Back in 2015, I was conducting research for a talk I was slated to give for the New Hope Historical Society, and I came across an incredible resource, Terry McNealy’s index of Bucks County subjects that appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette between 1728 and 1789. Although largely indexed by surname, he selected certain topical items to index by subject. Luckily for me, given my research interests, one of them was “negroes” (using the contemporary terminology as it appeared in the newspaper). Using Terry’s index as a guide, I transcribed the bulk of the entries at that time, but never completed it after I presented that talk. Flash forward to 2026, and I realized that it would only require a little bit of additional work to publish a comprehensive transcription of all notices in the Pennsylvania Gazette regarding people of African descent in the time period covered by Terry’s index. As always, I am indebted to Terry for his work that I am merely building upon. Hopefully this transcription will pay it forward by making this resource available to other researchers.
