I was cleaning out a box of old papers when I found an 18 pence note printed in 1776 by Hall and Sellers, successors to Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia printing business. Folded beside it was a newspaper clipping describing a 10-shilling note printed in 1775 by Timothy Green.

I’d always pictured colonial newsmen cranking out pamphlets and broadsides, but I hadn’t thought about their role as printers of currency. And although I knew the Greens were important in New London, I never appreciated what a printing dynasty that family represented.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1649 Samuel Green took over Stephen Daye’s printing business after Daye’s death. Daye had published the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in British North America. The actual press used to print this historic book was used by the Greens in New London for generations!

Many of Samuel’s descendants became printers, but of special interest to us are his great-grandsons, Thomas and Timothy. Thomas started the Hartford Courant, while Timothy published the New London Gazette, later renamed the Connecticut Gazette.

There were several Timothy Greens, but this story is about the Timothy who lived between 1737 and 1796. He had a shop in his home near the corner of State Street and (what would become) Green Street in New London, where he produced almanacs, newspapers, and government documents. Today his building is a restaurant.

Although his newspaper enjoyed a wide readership, it wasn’t always profitable. Sometimes Timothy had to request payment in food so he could feed his large family. He struggled with other chronic challenges like broken printing presses and a shortage of rags for making paper.

I went to the New London County Historical Society to sample their extensive collection of Green newspapers. One paper from 1763 contained reports of European events, but even colonial matters, like Newport maritime activities and a wrestling fatality in Baltimore, had an oddly international flavor because they were reported under a London headline. Local tidbits included news of stolen livestock and the sale of some Arnold property in Norwich.

That same newspaper also contained an article regarding “An Act of Parliament for the further improvement of His Majesty’s Revenues…and for the Prevention of the clandestine Running of Goods into Any Part of His majesty’s Dominions…enjoining Vigilance in suppressing…contraband Trade.” Can you smell trouble brewing?

Trouble arrived two years later when the Stamp Act imposed a tax on all printed material. Some printers closed their shops rather than comply, but Timothy continued to publish on unstamped paper, never missing an issue. When the hated law was repealed Timothy exulted, “Glorious News … It is impossible to express the joy the town is now in.”

British-American relations continued to deteriorate, and on April 20, 1775, Isaac Bissell galloped into New London with news of Lexington and Concord. Due to “the alarming and confused state of public affairs” Timothy didn’t run this story until April 28. Perhaps he was distracted by an order from the colonial assembly to print “with all Convenient speed” a large quantity of bills of credit to finance the coming unpleasantness. Timothy made his own political position clear by removing the royal insignia from the Gazette’s masthead.

In July 1776 Timothy scooped every other New England newspaper by being the first to print the Declaration of Independence. In September 1781, amid horrific chaos, Timothy published the account of Benedict Arnold’s assault on New London, the death toll, and an inventory of the destruction. A month later Timothy reported the victory at Yorktown, but it would be a long time before distraught New Londoners felt like celebrating.

With the war finally over, Timothy was no longer the official printer for the colony. The colony was gone; he was now a printer in the new nation he’d helped create.

Carol Sommer of Waterford is a self-proclaimed history nut. She writes a monthly history column inspired by local street signs.