Later, Goddard's newspaper partnership with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia would play an important role in the development of a new postal system in the soon to be united colonies.

[6] William served as an apprentice printer for six years under James Parker starting in 1755 and worked in his New Haven, Connecticut, print shop.

[7] A few months after his arrival, he was given an assignment to travel through Connecticut to determine what it would cost to set up post offices for the colonial forces during the French and Indian Wars.

[8][9] Samuel Farley arrived from Bristol, England, in 1760, and the following year established the New-York American Chronicle, a newspaper for which Goddard and Charles Crouch became his journeymen in his print shop.

However, his commitment to the ideal was tempered; he maintained that a free and open press "does not consist in publishing all the trash which every rancorous, illiberal, anonymous scribbler" submitted to a newspaper, and that any such freedom had to be employed with a measure of discernment and a responsibility to the truth.

When he opposed the enactment of the Stamp Act in 1765, knowing beforehand, however, that passage of the controversial bill was inevitable, he acquiesced, while actually working for its repeal and appealing to colonial sentiment.

Under the assumed name of Andrew Marvel, Goddard secretly had the newspaper printed at Woodbridge, New Jersey, in the shop of James Parker, which was released on September 21, 1765.

[1] Goddard published a seventy-two-page pamphlet The Partnership in 1770, accusing his partners Galloway and Wharton, two of the city's most creditable citizens, of attempting to destroy his business.

[6] Goddard's association with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia would play an important role in the development of the Continental Congress postal system in the soon to be united colonies.

[39][40] Goddard was given the post of surveyor in the system, and his sister was named postmistress of Baltimore, making her the first woman appointed to a federal office of the United States.

[41][42] While Goddard was working for the post office, his sister Mary, in his absence, managed and edited the Maryland Journal single handedly.

On June 8, 1779, Colonel Eleazer Oswald, considered a distinguished officer in the Colonial army, formed a business connection with Goddard at Baltimore.

[48] As revolutionary sentiments grew and the revolution with Britain drew closer, Goddard's mother and sister took over operations at the Gazette for him, when he devoted his time and money in other business matters with Franklin and merchants.

Among the most outspoken was Goddard, who established his Constitutional Post to give the colonists sympathetic to the revolutionary cause a private communication network free from British eyes.

He started with his first post office delivery point at the London Coffee House in Philadelphia, a meeting place for merchants which became the center of much of the political life of the city prior to and during the revolution.

It was so efficient that the Continental Congress, on May 29, 1775, took the first step and appointed a committee headed by Franklin and worked out its organization as an independent postal establishment.

[65] Congress, needing to deal with other urgent matters, delayed Goddard's proposed plan until after the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the Spring of 1775.

[39][66] Goddard's Constitutional Post plan was ultimately implemented, assuring communication between the colonies and keeping them informed of various events during the conflict with Britain.

Goddard's plan for a colonial post office would be one that was established and maintained by popular subscription and would be managed and controlled by a private committee that would be elected annually by the subscribers.

Wanting to serve his country at the onset of war, and needing the opportunity to replenish his financial situation, he asked the Congress for an appointment as a lieutenant colonel.

Many colonists viewed the acts as an arbitrary violation of their rights, and in response they organized the First Continental Congress on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia to establish a representative political body to oppose such laws.

As a result, the Continental Congress was convened at Philadelphia in May 1775 to create an independent government that would represent the colonists and oppose the arbitrary rules thrust upon them by the Crown.

When Benjamin Franklin began to publicly lend support for the American Revolution he was dismissed from the royal postal service which resulted in widespread protests among the colonists, where Goddard was among the most outspoken.

[81] During the few years leading up to the Revolution, Goddard became well noted for the innovations he introduced to the postal system as it came to be employed in mail delivery between the various colonies.

William Goddard experienced the abuse of authority of the Crown Post in Philadelphia after forming a partnership with Benjamin Franklin to publish the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a paper sympathetic to the revolutionary cause.

In the July 6, 1779, issue of the Maryland Journal Goddard had printed General Lee's "Some Queries, Political and Military", which consisted of a three-volume work that contained twenty-five pointed questions about the management of the war by Congress, and the conduct of George Washington in particular.

[88] The "Queries" of the court-martialed general incited a Baltimore mob led by three Continental officers who confronted Goddard on the evening of July 8, They demanded at his home that he surrender and appear in front of the Whig club.

Mary sold her interest in the Maryland Journal in 1785 to Edward Langworthy that ended her business dealings with her brother and the newspaper she had assisted in establishing.

[98] Goddard in his retirement, helped with the preparation of Isaiah Thomas's History of Printing in America (1810)[99] and was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1813.

It contained a passage which read, "The first years of his long life were passed amid the turmoil of useful activities - the last in the bosom of domestic quiet.