The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

Chapter 9
Epilogue
279
By the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, our poor
farmer’s boy Devereux Jarratt had risen from humble circumstances to the ranks of
the elite. Jarratt was a self-educated, well-read pastor in the Anglican Church. His
example is useful in understanding the influence of a growing print culture. Jarratt
was born in the colony of Virginia in 1733, just as a printing press began operating
in Williamsburg. The opportunities for learning to read and write blossomed as
printed material became more available. From a family of poor farmers, Jarratt had
opportunities not available to his parents. He was not comfortable with his father’s
trades of carpentry and farming nor with laboring with the hammer, the plough,
and the ax. It was his ability to read and write—his education and his print
literacy—that allowed him to advance in social status. Both Jarratt’s sacred calling
in the ministry and his learning were held in such respect that he was able to join the
elite ranks of the colonial aristocracy. 1 “One of the most remote means, as I
consider it, which led me to the station, which I now fill, was my being called from
the ax to the quill.” While books were remote to Jarratt in his youth, by the
American Revolution printed material of all sorts had become common in Virginia.
Jarratt writes in his autobiography of hungrily reading borrowed books while on
break from his plowing. 2 By the time of his death in 1791, he had earned respect
and wealth, accumulating 717 acres and 17 slaves. 3 Jarratt had transformed
1 Middleton, “Colonial Virginia Parson,” 425-440.
2 Jarratt, Life of the Reverend Devereux Jarratt, 24-25.