Louis Timothee

Timothy was born in the Netherlands to French Huguenot parents who lived in Rotterdam. His parents fled France and went to the Netherlands to escape religious persecution that was caused by the revocation of the Edict of Nantz.[3] As a young man in the Netherlands he learned printing from his father. Timothy, with his wife, Elizabeth, and four children, moved to British America in 1731. He took the Oath of Allegiance to King George II at Philadelphia upon arrival on September 21, 1731, as was required of all male immigrants to British America.[3][4][5]

Timothy was fluent in German, French, and English as well as his native tongue, Dutch.[6] The month after arriving in Philadelphia, he advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette his intention to open a public French-language school and become a teacher. He said he would be willing to teach the language to any young gentleman or lady at their residence if requested.[7]

Timothy became acquainted with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia because of his printing skills and started working for him, learning to publish a newspaper.[8] His first attempt in the province of Pennsylvania was the German-language Philadelphische Zeitung. It came out in the spring of 1732 and failed within a year. After that Timothy was the printer for Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette.[1] Franklin was impressed by Timothy's work, so he entered into a six-year contract with him on November 26, 1733. Franklin agreed to furnish printing equipment for publishing the floundering South Carolina Gazette weekly newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina.[9][10] Timothy was to publish the newspaper and pay back over six years the expenses Franklin provided up front. The previous editor, Thomas Whitmarsh, died of yellow fever in 1733; his predecessor died in 1731.[9]

Timothy prospered as a newspaper publisher so became the official public printer and postmaster general for the province of South Carolina. He expanded his printing business to include books and pamphlets. During this period Timothy's son Peter was beginning apprenticeship in his father's print shop.[11] The Franklin-Timothy agreement said that Franklin was to provide the printing typefonts and the press, while Timothy was to perform the publishing.[9] Franklin also agreed to pay one-third of the maintenance costs; in return he was to receive one-third of the profits.[12] The agreement also provided that Peter would inherit the printing business in the event of his father's untimely death.[1]

Franklin started the first public library in the United States as an offshoot of a discussion group. It had pooled together books and formed a library on July 1, 1731. Franklin arranged for Timothy to serve as a part-time librarian in 1732 to manage this collection of books that became known as the Library Company of Philadelphia, one of Franklin's first philanthropic projects.[6] There was no full-time librarian until November 14, 1732,[13] when Timothy was hired as the first salaried one in the American colonies, thereby becoming America's first official librarian.[14] He was paid £3 (equivalent to £505 in 2020) sterling every trimester,[15] which was a term of three months.[16] He worked every Wednesday from two to three o'clock and every Saturday from ten to four.[17]

Timothy arranged with Franklin to revive the South Carolina Gazette weekly newspaper. He went to Charleston by himself in the later part of 1733 and started publishing the newspaper on February 2, 1734. Timothy's wife Elizabeth followed later from Philadelphia and went to Charleston in the spring of 1734. She came to Charleston with her six children, four of whom were children born in the Netherlands.[5] It was three years since Timothy's arrival in America and he then changed his name from the previous French spelling of Timothee.[5][18][12]

In Franklin's Philadelphia shop, Timothy continued Whitmarsh's practice of reprinting essays encouraging people to be optimistic and virtuous. One day in 1738 Timothy informed his readers that his publication of a pamphlet was delayed "by reason of Sicknes, myself and Son having been visited with this Fever, that reigns at present, so that neither of us hath been capable for some time of working much at the Press."[19] He died two months after this announcement on December 30. He may have contracted the deadly yellow fever, but there are no records to show this for sure. In contrast on January 4, 1739, the South-Carolina Gazette noted that the cause of his death was as an unhappy accident.[12][20]

Timothy had anticipated the likelihood of his own demise because three previous South Carolina printers had died soon after arriving in the colony. Peter was just thirteen years old when Timothy died and was then training as an apprentice with his father, however was too inexperienced yet to take over the business. Franklin agreed to take on the wife of Timothy, as a partner until Peter was capable of running the shop.[21] When Elizabeth became Franklin's printer partner she had six children. Peter took over a portion of the South-Carolina Gazette newspaper publication in 1740 and the complete printing business in 1746 that included the newspaper and printing of government works as the official public printer for the colony of South Carolina. When Peter was twenty-one years old he took over the partnership his father had with Franklin and worked closely with Franklin for the next thirty years.[20]

The South Carolina Gazette newspaper of February 2, 1734, is a work attributed to Timothy.

• 
  Containing freshest Advices Foreign and Domestick
• 
  SC Gazette Feb 2 1734
  bottom part of second page
• 
  SC Gazette Feb 2 1734
  bottom part of third page
• 
  Printed by L. Timothy
  bottom of fourth page

Other works attributed to Timothy are An Essay on Currency, The Character and Duty of Minister and People, Acts Passed by the General Assembly of South Carolina, and Laws of the Province of South Carolina.[22]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lewis Timothy.

• William Goddard (publisher) — Worked with Benjamin Franklin, publishing broadsides opposing the Stamp Act
• Alexander Purdie (publisher)
• William Hunter (publisher)
• William Parks (publisher)
• Joseph Royle (publisher)
• John Holt (publisher)
• Elizabeth Timothy
• Jane Aitken

• Baker, Ira L. (1977). "Elizabeth Timothy – America's First Woman Editor". Journalism Quarterly. Sage Publications. 54 (Spring 1977): 280–285. doi:10.1177/107769907705400207. S2CID 143677057.
• Frasca, Ralph (2006). Benjamin Franklin's Printing Network. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6492-3.
• Hudson, Frederic (2000). American Journalism:a history of newspapers in the United States through 250 years, 1690-1940. ISBN 0-415-22893-X.
• McKerns, Joseph P. (1989). Dictionary of American Journalism. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-23819-2.
• Oswald, John Clyde (1965). Printing in the Americas: ... Kennikat Press.
• Schilpp, Madelon Golden (1983). Great women of the press. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0809310988.
• Sherrow, Victoria (2002). American Women Business Entrepreneurs. Facts On File, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-8160-4556-3.
• Thomas, Isaiah (1810). Printing in America. Press of Isaiah Thomas. OCLC 946744145.
• Vaughn, Stephen L. (2007). Encyclopedia of American Journalism. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0203942161.
• Wroth, Lawrence (1994). The Colonial Printer. Dover. ISBN 9780486282947.

• Louis Timothee at Find a Grave