The villainous Apprentice
Scandalous Company, 1750-1790
In his letter to Benjamin Franklin in June of 1754, Peter Timothy signed off in a hurry, explaining, “I am…the sole inhabitant of my Printing-Office, (excepting a Negro Boy whom I’m teaching to serve me at the Press.) I discharged my villainous Apprentice; gave him two Years Time….” The apprentice “for 3 years has always pulled the Contrary Way; owing to an unhappy Affection for Drink, Play, and scandalous Company.”
Trouble surfaced in the South-Carolina Gazette in March of 1750. The apprentice, Charles Crouch, who was about fifteen, had run away, “carried upwards Santee by a Woman resident there.” Timothy was determined to “prosecute with the utmost severity” anyone who sheltered him.
The next February and March the Gazette ran notices that Charles had been missing three days and seen “tippling and gaming in divers public houses.” Again Timothy threatened to prosecute any enablers, this time adding that he planned to report to the authorities “what persons are unfit to have licences, and the reasons.”
For three weeks in February of 1753, the following appeared:
WHEREAS Charles Crouch my Apprentice, did absent himself from my Service about a Month ago, and was then harboured, & by ill inclined People in this Town, and on board several vessels, upon the idle Pretence of his saying he was free; And Whereas he hath again absented himself since last Friday: This is therefore to give Notice, that he hath yet upwards of Two-Years to serve, and that I will prosecute every Person that shall again harbor, entertain or conceal him.
Commanders of Vessels, and those who go in Coasters, are cautioned against taking him on board: And I once more advise all Persons, not to pay him any Monies, or have any other Dealings whatever with him in my Name.
He is about 18 Years of Age, tall and well grown, but his Knees incline inward to each other; and had on, when he went away, a blue broad Cloth Coat with gilt Butons, a brown Cloth Jacket, scarlet Everlasting Breeches lined with Leather, a good bob Wig, worsted Stockings, and silver Buckles in his Shoes.
In July of 1753 Timothy advertised for the return of valuable books:
Whoever will return or bring to the Printer the 4th and 6th volumes of SWIFT’s Work, supposed to have been lent out by Charles Crouch a few months ago, shall be rewarded. They … are finely gilt and lettered on the backs the binding full of large black red and buff colour’d spots in an iron colour’d ground, the edge of the leaves very neatly marbled and a green silk string in the middle of each book.
A year later, when he wrote Franklin, Timothy was so fed up he paid for Charles to go away, returning money, likely to the youth’s father. The printing business was booming, and parents were willing to pay to see their sons prepared for a stable, well-paying trade. Like many printers, Timothy took on an apprentice to boost income. The boys could be troublesome, though; masters did not spare the rod, and runaways were common. Franklin had been a troublesome apprentice himself.
If Timothy was in financial straits, as it appeared he was in his letter to Franklin, his decision to pay off Crouch demonstrated his desperation—or foolishness.
Ten years later someone backed Crouch to start a rival paper after Timothy suspended the South-Carolina Gazette when the Stamp Act took effect. Worse, in 1766 Crouch became Timothy’s brother-in-law, technically, after Crouch’s sister married a widower with two daughters, Theodore Trezevant, whose late wife was Catherine Timothy, Peter’s sister. The Timothys must have made some kind of peace with Uncle Charles. In 1790, Peter’s widow, Ann, bequeathed to Lewis Crouch Trezevant an annuity Lewis was to use to provide “clothing and pocket money” to Robert Smith Timothy, the disabled son of Peter and Ann. Lewis’s name alone suggests a blending of Crouch and Timothy.
Sounds like the villain made out pretty well!