Titan Leeds (1699–1738) was an 18th-century American
almanac
An almanac (also spelled ''almanack'' and ''almanach'') is an annual publication listing a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other ...
publisher.
Titan Leeds was a
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
-based publisher of ''The American Almanack.'' He was mentioned as a "good friend and fellow student" of
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
in Franklin's rival publication ''
Poor Richard's Almanack
''Poor Richard's Almanack'' (sometimes ''Almanac'') was a yearly almanac
An almanac (also spelled ''almanack'' and ''almanach'') is an annual publication listing a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes inform ...
''.
Titan's father, Daniel Leeds, was a devout
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
who fell out with the local Quaker community when he began publishing the almanac in 1687. Daniel Leeds turned over publication to his son, Titan, in 1716. ''The American Almanack'' pre-dated Franklin's almanac. Franklin used the first edition of his almanac to promote the hoax prediction of Leeds's death (Oct. 17, 1733, 3:29 P.M., at the very instant of the conjunction of the Sun and Mercury), and encouraged his readers to buy next year's edition of ''Poor Richard's Almanack'' to see if Franklin was right as a publicity stunt and attempt to drive Titan Leeds's ''American Almanack'' out of business.
When the date of Leeds' supposed passing had come and gone, Franklin published Leeds's obituary anyway. When challenged by the very much alive Leeds, Franklin insisted that Leeds had in fact died, but that he was being impersonated by an inferior publisher. When Leeds actually died in 1738, Franklin publicly commended the impostors for ending their charade.
See also
*
List of premature obituaries
A premature obituary is an obituary of someone who was still alive at the time of publication. Examples include that of inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel, whose premature obituary condemning him as a "merchant of death" for creating mi ...
References
1699 births
1738 deaths
Almanac compilers
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