Jonas Green, his Family and his Associates

GREEN & RIND, PUBLISHERS, 1758-1766

It is proper that while speaking of Jonas Green notice should be taken
of a printer, who was, as far as can be ascertained, the first native-born
Marylander to practice the typographical art in the Province. Unfortu-
nately little is known of the activities in Maryland of this William Rind,¹
who for nearly eight years appears in the imprint of the Maryland Gazette
as the partner of Jonas Green. Apprenticed at the usual age to Green, he
had remained in his master's shop after the expiration of his articles, and
eventually in October 1758, he had become Green's partner in the publica-
tion of the Maryland Gazette? During these years he conducted a book store
of no small pretension in the house on West Street, where, his advertise-
ment informs us, "the late Mrs. M'Leod formerly kept Tavern." A long
and interesting list of books imported by him appeared in the Maryland
Gazette for August 26, 1762. In this house he established his circulating li-
brary, where the people of Annapolis, for one guinea a year might borrow
under easy rules new and standard works of English writers. He had origi-
nally proposed a plan for "circulating a Library through the Province,"
but the uncertainty of the local system of transportation had discouraged
him and his subscribers to such an extent that on January 13, 1763, he ad-
vertised in the Gazette his restriction of the privilege to the people of An-
napolis. His relations with his partner and former master seem to have been
particularly close; his name appears more than once in the St. Anne's reg-
ister as sponsor in baptism for the children of Jonas and Anne Catharine
Green, and when their partnership was dissolved in 1766, the several ad-
vertisements regarding the dissolution which appeared in the Maryland
Gazette contained an interchange of the most amiable felicitations between
the two associates.

It was in the year 1758 that the firm of "Green and Rind" was formed
for the purpose of carrying on the newspaper. The junior partner, it seems,
did not enter into the ordinary business of the establishment; his name ap-
peared on none of its imprints except that of the Maryland Gazette. The re-
lationship continued until the year 1766, when at the solicitation of Thomas
Jefferson and others in Virginia, Rind removed to the southern colony.
"Until the beginning of our revolutionary disputes," wrote Thomas Jeffer-

¹The son of Alexander Rind and of Anne his second wife, he was born the 24th of December 1733 and bap-
tized soon afterwards in St. Anne's Church, Annapolis. His father was a member of St. Anne's Parish and was
married by its rector for the first time to Abigail Green, alias Harvey, on the 24th of August 1725. The maiden
name of Anne his second wife does not appear in the "Register" of St. Anne's Parish from which these facts
were abstracted.

¹ Advertisement in Maryland Gazette.

[85]