The stories of many women journalists have been buried over time. The story of Sarah Updike Goddard, the second woman publisher in Rhode Island, is one such story.
Sarah Updike was born not too long after 1700 (1) to Ludowick and Abigail Newton Updike. She was born at Cocumscussuc (2) , 30,000 acres of land on the west side of Narragansett Bay (3). Her great-great grandfather Richard Smith (4), an early settler of South County and friend of Roger Williams (5) was the owner of this prestigious property.
Tutored at home, with her four sisters and brother Daniel, (who later became the attorney general of Rhode Island), Sarah was considered highly educated, which was rare for a woman in those days. (6)
On December 11, 1735, she was married to Dr. Giles Goddard in her father’ s home. The couple moved to Groton, Connecticut. (7)
The couple had four children, though they only raised two through maturity. Their first child, Catherine, was only two months old when she died on Jan. 15, 1736. (8) The second child, Mary Katherine, was born on June 16, 1738. (10) William, their son, was born on Oct. 20, 1740, after the family moved to New London, Conn. (11, 12)
Giles became bedridden with gout, which caused his death on Jan. 31, 1757. (13)
After William completed an apprenticeship in Rhode Island, Sarah provided him with the money he needed to set up his own printing shop, which would be the first in Providence. (14, 15) She also moved to Providence from New London to help him do so.
With the money, he purchased several fonts of type and at least one press. Because colonial paper was of poor quality, supplies of paper were shipped in to the print shop from England or Holland. (16)
The first issue of William’s weekly newspaper, The Providence Gazette and Country Journal, appeared on Oct. 20, 1762. (17) With the help of his mother and sister, William published an almanac, sold books, legal forms, paper and writing materials. (18)
There is confusion about where the newspaper was actually printed because the imprint on the paper was always changing. The imprint read; "near the Sign of the Golden Eagle," "at the Sign of the Shakespeare’s Head, in the same building with the Post Office," "at the Printing Office near the Great Bridge," "at the Sign of the Shakespeare’s Head, near the Court House, in King street," and "the Printing and Post Offices are removed to Meeting street, nearly opposite the Friends Meeting House." (19)
Even though the Gazette was popular, William was unable to earn what he considered an adequate living. Frustrated, he suspended the publication of the Gazette with the May 11, 1765, issue and left for New York. (20)
This was a difficult time for Providence to be without a newspaper to provide inhabitants with information about the colonies’ opposition to the Stamp Act, Parliament’s first direct tax levied upon America. On Aug. 24, 1765, the Gazette published a special issue under the imprint of "S. and W. Goddard." (21)
William returned to Providence in 1766, in an attempt to revive the newspaper, but once again, the publication failed to provide his desired income. (22)
William had given up on Providence in the early summer of 1766 and headed to Philadelphia, leaving his mother and sister to print the Gazette. On Aug. 9, 1776, Sarah revived the Gazette, and since that day Providence has never been with out a newspaper. (23)
Sarah organized "Sarah Goddard and Company," with the "company" being her daughter, Mary Katherine, an active worker in the print shop. Sarah spent her days supervising the print shop and editing the weekly issues of the Gazette. (24) Through the newspaper and books she published, "Sarah Goddard provided Providence with a public forum, which helped to further the cause of American independence." (25)
Sarah had a love for the Providence community, where her son had opened the town’s first printing establishment. When William left, she was determined to maintain the business "not only because of her affection for her neighbors, but because of her tremendous reverence for the ‘mystick art of printing,’ as a poem in the March 16, 1765, Gazette had called it." (26)
In May of 1768, William wrote to his mother, asking that she move to Philadelphia to help him with his printing there. Sarah responded, by letter that she would rather remain in Providence:
For my life is almost at a close, and I can hardly think of removing so near the period of my days into a strange part of the world, to launch into a new set of acquaintance, and leave all my former ones, the companions of my youth, and the supporters of my old age, as well as my daughter, who seems by nature to take care of her mother in sickness, when wanted, which is not so properly the sphere of sons, and cannot be expected of them. (27)
Shortly after receiving his mother’s letter, William traveled to Providence and convinced her otherwise. He sold the print shop for $550 to John Carter, who had been Sarah’s partner since 1767. In the Nov. 5, 1768, issue of The Providence Gazette, Sarah bid farewell to the people of Providence. Sarah and Mary Katherine moved to Philadelphia with William that same month. (28)
William was told by Thomas Wharton, one of his printing partners at the Pennsylvania Chronicle, that he had "sinister views," after he removed a printing press from the shop and placed it in his mother’s new home. Wharton suspected William’s intentions were to set up an independent shop. In reality, however, Sarah was now a woman nearing her 70s and preferred the quiet pace of her own home to the noise of her son’s establishment. Regardless, she returned the press to the shop. (29)
Sarah had a difficult time adjusting to life in Philadelphia. She wrote, in a letter sent to her sisters in New England:
I have been much indisposed this winter yet through the goodness of God I am in a better State of Health than I have been for Sometime when I first came to this City and the Air and Climate did not Seem to Agree with me if I Stay I hope it will become more Natural . . . Katey is now under preparation for the Small Pox and Expect her to be inoculated Some day this week. (30)
Sarah Updike Goddard continued to help her son with his press until her death on Jan. 5, 1770. (31) Her most extensive obituary appeared in the New-York Gazette on Jan. 22, 1770. It also appeared in the Feb. 10 Providence Gazette as an anonymous letter to the printer. The writer said he was of "no relation to the family, nor very intimately acquainted," but briefly summarized her family and her life. The article closes:
Her uncommon attainments in literature were the least valuable parts of her character. Her conduct through all the changing trying scenes of life, was not only unblameable, but even exemplary–a sincere piety, an unaffected humility, an easy agreeable cheerfulness and affability, an entertaining, sensible and edifying conversation, and a prudent attention to all the duties of domestic life, endeared her to all her acquaintance, especially in the relations of wife, parent, friend and neighbor. The death of such a person is a public loss, an irreparable one to her children! (32)
Notes
(1) There is no
record of an exact date.
(2) More commonly known as Smith's Castle, the house on Cocumscussuc, in Wickford,
R.I., is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a historic
center and tourist attraction. (The Pettaquamscutt Historical Society.)
(3) This is in Rhode Island.
(4) Ward L. Miner, William Goddard, Newspaper,man, page 11.
(5) Nancy F. Chudacoff, "Woman in the News"
(6) Chudacoff.
(7) Miner, page 8.
(8) This is either 1736 or 1737; there is some confusion about the year among
several documents.
(9) In those days, it was a reasonable average to have half of the children
in a family live to adulthood.
(10) The dates is often stated as 1736, but that is obviously in confusion
with the other Catherine.
(11) It was also recorded that another child of theirs died on Sept. 19, 1742,
but no age or sex is ever mentioned.
(12) Miner, page 11.
(13) Miner, page 10.
(14) William's was the first print shop in Providence, but not the first in
Rhode Island. James Franklin started Rhode Island's first press in Newport
in 1727.
(15) Chudacoff.
(16) Miner, page 20.
(17) Miner, page 26.
(18) Chudacoff.
(19) Wroth.
(20) Chudacoff.
(21) Chudacoff.
(22) Chudacoff.
(23) Chudacoff.
(24) Miner, page 56.
(25) Chudacoff.
(26) Miner, page 56.
(27) Quoted in Miner, page 84.
(28) Miner, pages 84-85.
(29) Miner.
(30) Quoted in Miner, page 87.
(31) Chudacoff.
(32) Quoted in Miner, page 92.
Works
Cited
Chudacoff, Nancy F. "Women in the News." An exhibit of books
and newspapers printed and published by Sarah Updike Goddard. Presented at
the Rhode Island Historical Society October 1973-January 1974.
Miner, Ward L. William Goddard, Newspaperman. Duke University Press, 1962.
Pettaquamscutt Historical Society and the R.I. Bicentennial Commission. Historical Buildings of South County. 1972.
Wroth, Lawrence C. The First Press in Providence: A Study in Social Development. Worcester, Mass. The Davis Press, 1941.