Benjamin Harris presents scholars with a problem as they attempt to characterize the man given credit for publishing the first American newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick, in 1690. Since very little information about his personal background is available, the facts of his life have been compiled from the evidence of his publishing career and of his other business activities. This evidence includes publication credit lines, memoirs of contemporaries, and records from legal proceedings.

Although Harris enjoys the same reputation as a champion for press freedom as his American Revolution-era counterparts, his legacy to journalists consists primarily of works he arranged to have printed and of works he personally printed. He wrote only a handful of the items he is credited with printing and selling. Therefore, his publications and the fragmentary details of his life must be objectively evaluated to determine if he really deserves praise as a...