William Parks, Public Printer of Maryland and Virginia

One would like to know more of this "Old Poet" and his friends. Indeed
the little group of essayists, versifiers and political writers who gathered
around William Parks, the Annapolis publisher, has an interest for the stu-
dent of American literary beginnings which on the personal side, at least,
has never been satisfied.

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PLATE Va. Seepage xiii.

PARKS'S Maryland Gazette, THE FIRST NEWSPAPER SOUTH
OF PENNSYLVANIA

Principally, however, was the Province indebted to Parks for his estab-
lishment of its first newspaper. In the month of September 1727, appeared
the inaugural issue of the Mory land Gazette, the first newspaper to be pub-
lished south of Pennsylvania, and the seventh to attain regular publication in
English America. It was issued continuously until March 1730/31, when it
seems to have been discontinued to resume publication again nearly two
years later, in December 1732. At this time its proprietor formed a part-

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