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In early America, information was generally transmitted along well-worn paths, defined by relationships of family and neighborhood, social circle and occupation. The rate at which information flowed was determined by the pace of social interaction, commerce, and printing. Exceptional circumstances altered this pattern; during these situations information raced from person to person and place to place. News of the outbreak of war, the cessation of hostilities, epidemics, conflagrations, and heinous crimes all sped via rumor and report, broadside and newspaper. Certain kinds of news eventually reached nearly everyone, regardless of station or circumstance. Be they Indian attacks in Samuel Sewell's Boston or Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, eventually news of such dramatic events reached to the very corners of America. This broadside, the only known copy, records the first notice in both Newport and Providence, Rhode Island, of the British surrender at Yorktown some six days earlier. In this instance, the information traveled via the schooner Adventure, which departed the York River on the 20th of October, bound for New England. At major cities along the way, Captain Lovett announced the capitulation, spreading the "glorious news" north along the Atlantic coast.
Image rights owned by the Virginia Historical Society. |
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