The Virginia Gazette

William Parks

The Virginia Gazette was was the first newspaper published in Virginia and the first to be published in the area south of the Potomac River in the colonial period of the United States. Issues have the following subtitle: “Containing the freshest advices, foreign and domestick”. Published weekly in Williamsburg, VA between 1736 and 1780, The Virginia Gazette contained news covering all of Virginia and also included information from other colonies, Scotland, England and additional countries. The paper appeared in several iterations from a succession of publishers over the years, the first of whom was William Parks who published the first four-page edition on August 6, 1736. As Williamsburg was the center of growing tensions in the Virginia Colony which led to the American Revolution, the newspaper was one of the centers of activity in the capital of Virginia, and dutifully published accounts. When at the urging of Gov. Thomas Jefferson the capital was relocated to Richmond in 1780, the newspaper followed. The final issue of The Virginia Gazette produced in Williamsburg was April 8, 1780.