Peter Timothy

Peter Timothy (1724–1782), originally named Peter Timothee, was an 18th-century Dutch-American printer and politician. He was probably born in the Netherlands in 1724 to a French Huguenot father, Lewis Timothy (originally Louis Timothee), and a Dutch mother, Elizabeth (originally Elisabet Timothee). The older Timothee was a printer, librarian, and linguist fluent in Dutch, German, French, and English. His mother, Elizabeth Timothy, was adept at business and accounting which was to become very important for her son Peter. The family first immigrated to Colonial Pennsylvania in 1731 to work for Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.

In 1732, Benjamin Franklin sent the young couple to Charleston, South Carolina (then called Charles Town), to replace the dead printer, Eleazar Phillips, who was a business associate of Franklin. Louis Timothee anglicized his name to Lewis Timothy and took over printing of the South Carolina Gazette after Thomas Whitmarsh, Eleazar Phillips’ junior partner, had died. Six years later, Lewis Timothy died, leaving the press to his widow and 14-year-old son Peter (who had learned how to use the press). Elizabeth Timothy ran the business until Peter took over in 1746. For nearly 44 years, Peter Timothy ran the South Carolina Gazette, making it the oldest newspaper in the colonial south (later his son, Benjamin Franklin Timothy, would take over the newspaper and government printing contracts).

As Peter Timothy became successful in business, he became more interested in South Carolina politics. He was elected to the South Carolina’s Commons House of Assembly for a term in 1755 (rare for an artisan). He became increasingly interested in the concept of the freedom of the press and began to print radical tracts in his columns and letters to the editor. He became an active member of the Sons of Liberty and the South Carolina Committee of Correspondence. After the British captured Charles Town in 1780, he was captured by the British as a rebel and sent to prison in St. Augustine, Florida. After ten months he was furloughed to stay with family members in Philadelphia, as long as he did not return to Charles Town. In 1782, he sailed with his family with the goal of reaching Antigua, in the West Indies, where he may have been planning an invasion of Charles Town. However, his ship sank and all on board died.Isaiah Thomas, a former printer who knew Peter Timothy in Charleston (and later a historian of early newspapers in America), wrote regarding Timothy that he was a “much respected citizen” and a “decided and active friend of his country.”

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