William Hunter lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, was the official printer for the colony of\u00a0Virginia, and published the Virginia Gazette<\/em>\u2014a popular newspaper. He was also a deputy British postmaster for all the North American colonies. In an effort to rebuild the postal system of the colonies, Hunter worked with the famous founding father Benjamin Franklin,\u00a0Pennsylvania\u2019s postmaster. Soon after Hunter printed the almanac for 1761, he died after being\u00a0 sick with fever for many years.[3]<\/sup><\/a> The\u00a0more I read the almanac and its contents, the more it seemed like the Facebook wall of the colonial period.<\/p>\n Although the weather was a good chunk of the first half of the almanac, there were plenty of small pockets of information riddled within each page and even full paragraphs on a wide array of topics from food and drink, to analogies, and even a poetic verse on how the writer wanted his wife to be like an almanac and change yearly. On the second page of the almanac, it gave a\u00a0depiction of the anatomy of the human body in relation to the zodiac signs \u2013 the same signs still used today and shared on social media platforms like Facebook. Much of the important dates in\u00a0the almanac revolved around religious holidays and holy days, but there were a few dates that\u00a0stuck out as odd. In January, it reminded its readers that on the 30th of that month in 1649, King Charles was beheaded. In April, it showed that they had an April Fool\u2019s day, just like today.\u00a0Another similarity to Facebook was that each of the month\u2019s pages started with a short poem or proverb like memes often shared by those whom find them to their liking. In September, one of the poems was: “The happiest man that ever breath\u2019d on earth, with all the glories of estate and\u00a0 birth, had yet some anxious care to make him know, no grandeur was above the reach of woe.”[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n After all information regarding weather for the year was included, the author went into statistical\u00a0information for the local courts of Virginia and how far the towns in the colony were from each\u00a0other, not only in Virginia but also other colonial centers. Advertisements were another\u00a0important aspect of almanacs. Just like in newspapers and Facebook feeds, businesses were promoted to the public,\u00a0from jewelers to book binders. Almanacs also included\u00a0the \u201clife-hacks\u201d of the time and recipes for food items and drinks. The almanac discussed what types of clothing to wear when traveling and what accessories to bring to be prepared for any\u00a0 weather. Another life-hack involved adding shavings of green hickory wood to your common\u00a0beer to make it taste better than fine ale, all while costing virtually nothing. The articles continued with titles like, \u201cMethods for preserving the virtues of lemons and oranges for years\u201d and \u201cLIQUOR made from Indian Corn.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a> These\u00a0types of titles suggest that people, just like today on Facebook, were looking for simple tips and tricks to improve life and how-to guides. While\u00a0 back then, they did not have the same avenues to share information like we do today, the almanac proved to be a fascinating and diverse publication to be used in a variety of ways: to inform, to explain, or to entertain.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/sup><\/a> Alexander Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761, Colchester, Virginia<\/em> folio 59 Debit, from the John Glassford and Company Records,<\/em> Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 58 (owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies\u2019 Association).<\/p>\n [2]<\/sup><\/a> Theophilus Grew, The Virginia Almanack for the Year of our Lord God 1761<\/em> (Williamsburg, [Va.]: Printed and sold by William Hunter, 1760), 1, http:\/\/opac.newsbank.com\/select\/evans\/8610.<\/p>\n [3]<\/sup><\/a> David Rawson, \u201cWilliam Hunter (d. 1761),\u201d Encyclopedia Virginia,<\/em> accessed March 23, 2017, [4]<\/sup><\/a> Grew, The Virginia Almanack for the Year of our Lord God 1761,<\/em> 13.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/projects.cah.ucf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/05\/McCrickard-Joel_almanac-page-168x300.jpg\")
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\nhttps:\/\/www.encyclopediavirginia.org\/Hunter_William_d_1761#start_entry.<\/p>\n