Kany, Robert Hurd.

David Hall (1714-1772, APS, 1772). Printer and business partner of Benjamin Franklin. Scottish journeyman printer invited by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 to Philadelphia to join his printing firm. Subsequently, he entered into partnership with Franklin in 1748. Hall ran Franklin’s newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette so successfully, that in 1766, he bought out Franklin and formed the new printing firm of Hall and Sellers.

Hall was born in Westfield, Scotland in 1714, just outside of Edinburgh. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed for five years to the Scottish printing firm of John Mosman and William Brown. In a letter dated January 17, 1743 Hall’s friend William Strahan inquired on his behalf to an American correspondent James Read of Philadelphia about openings for printers in the colonies. He recommended Hall, who he described as “obliging, discreet, industrious and honest.” Read showed the letter to his brother-in-law Benjamin Franklin, who was looking for a journeyman printer; and on July 10, Franklin invited him to come to Philadelphia. Franklin acquired not only a competent journeyman printer, but also a reliable correspondent and agent, who could supply British publications for sale in the Philadelphia printing office. In 1748, Franklin, busy with other interests and public affairs, made Hall a partner. Afterward Hall maintained the printing business for the firm of Franklin and Hall, also editing and publishing Franklin’s newspaper the Pennsylvania Gazette . In February 1766 Franklin sold his share in the business to Hall. Later in May of that year, Hall brought William Sellers, who had been his journeyman printer, into the business to establish the partnership of Hall and Sellers. The new firm carried on government printing, including paper money for the Province of Pennsylvania. Hall also had a bookselling and stationery shop related to his printing shop.

...