Harris, Benjamin (1660?-1720), published the first newspaper in America. As a bookseller in his native London, he was punished for circulating “false” pamphlets about Roman Catholics and Quakers. He fled to America in 1686. On Sept. 25, 1690, he published Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick in Boston. He planned to issue his “newes-paper” at least once a month, but its scandalous stories about the French monarch antagonized colonial authorities, and no other issues were printed.
