John Lupia submitted the following information for this week's installment of his series on numismatic biographies. Thanks!
He's been working for years researching 18th century American numismatists and dealers, and has uncovered quite a bit of information
that pushes back our knowledge of this area by over a century. His book will be titled Numismatic Collecting in 18th Century
America.
This week's subject is James Rivington - colonial printer, bookseller, patriot, spy, and coin dealer. -Editor
James Rivington (1724-1802), was born the son of Charles Rivington (1688-1742) and Eleanor Pease (d. 1753), at Chesterfield, Derbyshire,
England. He was a member of a family of booksellers at St. Paul’s Church-Yard, London, which did business there for over a century. From the mid
1750’s he was a notorious bookseller known for undercutting his competitors by purchasing bootleg copies from country printers of popular titles.
In order to steal away other English bookseller’s customers he advertised in America to sell at a 16 percent discount and a year’s
credit. His large volume shop acted as a clearinghouse moving more stock than all of his competitors combined. After going bankrupt from
gambling losses at the Newmarket races in 1758, he immigrated to New York in 1759, and opened a bookshop at Hanover Square with Samuel
Brown, corner of Market and Front Streets, trading as Rivington & Brown. This is the same place that two years previous the earliest
documented American coin auction had taken place by William Proctor (q.v.).
The following year, 1760, he moved to Philadelphia to set up shop leaving the New York shop in the hands of his partner Brown. He
returned to New York in 1762 and sold many articles besides books including art, curiosities and medals of King George and Queen Charlotte
as advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Thursday, April 22, 1762, page 4. Consequently, Rivington together with Peter McTaggart
(q.v.), John Green and Joseph Russell trading as Green & Russell (q.v.), and Edmond Milne (q.v.) are among the earliest known coin dealers
in America.
Nevertheless, he opened a third bookstore at Boston with a new partner. After twelve years at New York he entered the newspaper industry
and began to publish on April 22, 1773, The New York Gazetteer or the Connecticut, New Jersey, Hudson's River, and Quebec Weekly
Advertiser (1773-1775).
Though he averred to be a free “open and uninfluenced press” by November 1774 he was labeled as being a Loyalist. At that time he
boasted of a circulation of 3,600 throughout the colonies. No patriot knew that in 1775 he was one of the very first agents in the secret
service to the newly appointed General George Washington. Rivington suffered severe public, social and financial losses to keep up the
appearance of being a Loyalist in order to be a convincing spy for the Revolutionary War's Continental Army.
He was believed to be a Tory sympathizer throughout the Revolutionary War, which lead New Jersey patriots at New Brunswick to hang him in
effigy. Rivington had a woodcut engraved depicting that event and printed it in his paper with condemnatory words to suit.
“In consequence of his repeated attacks upon the Sons of Liberty, and especially Captain Isaac Sears, that officer came to New York from
Connecticut with seventy-five horsemen, and, entering Rivington's office, destroyed his press and converted the types into bullets.
Rivington's conduct was examined by the Provincial Congress, which referred the case to the Continental Congress, and while the latter
was considering it the publisher wrote a remonstrance declaring, "that however wrong and mistaken he may have been in his opinions, he
has always meant honestly and openly to do his duty as a servant of the public."
He then made his peace with the Whigs, and was permitted to return to his house, but having incurred suspicion he afterward went to
England, where he was appointed king's printer for New York. In 1777, after the British occupation of that city, he returned with a new
press, and resumed the publication of his paper under the title of Rivington's New York Loyal Gazette, which he changed on 13
December, 1777, to The Royal Gazette.
On the day when Major John André was taken prisoner his "Cow Chase" was published by Rivington. About 1781, when the success
of the British was becoming doubtful, Rivington played the part of a spy, furnishing Washington with important information. His
communications were written on thin paper, bound in the covers of books, and conveyed to the American camp by agents that were ignorant of
their service. When New York was evacuated, Rivington remained in the city, much to the general surprise, removed the royal arms from his
paper, and changed its title to Rivington's New York Gazette and Universal Advertiser. But his business rapidly declined, his
paper ceased to exist in 1783, and he passed the remainder of his life in comparative poverty.”
And so it was believed by the biographer of Appleton's Cyclopedia. However, Rivington was merely changing professions from a
newspaper publisher back to being a bookseller, who, also sold coins like he did twenty years earlier; the basis of the model in the line of selling
curiosities, art and coins in what has come to be known in the United States as the classic Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe, which has enjoyed great
popularity in America through these last two centuries.
His advertisement published in the late fall of 1782 reads : “To the Curious, For Sale, A Number of Foreign Coins, Gold, Silver, and
Copper, many of them Ancient. – Enquire of the Printer.” Royal Gazette, Saturday, November 2, 1782, page 3, column 3. It was during the end
of The Royal Gazette newspaper (1777-1783) that he published his own advertisement for the sale of these coins. The anti-royalists
called his paper the “Lying Gazette.” Rivington’s newspaper had suffered from his believed to be political affiliations and so he turned to
coin dealing by the late fall of 1782. He ceased publishing about a year later on December 31, 1783.
His first marriage in 1752 to Elizabeth Mynshull (1752-1769), bore him three sons : James Rivington, Jr. (1769-1809), Henry Rivington
(1770-?), and John Rivington (1772-1795), who became Maj. John Rivington. A decade after the death of his first wife he remarried on March
9, 1779, to Elizabeth Van Horne (Van Hooren) (d.1795), who bore him two sons and two daughters. This is attested to by the 1790 U. S.
Census, which reported that he lived in the East Ward, New York City, New York, and had three sons at least sixteen years of age and two
under, a wife and two daughters and eight slaves. He, like Thomas Jefferson died on the 4th of July, except in the year 1802 at New York
City, New York.
To read the complete article, see:
RIVINGTON,
JAMES (https://sites.google.com/site/numismaticmallcom/encyclopedic-dictionary-of-numismatic-biographies/rivington-james)
To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
PETER MCTAGGART (1732-1825+) (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n42a14.html)
GREEN & RUSSELL, COLONIAL BOSTON MEDAL DEALERS
(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n43a13.html)
EDMOND MILNE (1724-1822) (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n45a15.html)
Wayne Homren, Editor
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization
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