John Peter Zenger

John Peter Zenger (October 26, 1697 – July 28, 1746) was a German printer and journalist in New York City. Zenger printed The New York Weekly Journal. He was accused of libel in 1734 by William Cosby, the royal governor of New York, but the jury acquitted Zenger, who became a symbol for freedom of the press.

In 1733, Zenger began printing The New York Weekly Journal, which voiced opinions critical of the colonial governor, William Cosby. On November 17, 1734, on Cosby's orders, the sheriff arrested Zenger. After a grand jury refused to indict him, the Attorney General Richard Bradley charged him with libel in August 1735. Zenger's lawyers, Andrew Hamilton and William Smith, Sr., successfully argued that truth is a defense against charges of libel.

Peter Zenger was born in 1697 in the German Palatinate. Most of the details of his early life are obscure. He was the son of Nicolaus Eberhard Zenger and his wife Johanna. His father was a school teacher in Impflingen in 1701. The Zenger family had other children baptized in Rumbach in 1697 and in 1703 and in Waldfischbach in 1706. The Zenger family immigrated to New York in 1710 as part of a large group of German Palatines, and Nicolaus Zenger was one of those who died before settlement. The governor of New York had agreed to provide apprenticeships for all the children of immigrants from the Palatinate, and John Peter was bound for eight years as an apprentice to William Bradford, the first printer in New York. By 1720, he was taking on printing work in Maryland, though he returned to New York permanently by 1722.

When in 1725 William Bradford began publishing the New York Gazette, the first and only newspaper in New York at the time, John Peter Zenger was directly responsible for its production and also became a partner in Bradford's business.

After a brief partnership with Bradford in 1725, Zenger set up as a commercial printer on Smith Street in New York City. In 1730, Zenger published Peter Venema's Arithmetica, considered the first arithmetic text printed in New York. By 1731, his printing house on Smith Street had released 21 titles, while his main competitor and former employer, Bradford, had printed 50.

On 28 May 1719, Zenger married Mary White in the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. On 24 August 1722, widower Zenger married Anna Catharina Maul in the Collegiate Church, New York. He was the father of many children by his second wife, six of whom survived.

In 1733, Zenger was hired by New York politicians, Rip Van Dam and Lewis Morris, to print a newspaper, The New-York Weekly Journal, opposing the actions of the newly appointed colonial governor, William Cosby. On his arrival in New York City, Cosby had plunged into a rancorous quarrel with the colony council over his salary, trying to recoup half of the salary of the previous acting governor, Rip Van Dam. Unable to control the colony's Supreme Court, which had ruled against Cosby in the dispute, Cosby removed Chief Justice Lewis Morris, replacing him with the royalist justice James DeLancey.

The first issue of Zenger's New-York Weekly Journal carried a lengthy report on the election for an open seat in the New York General Assembly, held in Eastchester on October 29, 1733; the election was won by Lewis Morris over Cosby's candidate. Zenger's newspaper continued to publish articles critical of the royal governor. Finally, Cosby issued a proclamation condemning the newspaper's "divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections," and Zenger was charged with libel.