A native of Falmouth, England, Eleazer Oswald (d. 1795) had immigrated to America in 1770, and was apprenticed to John Holt, the printer of the New-York Journal. During the Revolutionary War, he accompanied Benedict Arnold on his expedition to Ticonderoga in May 1775 and served as Arnold’s secretary during the Quebec expedition the following fall and winter. Oswald was captured at Quebec, and was exchanged on 10 Jan. 1777.  Soon thereafter he became lieutenant colonel of Lamb’s artillery regiment. Oswald participated in the Danbury raid in April 1777 and in the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. From 1779 to 1781 Oswald was a partner with William Goddard in publishing the Maryland Journal, and the Baltimore Advertiser in Baltimore. Later, in Philadelphia, Oswald published his own highly partisan newspaper, the Independent Gazetteer; or the Chronicle of Freedom. In 1792 Oswald went to France where he served for a time as an artillery colonel in the republican army before returning to the United States.

In the mid 1780s, GW had Clement Biddle purchase newspapers from Oswald (see Ledger B, 244).