Maxwell

• formal_name:
• first_date: 1817
• last_date: 1818
• function: Publisher
• locales: Shepherdstown
• precis: Publisher of The American Eagle (1817-18) at Shepherdstown with one Harper (202).
• notes: Publisher
  Shepherdstown
  Publisher of The American Eagle (1817-18) at Shepherdstown with one Harper (202).
  Maxwell is an enigmatic figure, as no record of his given name has yet been found, making it essentially impossible to trace him. He appears to have been a local financier and/or editor of the American Eagle, a journal established by John N. Snider (392) in March 1816. Snider transferred ownership of the weekly to the firm of Maxwell & Harper sometime in mid-1817 and relocated to Lexington to attempt another newspaper there. Neither partner in this new arrangement is identified by their given names in the surviving copies, but the most prominent Maxwell then residing in Jefferson County was Capt. James Maxwell, the county surveyor, making him the most logical candidate. Maxwell's partner was likely either Kenton Harper (203), a son of the Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, printer-publisher George Kenton Harper – who had trained Snider – or a like-named relative who came from that parent press to Shepherdstown, meaning that Maxwell's role was probably not technical in nature. Maxwell's association with Harper apparently lasted just a year with another similarly-unidentifiable partner named Robinson (361) gaining Maxwell's interest in the American Eagle in late 1818. However, his association with Harper was also brief as the paper ceased publication in early 1819. The dearth of surviving issues precludes any fuller description of the paper or its proprietors, and available public records shed almost no light on any of the partners who conducted the Eagle, Maxwell especially.
  
  
  No Personal Data yet discovered.
  
  Sources: Imprints; Brigham; Norona & Shetler.
  
• Related Bios:
  • Harper
  • Kenton Harper

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.