John Lockwood

• formal_name:
• first_date: 1792
• last_date: 1794
• function: Bookseller, Librarian
• locales: Alexandria
• precis: Bookseller, stationer, and library operator in Alexandria between 1792 and 1794.
• notes: Bookseller & Librarian
  Alexandria
  Bookseller, stationer, and library operator in Alexandria between 1792 and 1794.
  Lockwood was a part of the Virginia print trade for just two years, and has left few clues as to either his origins or his fate. His initial trade appearance came in September 1792 when he advertised the opening of a circulating library on Alexandria's Fairfax Street; the phrasing of that notice suggests that Lockwood was adding this undertaking to an existing business, perhaps a grocery concern, given mention in a 1793 notice of having bulk molasses for sale among his printed wares. That first publication stressed that he would maintain a collection that would not cater to vulgar tastes, guaranteeing that the "Public may be assured that no books, tending to corrupt the morals of youth, will ever be admitted into" his offerings. Still, in subsequent notices, Lockwood emphasized what books he had for sale, and not for loan, received from distant suppliers in London, Boston, and Philadelphia; those advertisements also reported the availability of maps, charts, and blank books, suggesting an increasing turn away from the business's original function. Lockwood seems to have closed the business in the fall of 1794, as advertising notices in Alexandria's newspapers cease at that time. If so, the demise of his bookstore and circulating library may have been a result of the opening of a social library in the town in that same year: The Alexandria Library Company. But evidence of that effect, as well as of Lockwood's subsequent activities, has yet to be found.
  
  
  No Personal Data yet discovered.
  
  Sources: Artisans & Merchants; notices in the Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser (1792) and the Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette (1793-94); Seale, Alexandria Library Company.
  
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This version of the Index of Virginia Printing was a gift from the estate of the site's creator, David Rawson. The content contained herein will not be updated, as it is part of the Library of Virginia's personal papers collection. For more information, please see David Rawson Index of Virginia Printing website. Accession 53067. Personal papers collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.