The New-England Courant
early American newspaper
The New-England Courant (also spelled New England Courant), one of the first American newspapers, was founded in Boston in 1721, by James Franklin. It was a weekly newspaper and the third to appear in Boston. Unlike other newspapers, it offered a more critical view of the Massachusetts colonial government. The newspaper published critical commentary about smallpox inoculation which fueled the controversy during the smallpox epidemic in Boston. Ultimately it was suppressed in 1726 by the colonial government for printing what they considered seditious articles.
Franklin took on his brother, Benjamin Franklin, as an apprentice and at one point was compelled to sign over publication of the Courant to him to avert further prosecution. Benjamin submitted anonymous editorials to the Courant, which resulted in James' imprisonment after he began publishing them. This sort of governmental censorship of early colonial newspapers is what largely fostered the American ideal of freedom of speech in the press. The New England Courant is widely noted among historians as being the first newspaper to publish Benjamin's writings.
History
The New-England Courant made its first appearance on Monday, August 7, 1721, printed and published by James Franklin and was the third newspaper established in Boston.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7753466. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1721 and 1726.
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This entry incorporates text from “The New-England Courant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.