1Silence Dogood, No. 1, 2 April 1722 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The New-England Courant , April 2, 1722. The first issue of James Franklin’s New-England Courant appeared on August 7, 1721, at the height of the inoculation controversy in Boston. Because the Mathers supported inoculation, the Courant opposed it; and the paper’s lively, combative essays and verses were soon directed also against the clergy, the magistrates, the postmaster, Harvard...