{"id":11441,"date":"2016-06-28T20:11:42","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T20:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lichen.csd.sc.edu\/sce\/entries\/timothy-elizabeth\/"},"modified":"2022-08-25T14:56:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T14:56:28","slug":"timothy-elizabeth","status":"publish","type":"entry","link":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/timothy-elizabeth\/","title":{"rendered":"Timothy, Elizabeth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Newspaper publisher. Little is known of Elizabeth Timothy\u2019s origins and early life. Benjamin Franklin described her as \u201cborn and bred in Holland.\u201d She was married to Louis Timoth\u00e9e, a French-born immigrant from Rotterdam. Together with their four young children, the couple sailed to Philadelphia in 1731. Louis worked as a French instructor and soon after established an association with Franklin, who helped him become a journeyman printer for the <em>Pennsylvania Gazette. <\/em>In November 1733 Franklin established Louis in a six-year business partnership as the new printer of the <em>South-Carolina Gazette. <\/em>While Louis prepared the first issue of his Charleston newspaper, Elizabeth settled family business in Philadelphia before moving her family to South Carolina in March 1734. The family became established members of lowcountry society. The name Louis was anglicized to \u201cLewis\u201d and Timoth\u00e9e became \u201cTimothy,\u201d and the family was registered at St. Philip\u2019s Church. By 1736 Lewis Timothy prospered as a landholder and printer, serving as the official colonial printer for South Carolina. In December 1738 Lewis died as the result of \u201can unhappy Accident,\u201d leaving Elizabeth in the care of \u201csix small Children and another hourly expected.\u201d She had already mourned the loss of two of her children by 1737.<\/p>\n<p>According to the arrangement between her husband and Franklin, Elizabeth\u2019s eldest son, Peter, was to carry on the business in the event of his father\u2019s death. But because of Peter\u2019s youth, she assumed control of the printing office as well as responsibility for her family. The newly widowed Elizabeth published the next issue of the <em>Gazette <\/em>on January 4, 1739, pledging \u201cto make it as entertaining and correct as may be reasonably expected.\u201d By the end of the year, she bought out Franklin\u2019s interest in the partnership and became the first woman in the American colonies to own and publish a newspaper. Franklin praised her regular and exact accounting and commended her for both raising a family and purchasing the printing operation from him.<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth gradually relinquished control of printing operations when Peter came of age in 1746. Requests for payment from the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly from 1740 to 1743 in Elizabeth\u2019s name show her reliance on the revenues as public printer. In addition to publishing the <em>Gazette <\/em>and colonial laws, she sold legal blanks, broadsides, and stationery and established a bookstore adjacent to her son\u2019s printing office.<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth drafted her will on April 2, 1757, and was buried two days later at St. Philip\u2019s Church. She bequeathed to her children personal property, eight slaves, and household items. In Peter\u2019s care she also left a silver watch belonging to her late husband, with the intent that he leave it to his son. Through her son Peter, daughter-in-law Ann, and grandson Benjamin Franklin Timothy, Elizabeth ensured that the Timothy printing legacy in South Carolina would continue for three generations.<\/p>\n<p>Baker, Ira L. \u201cElizabeth Timothy: America\u2019s First Woman Editor.\u201d <em>Journalism Quarterly <\/em>54 (summer 1977): 280\u201385.<\/p>\n<p>Cohen, Hennig. <em>The South Carolina Gazette, 1732\u20131775. <\/em>Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1953.<\/p>\n<p>King, Martha J. \u201cMaking an Impression: Women Printers of the Southern Colonies in the Revolutionary Era.\u201d Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 1992.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Newspaper publisher. Little is known of Elizabeth Timothy\u2019s origins and early life. Benjamin Franklin described her as \u201cborn and bred in Holland.\u201d She was married to Louis Timoth\u00e9e, a French-born immigrant from Rotterdam. Together with their four young children, the couple sailed to Philadelphia in 1731. Louis worked as a French instructor and soon after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-11441","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-business-and-industry","ecms-charleston-county","ecms-colonial-period-1670-1764","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-literature","ecms-lowcountry","ecms-t","ecms-women"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Timothy, Elizabeth - South Carolina Encyclopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/timothy-elizabeth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Timothy, Elizabeth - South Carolina Encyclopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Newspaper publisher. Little is known of Elizabeth Timothy\u2019s origins and early life. Benjamin Franklin described her as \u201cborn and bred in Holland.\u201d She was married to Louis Timoth\u00e9e, a French-born immigrant from Rotterdam. Together with their four young children, the couple sailed to Philadelphia in 1731. 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Little is known of Elizabeth Timothy\u2019s origins and early life. Benjamin Franklin described her as \u201cborn and bred in Holland.\u201d She was married to Louis Timoth\u00e9e, a French-born immigrant from Rotterdam. Together with their four young children, the couple sailed to Philadelphia in 1731. 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