The Tombstone Edition that Helped Galvanize American Independence

It’s known as the Tombstone Edition, a lightning-strike newspaper image that presages the American Revolution — and 261 years after it electrified readers in Colonial-era Philadelphia, a rare, fragile copy now rests at the Library. Pennsylvania Journal editor and printer William Bradford, livid at Britain’s imposition of the Stamp Act on the Colonies, laid out the front page of his Oct. 31, 1765, newspaper as if it were the paper’s grave marker, complete with a skull and crossbones set at the top in heavy black type. His furious editorial said the Stamp Act’s tax on paper, a rare and expensive commodity, would kill his newspaper, others like it and therefore choke off a free press. “EXPIRING,” read the headline, describing the paper’s fate. “The Liberty of the Press has been very justly one of the main Pillars of the Liberty of the People,” read the front-page editorial, blasting the act as “insupportable Slavery.” The bare-knuckled defiance, the over-the-top imagery — the paper’s tombstone-looking front page became an iconic symbol of the Colonies’ awakening sense of independence and their united future. Along with Benjamin Franklin’s 1754 “Join, or Die” political cartoon in his Pennsylvania Gazette, showing separated colonies as a dismembered snake, the Tombstone Edition became one of the first symbols of a uniquely American identity. “One of the most famous and recognizable eighteenth-century newspapers,” says the Journal of the American Revolution. The Library’s copy, one of the few known to still exist, is a complete four-page edition and was obtained from a dealer earlier this year. It’s now undergoing conservation treatment. “It will be one of the top treasures in our division,” said Megan Halsband, head of physical collections services in the Serial and Government Publications Division. “What it represents for the Revolution and the opinion of the American public at the time regarding the Stamp Act is pretty significant.” Bradford founded The Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser in 1742, devoting much of its tiny print to shipping news (Philadelphia was a major port city). Such publications were not intended to last and the paper quality was never high, meaning most copies were thrown out, deteriorated or fell apart. On a recent day in one of the Conservation Division’s workrooms, the Library’s Tombstone Edition of the paper was temporarily out of its new housing — a custom-made conservation box — but under a protective mylar cover, resting on a well-lit lab table. It’s sepia-toned, thin and brittle, a little bigger than a modern tabloid, with uneven edges. There are well-worn creases, fading print and some dark spots, likely oxidized oil stains. The heavy black borders and stark death symbols — the skull and crossbones, a coffin, the grave-marker outline — are still striking. One can only imagine how eye-catching it must have looked coming off Bradford’s printing press in the fall of 1765, when “the United States of America” was a name that did not yet exist. “Mostly we’re dealing with wear-and-tear issues,” says Heather Wanser, a conservator who’s been working on the paper. “You can see where it’s been folded and creased, and there are some small losses at the crease points. We understand that it will probably often be brought out for display and show-and-tell sessions, so we’re getting it into housing where people can appreciate seeing the original without any need to handle it.” In late 18th-century Philadelphia, it was no surprise that Bradford would have been the printer behind such a confrontational edition or that his opinion carried weight. His grandfather, also named William Bradford, brought one of the first printing presses to the region, published an almanac by 1686 and ultimately settled in New York as a profitable printer for six decades. He printed New York’s first newspaper and was a partner in founding the nation’s first paper mill. William Bradford, his grandson, was born in 1719 in New York, but moved to Philadelphia, learning the printing trade from his uncle. He started the Journal when he was in his early 20s and came to abhor British domination. For all his fiery predictions of the Stamp Act snuffing out free speech, though, the act was never truly enforced (largely because of mass resistance) and Bradford’s weekly never missed an edition. When the Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, Bradford, then in his 50s, soon enlisted as an officer and fought in several battles. In December 1776, when the war was going badly, he published the first pamphlet of Thomas Paine’s “The American Crisis” which famously began, “These are the times that try men’s souls …” “He was a warm defender, with both pen and sword, of the rights of his country,” noted historian Samuel S. Purple, writing about Bradford in an 1873 edition of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. After the British capture and eventual retreat from Philadelphia, Bradford “left the Army, broken in health and fortune,” Purple wrote. He returned to publishing, with his oldest son joining him, but the business did not make him wealthy. Late in life, Purple notes (citing an earlier source) that Bradford often remarked to his children, “Though I bequeath you no estate, I leave you in the enjoyment of liberty.” He died in 1791. His children used that liberty well. His oldest son kept the family’s publishing tradition going well into the 19th century. Another son, known as William Bradford the Younger, became one of the most prominent lawyers in the newly minted United States. He was highly educated, fought in the Revolutionary War (serving with George Washington at Valley Forge) and served as the second U.S. attorney general. As president, Washington dispatched him as a top negotiator in an attempt to quell the Whiskey Rebellion, and Bradford filed the precursor lawsuit to Marbury v. Madison, the foundational 1803 Supreme Court decision that established judicial review over Congress and the executive branch. The Bradfords of Philadelphia endured — as did a handful of copies of the newspaper that helped galvanize a sense of American independence. Subscribe to the blog— it’s free! Comments Yes