Garrat Noel (1706-1776)

He was an Englishman who came to New York in 1750 from Cadiz, Spain. His first wife had died in Spain and he was accompanied by two of his three children including Mary who in 1763 would marry Anthony Lispenard Bleecker. From 1751, he opened a classical school at the lower end of Broad Street before establishing himself as a bookseller in the same premises from 1752. Prior to then books were sold at newspaper printing offices, thereby he became the "first bookseller in New York". In the following year (1753) he moved to Dock Street where he dealt largely in imported books and stationary but also operated a circulating library of several thousand books and later sold fancy goods and curios fit for the homes of gentlemen. Future U.S. Postmaster-General Ebenezer Hazard became his apprentice in 1765 and in 1770 they went into partnership as Noel & Hazard, Publishers. In 1775, as Revolution approached, Noel moved to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he lived (and died) in the house formerly occupied by Elias Boudinot, President of the Continental Congress. In 1756, at New York, he married Experience Young by whom he had three further children, Eleanor, Garrat and John.