Pennsylvania Chronicle

[1] The newspaper was established to challenge the power of the Penn family and ultimately the Crown authorities who at that time were placing laws and taxes on the colonists without fair representation in the British Parliament.

A rival Philadelphia printer, William Bradford III, founder of The Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser in 1742 conducted a newspaper war against Goddard that digressed into personal attacks.

During this time Galloway and Wharton had sold their shares of the Chronicle to a Robert Towne, who in turn made many attempts to persuade Goddard to sell his newspaper to him.

In these letters, Dickinson asserted the political philosophy of John Locke as the moral basis of the objections to the excessive British taxation of the colonies.

Dickinson in no uncertain terms urged the American colonists to oppose British actions by legal petition, then boycott, and finally, if need be, by force of arms.

[10] The August 1, 1768, issue of the Pennsylvania Chronicle printed on the front page a four-column article of an address made at the State House (Independence Hall) against the Stamp Act, and other excessive tax laws passed without colonial representation in the British Parliament.

[11] In 1773 the paper gained much notoriety when it featured an article chronicling the unfolding of the Boston Tea Party and voicing popular support for this rebellious and historic event.