The Royal Gazette – Prince Edward Island, William Alexander Rind, 1791

William Alexander Rind (1766–1842), was the son of Clementia Rind, the first female printer and publisher in the state of Virginia. In 1788 he travelled to Prince Edward Island and, one year later, succeeded James Robertson as King’s Printer when Robertson relocated to Québec. He married Elizabeth Ann Bagnall, the daughter of a Philadelphia Loyalist. After nearly ten years of printing The Royal Gazette and Miscellany of the Island of Saint John, Rind returned to the United States in 1798. In 1800, he began publishing the Washington Federalist. Accompanying Rind and his wife Elizabeth back to Virginia was his 15-year-old brother-in-law, James Bagnall, who became Rind’s apprentice. James Bagnall returned to Prince Edward Island in 1804 to set up a new press.