186
reasons, into a back apartment of the same house.⁵⁶

In the meantime, Grieves was busy with the small
businesses which newspaper publishers of that day
invariably engaged in: he offered for sale "blanks,
bonds, warrants, deeds, notes, apprentices¹ indentures,
&c.,"⁵⁷ collected rags for paper making, and paid two
pence per pound for them, sold lampblack,⁵⁹ published
a pamphlet, A Narrative of the Extraordinary Sufferings
of Mr. Robert Forbes, his Wife, and Five Children.
which he sold for sixpence,⁶⁰ and the Maryland and
Virginia Almanac for 1798, which he offered to merchants
"on the most reasonable terms,"⁶¹ and sold other books.⁶²

It is unfortunate that no publications of Thomas ,
Grieves during the eighteenth century, other than the
newspaper and one broadside,⁶³ have survived. Judging
from the records of Grieves' publications alone, there
was a marked similarity between the publications which
Grieves offered to the English-reading population of
the county, and those which John Gruber, in his German

printing office in Hagerstown, published for the German

element.

56 Ibid. March 15, 1798.

57 Ibid. March 23, 1797.

§8 Ibid. April 13, 1797.

59 Ibid. March 30, 1797.

60 Ibid. September 7, 1797. Also Appendix A,
Imprint bibliography, item 345.

61 Ibid. November 23, 1797.

62 Ibid. August 10, 1797.

63 Appendix A. Imprint bibliography, item 591.