Edward Charlton

• formal_name:
• first_date: 1787
• last_date: 1790
• function: Printer
• locales: Richmond
• precis: Printer of The Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser (1787) for Thomas Nicolson (315) at Richmond.
• notes: Printer
  Richmond
  Printer of The Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser (1787) for Thomas Nicolson (315) at Richmond.
  Charlton's identity is unclear; he was recorded in Richmond's city census of 1787 as Thomas Nicolson's solitary free assistant (Nicolson owned an enslaved pressman); the date suggests that he joined Nicolson when Nicolson's partnership with William Prentis (340) ended in May 1785, after a fire destroyed both their office and their nearly completed work on the 1783 revisal of Virginia's laws. Charlton continued with Nicolson until sometime after 1790, probably at least until the closing of his Gazette and Advertiser in April 1797; but then again, his presence in Richmond cannot be ascertained with certainty after 1790; it is only implied by his published obituary. Given his age, Charlton could have come to Richmond with the relocation of Williamsburg's printing offices in 1780 as an apprentice; that also suggests that he may have been a relative of Seymour P. Charlton (090) a Richmond-trained printer who moved to Norfolk in 1816 with William C. Shields (381) to take on production there of the American Beacon with Hamilton Shields (380). Definitive evidence for these various prospects, however, is lacking.
  
  
  Personal Data
  
  Born:
  ca.
  1770
  in Virginia.
  
  Died:
  Sept. 2
  1802
  Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia
  
  No further information yet discovered.
  
  Sources: Brigham; Hubbard on Richmond; Federal Decennial Census, 1790; obituary in Virginia Argus, 4 Sept. 1802.
  
• Related Bios:
  • Thomas Nicolson

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.