Loudon, Samuel

Loudon, Samuel

(ca. 1727–1813) printer, publisher; probably born in Ireland. He arrived in New York City by 1753 and began to publish The New York Packet and the American Advertiser in 1776. Although he was a stout patriot, some of his writings were burned by the radical New York Committee of Mechanics (1776). He printed the first constitution of New York (1777), Laws of the State of New York (1786), and Noah Webster's American Magazine (1787–88). He also operated a bookstore and a circulating library.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.