A History of the Maryland Press, 1777-1790

Colonial bindings were usually done in the dull brown cowhide16 but the
proprietors of the shop connected with the Goddard Press advertised
for the tanned hides of sheep.

"Tann'd Sheepskins, suitable for Book-Binding, are immediately wanted by the Printers hereof."17

General Charles Lee's death on October 2, 1782, left Goddard heir
to one-sixth of his estate in Virginia, which doubtless served to relieve
some financial burdens and to make it possible for him to take over
the Maryland Journal. On January 2, 1784, he announced in the paper
that he had purchased new printing equipment and that in the future
the paper would be published by William and Mary Katherine Goddard.
However, in the next issue, Mary Katherine Goddard's name was
dropped from the imprint and he remained the sole publisher until his
partnership with Edward Langworthy.18

GODDARD AND LANGWORTHY PROPOSE TO PUBLISH A MAGAZINE

He made another appeal to the educated class in Maryland and the
surrounding states, when on January 28, 1785, in the Maryland Journa/,
he proposed the publication of a literary magazine to be known as The
American Spectator.

"... a Number of respectable Gentlemen have engaged to assist and patronize the Subscribers, in
their conducting a Work under the Title of The American Spectator, to be published monthly.
In this Work they intend to publish several Original Pieces, and also to rescue from Oblivion some
Very Valuable and Excellent Ones which made their Appearance in consequence of the late Con-
test.—That this Design may be rendered as useful and extensive as possible, they are now attempt-
ing to open and establish a Correspondence with Gentlemen eminent for their Knowledge and Ability
in every State of America; to procure from them the History of every College, Academy or Seminary
of learning; to collect Accounts of such Improvements in the Arts and Sciences as may be made
in any of the States; to be informed of any Changes or Revisions in their Constitutions; and "to
catch, living as they rise, the Manners" of this young but great and rising Empire.
..... They shall be extremely happy in the Favour and Assistance of those Gentlemen who superin-
tend the great Business of Education, and ever ready to insert in their Spectator, any of the meri-
torious Performances of the Youth under their Care..... In some future Paper they will lay their
Proposals, for The American Spectator, before the Public, which will be done as soon as their cir-
cular letters upon this Subject shall be transmitted to the Literati and other Gentlemen in the Sev.

eral States. [signed] Goddard and Langworthy"

Again he failed to receive the necessary support for what would have
been at that time a publication of unusual pretensions and the first
magazine to be published south of Philadelphia.19

16 See L. C Wroth, The Colonial Printer, 168 169.
17 Maryland Journal, May 3, 1785.
18 See biographical sketch of Langworthy.

'• The first magazine to be published in Baltimore, and at the same time the first to be published south of the Mason
Dixon Line, was Tke Free L'niversaJ Uagatine which began in New York in 1793 and was transplanted to Baltimore later

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