"The American Weekly Mercury" was the first newspaper published in Pennsylvania and the third in British North America. In the earliest days of publication, what little genealogical material is found in the paper comes chiefly from advertisements for runaway servants or Negro and Indian slaves.In time, however, a steady stream of genealogical data--mainly marriages and deaths--began to appear. Most of the marriage entries pertained to persons of some distinction, such as governors, judges, government officials, clergymen, and eminent merchants, as well as their family members. In the case of death notices, the age of the deceased was noted, sometimes with a brief sketch of his career and with an indication of his place of birth, ancestry, and relatives. Many of the genealogical items were concerned with persons in Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, South Carolina, and New England, as well as Pennsylvania. The index lists 3,400 names of persons who would otherwise have been relegated to obscurity.

Introduction -- Reporting the awakening -- Regional paper wars -- Whitefield, Tennent, and Davenport : newsmakers of the awakening -- Conclusion -- Appendix 1 : methodology -- Appendix 2 : table of individual newspaper reporting on the revival.

Among the items acquired in 1996 by Jay Snider, the collector of printed Americana, are 278 partially printed, early Pennsylvania mortgage forms. The royal folio forms are bound together, as issued, in full calf stamped with tools thought to have belond to William Davies, a bookbinder who flourished in Philadelphia from 1722 to 1740. The mortgage forms include printed preambles identifying Pennsylvania's General Loan Office trustees as the mortgagees, and manuscript completions dated as early as Sept. 23, 1729. It has been established that it was printed by Benjamin Franklin and Hugh Meredith with their firsst font of pica type. This illustrated study places the Snider volume in its historical, political, biographical, and bibliographical context. Index.