William and Mary Goddard, Printers and Public Servants

is uncertain, but on April 13, 1782, Oswald issued in Philadelphia the first
number of his Independen/ Gazetteer,¹ so that one may think of him as hav-
ing left Baltimore early in that year. Goddard seems to have continued alone
his Baltimore printing establishment. On July 15, 1783, he advertised as
from his press a circular letter from General Washington to the governors of
the several States, and in December of this year Mary Goddard announced
the publication of a "Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia Almanac and
Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 1784,"edited by William Goddard.

Some months before this, General Charles Lee had died, and in dying had
paid to Goddard and Oswald the debt of gratitude which he owed to them for
their efforts to vindicate his fame.² To these two faithful friends he left one-
third of his lands in Virginia, and by the generosity of his sister in England
the legacy came to them free of debt.³ It is to be hoped that they received a
good price for these lands as a result of the sale advertised in the Maryland
Journal of November 14, 1783.

One concludes that Goddard's reasons for refraining from taking over
the newspaper from his sister years earlier had been financial, for on Janu-
ary 2, 1784, very soon after his Virginia lands had been advertised as for
sale, he announced in the Maryland Journal that by a fortunate occurrence
he had been enabled to purchase new printing equipment and that there-
after, as on this day, the paper would be published by "William and Mary
Katherine Goddard." In the succeeding issue of January 6th Mary God-
dard's name was dropped from the imprint and Goddard alone carried on
the paper until the issue of January 11, 1785, in which it was announced
that he had taken Edward Langworthy into partnership. The Maryland
Journal was published by these two until February 1786, from which time

¹ Evans, No. 17564.

² General Lee to Mary Katherine Goddard, December 17, 1781: "it is inconceivable the desire I have to be
acquainted with you—for upon my soul I love (and I ought to love) your Brother and Oswald more than any
other two men on this Continent." (Addressed to "Mrs. K. Goddard, Printeress at Baltimore," in 4: 466, The
Lee Papers, being vols. 4-7 of the Collections of the New York Historical Society, 1871-74. N. Y. 1872-75, which see
for many letters and documents relative to the affairs of General Lee in which Goddard was concerned).

³General Lee provided also that Goddard should become his literary executor, and having gained assurance
of Washington's indifference to the publication, Goddard proceeded to issue proposals and prepare for the press
a selection of the Lee papers. The project came to nothing. Goddard asserted that his partner Edward Lang-
worthy clandestinely removed from his office that portion of the papers which he published in London in 1791
as Memoirs of the Life of the Late Charles Lee, Esquire. Isaiah Thomas gives an account of the incident. A letter
from Goddard to Washington on the subject, dated May 30, 1785, is found in The Papers of George Washington,
v. 233, 1785, May 20-October I, Ms. Division Library of Congress. Goddard enclosed his proposal and outline
in manuscript. Isaiah Thomas gives Washington's reply. On December 16, 1793, soon after the appearance of the
Memoirs, Goddard wrote to Washington from Johnston, R. I., disclaiming any connection with the publication
as then issued. See The Papers of George Washington, v. 264, 1793-1794, November 30-January 20, Ms. Division
Library of Congress. The ultimate fate of the mass of Lee papers left in Goddard's hands, and preserved by his de-
scendants, was the use of them by the publication committee of the New York Historical Society in the production
of The Lee Papers described in the preceding note.