It is easy to understand why William Parks found relatively few craftsmen in the Williamsburg of his day. Except for a few trades such as cabinetmaking, blacksmithing, coopering, wigmaking, tailoring, and shoemaking, the Virginia capital was largely a community of taverns, townhouses, and governmental institutions, and the colony itself was overwhelmingly rural. There is no doubt that Virginia’s reliance on agriculture, a reliance approved by British mercantile theory, resulted in an overdependence on the industry of the mother country. We can thank the peculiarities of Parks’s situation—the inability of English printers to satisfy Virginians’ desire for regional news, and the subsidy Parks received as public printer—that his craft became firmly established in the 1730s in Virginia. Indeed, it seems clear that the prospect of becoming Virginia’s public printer was what lured Parks from Annapolis to Williamsburg in the first place. _PARKS’S SUCCESSORS IN WILLIAMSBURG_ Altogether, Williamsburg had at least twelve master printers and three separate printing locations or offices during the colonial period. After Parks died on a voyage to England, William Hunter, the man whom he had left in charge, bought the business. Publication of the _Virginia Gazette_ continued, and Hunter became public printer and postmaster. In the latter capacity he worked in close association with an astute Philadelphia printer, Benjamin Franklin, with whom he served jointly as deputy postmaster-general for all the colonies. Hunter printed in 1754 the first published writing of George Washington, entitled _The Journal of Major George Washington, sent by the Hon. Robert Dinwiddie, Esq; His Majesty’s Lieutenant-Governor, and Commander in Chief of Virginia, to the Commandant of the French Forces on Ohio...._ [Illustration: _Masthead of Purdie’s VIRGINIA GAZETTE before the adoption of the Virginia Resolution for American Independence on May 15, 1776, by the Virginia Convention of Delegates meeting at the Capitol in Williamsburg._] May 10, 1776. NUMBER 67. THE VIRGINIA GAZETTE. Always for LIBERTY, And the PUBLICK GOOD. ALEXANDER PURDIE, Printer. [Illustration: _Masthead of Purdie’s VIRGINIA GAZETTE, substituting type ornaments for a coat of arms of the Royal Colony of Virginia, the first issue after the adoption of the Virginia Resolution. There had not been time to develop a new cut._] MAY 17, 1776. NUMBER 68. THE VIRGINIA GAZETTE. THIRTEEN UNITED COLONIES. _United, we stand—Divided, we fall._ Always for LIBERTY, And the PUBLICK GOOD.