Goddard

Goddard, colonial American family who worked as editors, printers, and publishers. Sarah Updike Goddard (1700?–70), her daughter Mary Katherine (1736–1816), and her son William (1760–1817) financed, printed, and published 3 colonial newspapers (in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland) from 1762 until 1774. William relinquished his interest in the newspaper in 1774 to develop a mail-carrying system. The system, adopted by the Continental Congress in 1775, became the U.S. Post Office. In 1777 Mary Katherine Goddard became the first to publish the Declaration of Independence with the signers' names included.