A century and a half before women earned the right to vote in America, an Annapolis woman became the country's first female newspaper publisher.

It was 1767, almost a decade before the American Revolution. Maryland Gazette publisher Jonas Green died, leaving his wife, Anne Catharine, in charge of the paper.

Unwilling to let the newspaper fizzle, she took over as printer and publisher until her death in 1775.

"She's the one who kept it going," local historian Susan Morrison said. "Her portrait is hanging in the National Portrait Library in Washington, D.C., and in her hand is a copy of the...