important event than The Boston Gazette."
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