Author: Carey, James
Biography:
CAREY, James (1757-1801: ancestry.com)
pseudonym Geoffry TOUCHSTONE
A printer and publisher, one of six brothers--sons of the Dublin baker Christopher Carey and his wife Mary (Sherridan) Carey--of whom at least three (James, Mathew, and William) worked in Philadelphia in the 1790s. No birth record has been found and there is some disagreement among genealogists as to whether it should be dated 1747 or 1757 but the latter seems more probable. Like his brother Mathew (q.v.), he attacked William Cobbett, who was issuing pro-British pamphlets under the pseudonym "Peter Porcupine." In 1799-1800 he was the printer of and principal contributor to The Constitutional Diary and Philadelphia Evening Advertiser, which carried advertising for his and Mathew Carey's new publications. One of the family trees in Ancestry maintains that he had a daughter, Catherine Guille Carey, born to Catherine O'Connor in Dublin in 1793 but confirmation is wanting and neither of them is mentioned as an heir in the disposition of his estate. He died at Philadelphia on 2 Feb. 1801. (ancestry.com 27 July 2025; George Spater, William Cobbett: The Poor Man's Friend [1982], 1:95) HJ