William Goddard, Printer and Founder of the American Post Office

His third and last attempt to publish a contribution to American let-
ters was announced in the Maryland Journal on July 26, 1785, after
appearing in a separately printed prospectus a few weeks before.20
This plan to print a three volume edition of the letters of General
Charles Lee, edited by Langworthy and Goddard, did not receive the
necessary support and Goddard seems to have been discouraged from
any further effort to make his printing office a literary publishing center.

Throughout Goddard's career as a printer there were a series of quar-
rels with his associates which indicate that he possessed a hot temper
and a stubborn determination to act as he thought fit. The first of these
controversies was with his partners in Philadelphia and it ultimately
forced him to leave that city. His aggressive support of the Liberty of
the Press in Baltimore in the Whig Club and the "Queries" affairs would
have had similar results had it not been for the intervention of the
Governor and the Maryland Assembly. In each of these incidents we
may sympathize with his actions since they were based on firm political
convictions, but it is more difficult to justify his unfortunate quarrels
with his sister and his partner, Edward Langworthy.21 His unenviable
reputation as a controversialist drew from Edward Langworthy the
statement that "Mr. Goddard ... in a few years, has abused more gen-
tlemen of distinction, than any other man in the United States ... ,"22

GODDARD'S LATER YEARS IN RHODE ISLAND

On Thursday, May 25, 1786, Goddard was married to Abigail Angell,
daughter of General James Angell of Providence. She was a woman of
considerable literary ability and was, as a girl, very popular in Provi-
dence as her correspondence in the John Carter Brown Library indicates.
Daniel Carthy, who was in 1811 investigating the Lee papers, at that
time still in Goddard's possession for proof that Lee was the author
of the letters of Junius, mentioned to a friend in Providence the high
esteem in which he held Mrs. Goddard's abilities:

"You give me such an high idea of the literary taste, talents, and accomplishments of Mrs.
Goddard, that, although I should dread her censures, I could wish to be near her, that my work
might receive the preenings of her criticism and the stamp of her approbation."23

in the year, where it evidently expired after two numbers. See Evans, 25505-25507. Also see Mott, History of American
Magazines, 1741-1850, pages 31-32.

20 See Bibliography of Imprints, No. 368. For a discussion of the plan to print the Papers of Charles Lee see the bio-
graphical sketch of Edward Langworthy.

21 For a discussion of these controversies see the biographical sketches of Mary K. Goddard and Edward Langworthy.
22 Maryland Gazette: or, the Baltimore Advertiser, December 26, 1786. Langworthy wrote under the signature of J. C.
on this occasion.

23 The Lee Papers, in Collections of the New York Historical Society, Vol. IV, p. 62.