Gill, John

▪ American patriot

born May 17, 1732, Charlestown, Mass. [U.S.]

died Aug. 25, 1785, Boston, Mass.

      patriot and publisher who was a leading advocate of American colonial independence from Britain.

      Gill was the grandson of a British officer who had come to the colonies from Dover, Eng. At an early age John Gill was apprenticed to a Boston printer, Samuel Kneeland. In partnership with Benjamin Edes (Edes, Benjamin) he went into the printing business, and they resumed publication of a former Boston paper, the second established there, the Boston Gazette and Country Journal. Gill (and Edes) also published pamphlets and broadsides, an occasional textbook, and religious materials. They became known for the increasingly anti-British, pro-independence stance of their publications as well as for their Gazette.

      Gill and Edes were for some time official printers to the colonial government of Massachusetts, but their propaganda activities cost them the appointment. The participants in the Boston Tea Party are said to have assembled at their shop before setting forth on their raid. In 1775 Edes left Boston; Gill stayed on, and he was arrested by the British and charged with publishing “treason, sedition, and rebellion.” After the Declaration of Independence, Gill resumed publishing a newspaper alone, under the title Continental Journal and Weekly Advertiser. This, however, was but a pale shadow of the radical and rambunctious Gazette. He also was restored as official printer, this time to the state.

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