[Illustration: FLORIDA GAZETTE. VOL. I. ST. AUGUSTINE, (E. F.)
SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1821. No. 3.]
Dr. William Charles Wells, one of many American loyalists who took
refuge in Florida, introduced printing at St. Augustine in 1783. There
he published a loyalist paper, _The East-Florida Gazette_, under the
imprint of his elder brother, the Charleston printer John Wells,
and with the assistance of a pressman named Charles Wright. Apart
from two books of 1784 bearing John Wells' imprint and a document
printed at Amelia Island in 1817 during the Spanish rule, no other
Florida publications survive from the years preceding United States
acquisition of the territory.[34]
Richard W. Edes, grandson of the Boston printer Benjamin Edes,
reestablished printing at St. Augustine, issuing the first number of
his weekly paper, the _Florida Gazette_, on the day of the transfer
of Florida's administration, July 14, 1821. The Library of Congress
holds 10 issues, constituting the best surviving file of this paper.
The earliest Florida printing in the Library is the third issue,
published July 28 and the earliest issue extant. This happens to be a
very curious example of printing. Of its four pages the second is half
blank and the third is totally blank, the following explanation being
given: