Transcontinental Rumors: Information and Misinformation in an 18th-Century Newspaper
Whitehall Evening-Post, July 20-22, 1775 issue
Posted on July 21, 2025
Transcontinental Rumors: Information and Misinformation in an 18th-Century Newspaper
Publishing 18th-century news was a difficult business. While local readers had an interest in political and military events happening an ocean away, publishers didn’t have reporters to send to the scene of a battle to get accurate details. Instead, they relied on letters from abroad or reprinted passages from papers closer to the action. The accuracy of these sources was a mixed bag, with rumors spreading alongside facts.
250 years ago this week, London readers of the Whitehall Evening-Post received the latest information, and misinformation, from America. In a section dated July 21, 1775, the paper summarized “a letter said to be sent from Boston… dated June 11”. The letter described a (nonexistent) June 10 battle at Boston beginning when American troops attacked a British scouting party: “I am informed that the Provincials…lost 1700 men… the loss of the Regulars… amounts to about 1000 men.”
The July 22 section of the paper reprints a letter from June 18 with different news: “Nothing of consequence has happened at Boston since the 19th of April, except a skirmish or two.” By the time this letter left its author’s hands it was already out of date. The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, the day before the letter was written. Ironically, British forces saw 1054 casualties at Bunker Hill, almost the same number reported from the false June 10 battle.
A passage labeled “Postscript, Saturday Afternoon, July 22” attempts to clear up the confusion, but instead repeats incorrect information. “The account of a battle between the Regulars and Provincials… has no real foundation in truth… Capt. Skinner, who arrived in Town from Newport, in Rhode-Island, on Thursday last, brings advice, that on the 17th of June, no alteration of any kind had taken place in the disposition either of the Regulars in, or Provincials before, Boston.” Readers would need to wait for more reports to reach London before they could know with certainty what really happened in Boston that June.
Learn more about the Evening-Post issue (object ID MS.7852, courtesy of the Sauter family) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database here.