– An article posted online Thursday by The Christian Science Monitor purports that the term "United States of America" was coined in The Virginia Gazette months before Thomas Jefferson wrote it in the Declaration of Independence.
Contributing writer Byron DeLear uncovered the distinction in an April 1776 edition of the Gazette. It first appears in an essay signed simply by "A Planter."
DeLear noted that speculation about the term has credited Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and Oliver Ellsworth, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention. But their uses all appear later than A Planter's.
Colonial Williamsburg spokesman Jim Bradley alerted the Gazette to the piece. He did a search of the archives and found the letter on the front page of the April 6, 1776, edition, published by Hunter & Dixon. During the 1770s three newspapers operated under the flag Virginia Gazette. The edition is so rare that the foundation only has an image of the page, not a full copy.
More intriguing than where the term first appears is the identity of "A Planter." DeLear explained that it was commonplace for writers to disguise their identity, primarily to avoid prosecution as traitors to the British. At age 16, Ben Franklin wrote more than a dozen letters to the New England Courant as "Silence Dogood," a middle aged widow.
The National Archives credits Jefferson with coining "United States of America," DeLear pointed out. It showed up in his June 1776 rough draft of the Declaration of Independence.
DeLear suggested the identity of A Planter could be narrowed to Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry and Jefferson, all wealthy Virginia planters. The letter used a phrase Jefferson would later repeat. DeLear also suggested John Adams since he tasked Jefferson with writing the Declaration.
Bradley said one of the foundation's research historians suggested Landon Carter, a Virginia planter who was the son of the colony's largest landowner, Robert "King" Carter.
