Project Gutenberg's Pioneer Imprints From Fifty States, by Roger J. Trienens
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Title: Pioneer Imprints From Fifty States
Author: Roger J. Trienens
Release Date: April 26, 2015 [EBook #48794]
Language: English
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PIONEER
IMPRINTS
FROM FIFTY STATES
BY ROGER J. TRIENENS
_Descriptive Cataloging Division, Processing Department_
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
WASHINGTON
1973
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Trienens, Roger J.
Pioneer imprints from fifty States.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Printing--History--United States. 2. United
States. Library of Congress. 3. Bibliography--Early
printed books. I. United States. Library
of Congress. II. Title.
Z208.T75 686.2'0973 72-10069
ISBN 0-84444-0038-6
COVER: _A standard tray (case) of type. Frequency of a letter's use
determined the size and position of the letter compartment._
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Washington, D.C. 20402.--Price $4.25
Stock Number 3000-0059
Preface
_Pioneer Imprints From Fifty States_ will enable readers to view the
Library of Congress collections from an unaccustomed angle. It takes
for its subject the Library's earliest examples of printing from
within present-day boundaries of each State in the Union, providing
for each in turn 1) a brief statement about the origin of printing;
2) identification of the Library's earliest examples--among them
broadsides, newspapers, individual laws, almanacs, primers, and longer
works; and 3) information, if available, about the provenance of these
rarities.
Each of the 50 sections may be consulted independently. To those who
read it through, however, _Pioneer Imprints_ will give some idea of
the movement of printers and presses across the Nation, as well as
insight into the nature and history of the Library's holdings.
The author wishes to express his indebtedness to Frederick R. Goff,
Chief of the Library of Congress Rare Book Division from 1945 to 1972,
who has been constantly helpful and encouraging; to Thomas R. Adams,
Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R.I., who read
the first 13 sections before their publication under the title "The
Library's Earliest Colonial Imprints" in the _Quarterly Journal of
the Library of Congress_ for July 1967; and to Marcus A. McCorison,
Director and Librarian of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester,
Mass., who read the manuscript of the later sections. These scholars
cannot, of course, be held responsible for any errors or faults in
this bibliographical investigation. The author's indebtedness to
printed sources is revealed to some extent by notes appearing at the
end of each section. He is obliged for much of his information to the
staffs of the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the
Smithsonian Institution, as well as to the following correspondents:
Alfred L. Bush, Curator, Princeton Collections of Western Americana,
Princeton University Library; G. Glenn Clift, Assistant Director,
Kentucky Historical Society; James H. Dowdy, Archivist, St. Mary's
Seminary, Baltimore; Caroline Dunn, Librarian, William Henry Smith
Memorial Library, Indianapolis; Joyce Eakin, Librarian, U.S. Army
Military History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.; Arthur
Perrault, Librarian, Advocates' Library, Montreal; P. W. Filby,
Librarian, Maryland Historical Society; Lilla M. Hawes, Director,
Georgia Historical Society; Earl E. Olson, Assistant Church Historian,
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City; and
Frank S. Richards, Piedmont, Calif.
Contents
_1 Massachusetts_
_3 Virginia_
_4 Maryland_
_5 Pennsylvania_
_6 New York_
_8 Connecticut_
_10 New Jersey_
_12 Rhode Island_
_14 South Carolina_
_16 North Carolina_
_18 New Hampshire_
_20 Delaware_
_21 Georgia_
_23 Louisiana_
_25 Vermont_
_27 Florida_
_29 Maine_
_30 Kentucky_
_32 West Virginia_
_34 Tennessee_
_36 Ohio_
_38 Michigan_
_39 Mississippi_
_41 Indiana_
_43 Alabama_
_44 Missouri_
_46 Texas_
_48 Illinois_
_50 Arkansas_
_52 Hawaii_
_53 Wisconsin_
_54 California_
_56 Kansas_
_58 New Mexico_
_60 Oklahoma_
_61 Iowa_
_63 Idaho_
_64 Oregon_
_66 Utah_
_68 Minnesota_
_70 Washington_
_72 Nebraska_
_74 South Dakota_
_76 Nevada_
_78 Arizona_
_80 Colorado_
_82 Wyoming_
_83 Montana_
_85 North Dakota_
_86 Alaska_
PIONEER IMPRINTS
[Illustration: _The Lapwai press, brought to Idaho in 1839 to produce
the first book printed in the Northwest--an Indian primer. Courtesy of
the Oregon Historical Society. See page 63._]
Massachusetts
Stephen Daye, the first printer of English-speaking North America,
established his press at Cambridge late in 1638 or early in 1639
and printed the famed _Bay Psalm Book_ there in 1640. This volume
of 295 pages is the first substantial book and the earliest extant
example of printing from what is now the United States. Mrs. Adrian
Van Sinderen of Washington, Conn., deposited an original copy of the
_Bay Psalm Book_ in the Library of Congress at a formal ceremony held
in the Librarian's Office on May 2, 1966. Mrs. Van Sinderen retained
ownership of the book during her lifetime; it became the Library's
property upon her death, April 29, 1968.
The book is properly entitled _The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully
Translated into English Metre_. Of 11 extant copies this was the last
in private hands, and it filled the most serious single gap in the
Library's collection of early American printing. It is an imperfect
copy, lacking its title page and 18 leaves. Bound in calfskin, it is
one of the five copies in an original binding.
Zoltán Haraszti's authoritative study _The Enigma of the Bay Psalm
Book_ (Chicago, 1956) includes information about all the surviving
copies. Mrs. Van Sinderen's copy was one of five that were collected
by scholarly Thomas Prince of Boston (1687-1758), who bequeathed his
extensive library to Old South Church. It was from the church that the
Cambridge wool merchant and Bible collector George Livermore obtained
it in 1849. By an exchange agreement between Livermore and the
prominent bookseller Henry Stevens, 12 leaves were removed from the
volume to complete another copy, which Stevens sold to James Lenox in
1855 and which now belongs to the New York Public Library. Livermore's
collection, deposited at Harvard after his death, was auctioned in
1894 in Boston, his _Bay Psalm Book_ realizing $425 and going to Mrs.
Van Sinderen's father, Alfred Tredway White of Brooklyn.
[Illustration: (Richard Mather's _The Summe of Certain Sermons upon
Genes: 15.6_, printed at Cambridge in 1652)]
Before 1966 the earliest Massachusetts imprint, as well as the
earliest imprint of the Nation, in the Library was Richard Mather's
_The Summe of Certain Sermons upon Genes: 15.6_, printed at Cambridge
in 1652. Its author was the progenitor of the powerful Mather family
of New England divines, and he was among the translators contributing
to the _Bay Psalm Book_. Its printer, Samuel Green, operated the first
Massachusetts printing press after Stephen Daye's son Matthew died in
1649, Stephen having retired from the press in 1647. Mather's book
contains his revised notes for sermons preached at Dorchester.
[Illustration: (_Bay Psalm Book_)]
The Library of Congress copy--one of four extant--is inscribed by an
early hand, "James Blake his Booke." In the mid-19th century this
copy apparently came into the possession of Henry Stevens, whereupon
it was bound in full morocco by Francis Bedford at London; and it
presumably belonged to the extensive collection of Mather family books
that Stevens sold in 1866 to George Brinley, of Hartford, Conn.[1] The
Library of Congress obtained the volume with a $90 bid at the first
sale of Brinley's great library of Americana, held at New York in
March 1879.
[Footnote 1: See Wyman W. Parker, _Henry Stevens of Vermont_
(Amsterdam, 1963), p. 267-268.]
Virginia
[Illustration: (_A Collection of All the Acts of Assembly Now in
Force, in the Colony of Virginia_ (1733) printed by William Parks)]
A press that William Nuthead started at Jamestown in 1682 was quickly
suppressed, and nothing of its output has survived. It was William
Parks who established at Williamsburg in 1730 Virginia's first
permanent press. Here Parks issued the earliest Virginia imprint now
represented in the Library of Congress: _A Collection of All the
Acts of Assembly Now in Force, in the Colony of Virginia_ (1733).
Printing of this book may have begun as early as 1730. In a monograph
on William Parks, Lawrence C. Wroth cites evidence "in the form of
a passage from Markland's _Typographia_, which indicates that its
printing was one of the first things undertaken after Parks had set up
his Williamsburg press."[2]
Two Library of Congress copies of this imposing folio--one of them
seriously defective--are housed in the Law Library; while yet
another copy, which is especially prized, is kept with the Jefferson
Collection in the Rare Book Division since it belonged to the library
which Thomas Jefferson sold to the Congress in 1815.[3] The 1815
bookplate of the Library of Congress is preserved in this rebound
copy, and Jefferson's secret mark of ownership can be seen--his
addition of his other initial to printed signatures I and T. A
previous owner wrote "Robert [?] Lewis law Book" on a flyleaf at the
end, following later acts bound into the volume and extending through
the year 1742. He may well have been the same Robert Lewis (1702-65)
who served in the House of Burgesses from 1744 to 1746.[4]
The Library possesses the only known copy of another early Virginia
imprint bearing the same date: Charles Leslie's _A Short and Easy
Method with the Deists. The Fifth Edition_.... Printed and sold by
William Parks, at his Printing-Offices, in Williamsburg and Annapolis,
1733. Inasmuch as an advertisement for this publication in the
_Maryland Gazette_ for May 17-24, 1734, is headed "Lately Publish'd,"
it was most likely printed early in 1734 but dated old style, and so
it probably followed the publication of the _Acts of Assembly_. The
Library purchased the unique copy for $8 at the second Brinley sale,
held in March 1880.
[Footnote 2: _William Parks, Printer and Journalist of England and
Colonial America_ (Richmond, 1926), p. 15.]
[Footnote 3: No. 1833 in U.S. Library of Congress, _Catalogue of the
Library of Thomas Jefferson, Compiled with Annotations by E. Millicent
Sowerby_ (Washington, 1952-59).]
[Footnote 4: See Sarah Travers Lewis (Scott) Anderson's _Lewises,
Meriwethers and Their Kin_ (Richmond, 1938), p. 61-62.]
Maryland
After departing from Virginia, William Nuthead set up the first
Maryland press at St. Mary's City sometime before August 31, 1685.
This press continued in operation until a few years after Nuthead's
widow removed it to Annapolis about 1695; yet nothing more survives
from it than a single broadside and some printed blank forms.
In 1700 Thomas Reading began to operate a second press at Annapolis,
and his output in that year included a collection of laws which is the
earliest Maryland imprint now represented in the Library of Congress.
Since the Library's is the only extant copy, it is particularly
regrettable that its title page and considerable portions of the text
are lacking. Catalogers have supplied it with the title: _A Complete
Body of the Laws of Maryland_.[5]
The copy was formerly in the possession of the lawyer and diplomat
John Bozman Kerr (1809-78). It might not have survived to this day
were it not for his awareness of its importance, as shown in his
flyleaf inscription:
? would this have been printed in M^d at so early a
period as 1700--in M^d or elsewhere in the Colonies--It
is dedicated to Mr Wm Bladen father, it is presumed, of
Gov^r Tho^s Bladen, of whom _Pope_, the Poet, speaks so
harshly--Having given much attention to M^d History I know
no book--calculated to throw more light upon _manners_ &
_customs_ than this printed copy of the body of M^d Law
in 1700--The language of the early acts of assembly was
much modified in 1715 & 1722--_Here_ the Exact words are
preserved as in the original acts--Unless in some old
collection in England, five thousand dollars would not
procure a like copy--Many years ago there was Extant, in
MS, in Charles Co Court records, as I have been told, a
similar collection--This _printed_ copy is "the schedule
annexed to 1699. c 46 & the act of 1700. c 8--
Sept 22^d 1858
John Bozman Kerr--of Easton, M^d
Law Office, no. 30. St. Pauls St. Balt^o
William Bladen, to whom the book is dedicated, was then clerk of the
Upper House and had been instrumental in bringing Thomas Reading to
Maryland. In fact, the records indicate that he assumed the role of
publisher. If John Bozman Kerr had had access to the proceedings of
the Lower House for the year 1700, he would have been most interested
to find there Bladen's written proposal:
That if the house are desirous the body of Laws should be
printed soe that every person might easily have them in
their houses without being troubled to goe to the County
Court house to have recourse thereto.
That the house made [sic] an Order for printeing thereof
and that every County be Oblidged to take one faire Coppy
endorsed and Titled to be bound up handsomely and that for
the encouragement of the undertaker each County pay him
therefore 2000^{lbs} of Tob^o upon delivery the said booke
of Laws....
This was approved on May 9.[6] The printing was not wholly
satisfactory, for on May 17 of the next year an errata list was
ordered printed.[7]
[Illustration: _John Bozman Kerr_, _from_ Genealogical Notes of the
Chamberlaine Family of Maryland (_Baltimore, 1880_).]
[Footnote 5: It is no. 7 in Lawrence C. Wroth's _A History of Printing
in Colonial Maryland_ (Baltimore, 1922). Besides listing it in his
bibliography, Wroth discusses the book at length on p. 22-26.]
[Footnote 6: _Archives of Maryland_, vol. 24 (1904), p. 83-84.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid., p. 198.]
Pennsylvania
Like William Nuthead, William Bradford introduced printing in more
than one Colony, and he began his American career by establishing
the first Pennsylvania press at Philadelphia in 1685. Here that same
year he printed _Good Order Established in Pennsilvania & New-Jersey
in America_, the earliest Pennsylvania imprint in the Library of
Congress and the second known example of Bradford's press. The author,
Thomas Budd, was a successful Quaker immigrant, who settled first
at Burlington, N.J., and later at Philadelphia. He intended his
description of the two Colonies to stimulate further immigration, and
he printed this statement on the title page verso:
It is to be noted, that the Government of these Countries
is so settled by Concessions, and such care taken by the
establishment of certain fundamental Laws, by which every
Man's Liberty and Property, both as Men and Christians, are
preserved; so that none shall be hurt in his Person, Estate
or Liberty for his Religious Perswasion or Practice in
Worship towards God.
Because neither place nor printer is named in the book, it was long
thought to have been printed at London, but typographical comparisons
made during the latter part of the 19th century demonstrated
conclusively that it issued from William Bradford's press.
[Illustration: _The 19th-century bookseller Henry Stevens._]
The Library of Congress copy was bound at London by William Pratt for
the bookseller Henry Stevens. F. J. Shepard traces this much of its
later provenance in his introduction to a reprint issued in Cleveland
in 1902:
A copy in full levant morocco, by Pratt, belonging to John
A. Rice of Chicago, was sold in March, 1870, to Sabin &
Sons for $155. The same copy fetched $150 at the sale of
the library of William Menzies of New York (1875),[8]
when it was described in Sabin's catalogue as "one of the
rarest of books relating to Pennsylvania." It was again,
presumably, the same copy which at the sale in New York of
S. L. M. Barlow's books in 1889 brought $400, although it
was still incorrectly described as printed in London. After
passing through the hands of two dealers and one collector,
it reached Dodd, Mead & Co., who advertised it in their
November, 1900, catalogue for $700, and sold it at that
price to a private collector whose name is not given.
The copy was among several Americana from the library of C. H.
Chubbock, a Boston collector,[9] which were sold at auction by C. F.
Libbie & Co. on February 23 and 24, 1904, the Library of Congress
obtaining it for $600.
[Footnote 8: Sabin's catalog is dated 1875, but the sale did not occur
until November 1876.]
[Footnote 9: See _American Book-Prices Current_, vol. 10 (1904), p.
vii.]
New York
William Bradford moved from Pennsylvania to New York in the spring
of 1693, but what was the first product of his New York press has
not been established.[10] The Library of Congress owns two Bradford
imprints from this period, neither containing any indication of the
place of publication. Nevertheless, both are listed in Wilberforce
Eames' bibliography of early New York imprints.[11] One of them,
entitled _New-England's Spirit of Persecution Transmitted to
Pennsilvania, and the Pretended Quaker Found Persecuting the True
Christian-Quaker, in the Tryal of Peter Boss, George Keith, Thomas
Budd, and William Bradford, at the Sessions Held at Philadelphia the
Nineth, Tenth and Twelfth Days of December, 1692. Giving an Account of
the Most Arbitrary Procedure of That Court_, has been conjectured to
be the first New York imprint (Eames 1). Eames states that the work
"seems to be the joint production of George Keith and Thomas Budd,
including Bradford's own account of the trial. As it mentions the
next Court Session of March, 1693, it could hardly have been printed
before May...." He confesses that Bradford may have printed it at
Philadelphia. The Library of Congress purchased its copy--one of six
recorded in the National Union Catalog--for $50 at the November 1876
auction of the library of Americana formed by a New York collector,
William Menzies.
The other Bradford imprint conjecturally assigned to New York
is Governor Benjamin Fletcher's proclamation of April 29, 1693,
prohibiting "the _Breaking of the LORDS DAY_, all _Prophane Swearing,
Cursing, Drunkenness, Idleness_ and _unlawful Gaming_, and all manner
of _Prophaneness_ whatsoever" (Eames 9). Eames gives no reason why
this broadside should be listed as a later imprint. An eminent New
Yorker, Stuyvesant Fish, presented the unique copy to the Library of
Congress in 1915 and in an accompanying letter to the Librarian told
how it had come into his possession:
The broadside now sent you was given me by Mrs. Fish's
mother, the late Mrs. William Henry Anthon, with the
statement that she had found it among the papers left by
her brother-in-law, Professor Charles Edward Anthon (b.
Dec. 6, 1823; d. June 7, 1885). The latter was much given
to collecting coins, manuscripts, &c., but no effort of
mine has enabled me to learn where, when or how he became
possessed of the paper.
In view of the uncertain assignment of these two imprints to New
York, the Library's earliest imprints naming New York as the place of
publication should also be mentioned. _A Catalogue of Fees Established
by the Governour and Council at the Humble Request of the Assembly_
(New-York, William Bradford, 1693) is an 11-page work printed sometime
after September 20, 1693. The Library's copy, like others, is appended
to Bradford's printing of _The Laws & Acts of the General Assembly_
(New-York, 1694), which in Eames' opinion was itself probably begun
in 1693, perhaps as early as July or August. Among the owners of the
volume containing these early imprints was the bibliographer Charles
R. Hildeburn, who gave the following history in a note prefixed to an
1894 facsimile edition of _The Laws & Acts_:
This [copy], lacking a title-page, was formerly part
of a volume of laws and other folio tracts printed by
Bradford between 1694 and 1710, which was bought at a
sale at Bangs's, in New-York, about ten years ago, by the
late Dr. George H. Moore, for $26. In 1890 Dr. Moore sold
the volume as he bought it for $1750 to the writer, who,
having supplied the title-page in facsimile, sold so much
of "the Laws of 1694 as issued" as it contained to the
late Mr. Tower for $600. The volume then passed by the
gift of Mr. Towers's widow, with the Tower collection, to
the Historical society of Pennsylvania, and, having been
replaced by a perfect copy ..., was sold to Dodd, Meade &
Company, of New-York for $400. From the firm last mentioned
it was purchased by Mr. [Abram C.] Bernheim.[12]
Now in a full morocco binding by Bradstreet's, the volume contains the
bookplates of Abram C. Bernheim, who lectured on New York history at
Columbia College, Henry C. Bernheim, and Russell Benedict. At the New
York auction of Judge Benedict's library in 1922 Halstead H. Frost,
Jr., purchased it for $3,000; yet in 1926 at an auction by the same
house of "Rare Americana including the collection of the late A. R.
Turner, Jr. and selections from the collection of the late Charles A.
Munn," the same copy drew only $1,800. In 1931 the Library of Congress
obtained it from the firm of Lathrop C. Harper for $2,929.55, and it
was duly noted in the subsequent annual report as "the most precious
acquisition of the year by the law library."
[Illustration: _A Catalogue of Fees Established by the Governour and
Council at the Humble Request of the Assembly_ (New-York, William
Bradford, 1693)]
[Footnote 10: Alexander J. Wall, Jr., "William Bradford, Colonial
Printer," _Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society_, 1963,
vol. 73, p. 368.]
[Footnote 11: _The First Year of Printing in New-York_ (New York,
1928).]
[Footnote 12: P. clvii. The facsimile was made from the Bernheim copy,
which apart from its missing title page was considered to be the best
preserved.]
Connecticut
Thomas Short, who learned his trade at Boston, became Connecticut's
first printer when he went to New London to do the official printing
for the Colony in 1709.
The Library of Congress owns two Thomas Short imprints dated 1710, and
one of them is believed to be the first book printed in Connecticut:
_The Necessity of Judgment, and Righteousness in a Land. A Sermon,
Preached at the General Court of Election, at Hartford in the Colony
of Connecticut, on May 11th. 1710. By Eliphalet Adams, Pastor of the
Church in New-London_. Eliphalet Adams was an influential clergyman
whose 43 years of service at New London had just begun in 1709. The
work is an election sermon, of a type delivered annually at the
opening of certain New England legislatures. Although not especially
worthy of remembrance, it manages to suggest the ceremony of the
occasion. Adams closes his sermon by addressing the Governor, Deputy
Governor, and magistrates, next turning to the assembled clergy, and
finally concluding:
Shall I now turn my self to the _General Assembly of the
Colony at present met together_. And even here I may
promise my self an easie Reception, while I plead for
_Judgment_ & _Righteousness_. The welfare of the Country
is in a great measure Intrusted in your hands and it is
indeed a matter Worthy of your best Thoughts and chiefest
cares. It should be Ingraven, if not upon the Walls of your
House, yet upon each of your Hearts, _Ne quid Detrimenti
Respublica Capiat_, _Let the Common-wealth receive no
damage_. It is in your power partly to frame Laws for the
Direction & Government of the people of the Land. Now
too much care cannot be taken, that they may be strictly
agreable to the standing Rules of Justice & Equity, that
they may not prove a grievance in stead of an advantage to
the Subject; If the Rule be crooked, how shall our manners
be Regular?...[13]
The Library of Congress copy, in a 19th-century morocco binding,
contains no evidence of provenance, but it was undoubtedly in the
Library's possession by 1878, for the title is listed in the Library
catalog published that year. Another copy sold at auction in 1920
for $1,775, which was the largest amount ever paid for a Connecticut
imprint.[14]
The Library's other Connecticut imprint with a date of 1710 is
entitled _A Confession of Faith Owned and Consented to by the
Elders and Messengers of the Churches in the Colony of Connecticut
in New-England, Assembled by Delegation at Saybrook September 9th.
1708_.... Herein is the historic Saybrook Platform, whereby individual
congregations of the Colony submitted to the firmer control of synods.
There exists documentary evidence that the printing of this book did
not begin until late in 1710, and apparently it was not completed
until 1711.[15] Elizabeth Short, the printer's widow, was paid £50
in 1714 for binding all 2,000 copies in calfskin and birchwood
covers.[16] The Library's copy retains the original binding. Of
further interest is the evidence supplied by the Library's bookplate
that the volume formerly belonged to Peter Force, the American
historian and archivist, whose notable collection was obtained through
a special Congressional appropriation in 1867.
[Illustration: _Peter Force. Lithograph from life by Charles
Fenderich._]
[Footnote 13: P. 30-31.]
[Footnote 14: See _Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America_,
vol. 27 (1934), p. 4.]
[Footnote 15: W. DeLoss Love, _Thomas Short the First Printer of
Connecticut_ ([Hartford] 1901), p. 35-38; Thomas W. Streeter,
_Americana--Beginnings_ (Morristown, N.J., 1952), p. 25-26.]
[Footnote 16: Love, p. 37-38.]
New Jersey
[Illustration: _Anno Regni Georgii Regis Magnæ Britanniæ, Franciæ &
Hiberniæ decimo, at a Session of the General Assembly of the Colony
of New Jersey, begun the twenty fourth Day of September, Anno Domini
1723. and continued by Adjournments to the 30th Day of November
following, at which time the following Acts were Published_. Printed
by William Bradford in the City of Perth-Amboy, 1723.]
In 1723 William Bradford is thought by some to have transported a
press from New York to Perth Amboy, then the capital of New Jersey,
to print paper currency for the Colony.[17] If this is true he was
the first New Jersey printer, although printing was not established
there on a permanent basis until three decades later. In any event, in
1723 Bradford produced the first book with a New Jersey imprint: _Anno
Regni Georgii Regis Magnae Britanniae, Franciae & Hiberniae decimo, at
a Session of the General Assembly of the Colony of New Jersey, begun
the twenty fourth Day of September, Anno Domini 1723. and continued by
Adjournments to the 30th Day of November following_....
Douglas C. McMurtrie distinguishes three variant issues of the edition
in _A Further Note on the New Jersey Acts of 1723_ (Somerville, N.J.,
1935); but the Library of Congress copy, containing 30 numbered and
four unnumbered pages, represents a fourth variant. It is one of two
issues (the other bearing a New York imprint) in which the type for
the later pages was reset.
In the section on paper money, which has a prominent place in the New
Jersey laws, is an interesting sidelight on printing history: the text
of an oath to be administered to the printer upon his delivery of the
bills to those authorized to sign them, requiring him to declare
That from the time the Letters were set, and fit to be put
in the Press for Printing the Bills of Credit now by me
delivered to you, until the same Bills were printed, and
the Letters unset and put in the Boxes again, I went at
no time out of the Room in which the said Letters were,
without Locking them up, so as they could not be come at,
without Violence, a false Key, or other Art then unknown
to me; and therefore to the best of my Knowledge no Copies
were printed off but in my Presence; and that all the
Blotters and other Papers whatever, Printed by the said
Letters, which set for printing the said Bills, to the best
of my Knowledge are here Delivered to you together with the
Stamps for the Indents, and Arms.
The Library of Congress copy is bound in the midst of a folio volume
of early New Jersey laws and ordinances that C. S. Hook of Atlantic
City, a dealer in old law books, sold to the Library in 1925 for
$2,337.50. Though dilapidated, the volume retains its original calf
binding, and the names of two early owners are inscribed on its front
flyleaf: "M^r Bard" and "John Wright Esq:^r" The former may well be
the same Peter Bard, a Huguenot immigrant, who served as member of
the Council from 1720 to 1734 and who was one of those authorized to
sign the above-mentioned bills.
Some authorities doubt that Bradford would have moved a press to New
Jersey for only a short time and think it more likely that he actually
printed the acts of 1723 in New York.[18] In that case the earliest
New Jersey imprint in the Library of Congress would be an 18-page
pamphlet containing an act passed on June 3, 1757, which James Parker
printed at Woodbridge on the first permanent press in the Colony: ...
_A Supplementary Act to the Act, Entitled, An Act for Better Settling
and Regulating the Militia of this Colony of New-Jersey; for the
Repelling Invasions, and Suppressing Insurrections and Rebellions;
As_ [sic] _also, for Continuing Such Parts and Clauses of the Said
Laws, as are not Altered or Amended by This Act_. The Library's
copy, inscribed "Capt. Monrow" on its title page, probably belonged
originally to John Monrow, a resident of Burlington County.[19] The
Central Book Company of New York sold it to the Library for $150 in
1939.
[Footnote 17: See Lawrence C. Wroth, _The Colonial Printer_ (Portland,
Maine, 1938), p. 34-36.]
[Footnote 18: See Streeter, _Americana--Beginnings_, no. 21, where
this view is attributed to R. W. G. Vail.]
[Footnote 19: See _Archives of the State of New Jersey_, 1st series,
vol. 10 (1886), p. 15 and 17; H. Stanley Craig, _Burlington County,
New Jersey, Marriages_, Merchantville, N.J. (1937), p. 159.]
Rhode Island
[Illustration: (Benjamin Franklin's _Rhode-Island Almanack for the
Year 1728_)]
After a stay in prison resulting from his publishing activities in
Boston, James Franklin, elder brother of Benjamin, chose to settle at
Newport, where he established the first Rhode Island press in 1727.
When the Library of Congress acquired its unique copy of Franklin's
_Rhode-Island Almanack for the Year 1728_ in 1879, it was thought to
be the earliest book printed in Rhode Island. Not until 1953, when
copies of two religious tracts by John Hammett came to light, was it
relegated to third place. Those two tracts were printed before July
25, 1727, while Franklin's pseudonymous preface to his almanac is
dated August 30 of that year.[20]
* * * * *
Although it may no longer be regarded as the first Rhode Island book,
this small almanac nevertheless is of exceptional interest. Four years
before Benjamin Franklin inaugurated _Poor Richard's Almanack_ his
elder brother presented himself in this wise:
Tho' I have not given you my _proper Name_, yet I assure
you I have had one the greatest part of half an hundred
Years; and I know of no Necessity for parting with it at
this Time, since I presume my Almanack will answer all the
Ends design'd without that Expence. So, wishing you a happy
new Year; bid you adieu.
_Poor_ ROBIN
James Franklin strove to make his almanac entertaining, and he did not
refrain from injecting anticlerical gibes or a bit of ribaldry. He
obviously relished such pithy sayings as "More religion than honesty"
and "If you cannot bite, never show your Teeth."
The Library of Congress purchased its unique copy for $35 at the
Brinley sale of 1879. It then had seven leaves and seemed to lack an
eighth leaf at the end. Much later, George Winship, librarian of the
John Carter Brown Library, reported a curious happening in an article
that he contributed to _The Providence Sunday Journal_, November 19,
1911:
A few weeks ago some one noticed that a leaf which was
bound at the end of a book in the Boston Public Library had
nothing whatever to do with that book. It was apparently a
leaf of an old almanac, and after some research Alfred B.
Page of the Massachusetts Historical Society Library was
successful in identifying it, not only as the last leaf of
the almanac for 1728, which was printed in Newport toward
the end of the preceding year, but as the identical leaf
which originally formed a part of the copy now belonging to
the Library of Congress.
The officials in Washington sent their book to Boston to
make certain of the identification, and in return they have
been presented with the missing member, so long separated
from its proper body. On its way back to Washington, this
precious little waif is making a visit to the State of its
origin, and will be for a few days on exhibition at the
John Carter Brown Library, in company with various of its
contemporary rivals, predecessors and followers.
A reprint of the almanac with an introduction by Mr. Winship, signing
himself as Philohistoricus, was published at this time. And while at
Boston the copy was encased in a variegated morocco binding by the
Hathaway Book Binding Company on Beacon Street.
[Footnote 20: See _Rhode Island History_, vol. 12 (1953), p. 33-43,
105-109.]
South Carolina
Printing commenced in South Carolina in 1731 when three competing
printers migrated to Charleston: George Webb, Eleazer Phillips, Jr.,
and Thomas Whitmarsh. They were attracted by an offer of monetary aid
that the government announced in order to secure a printer for the
Colony.
The earliest Library of Congress copies of South Carolina imprints
issued from the press of Lewis Timothy (otherwise Louis Timothée), a
Frenchman trained in Holland and subsequently employed by Benjamin
Franklin at Philadelphia. Through an arrangement with Franklin he
took over the press of Thomas Whitmarsh after the latter's death in
1733, Webb having either died or departed from Charleston and Phillips
having died in 1732. The Library has three Lewis Timothy imprints
dated 1736: Josiah Smith's sermon, _The Character and Duty of Minister
and People_; the session laws for November 15, 1733-May 29, 1736,
entitled _Acts Passed by the General Assembly of South-Carolina_;
and Nicholas Trott's compilation of _The Laws of the Province of
South-Carolina_. The sermon, advertised in _The South-Carolina
Gazette_ for May 22, 1736, as just published, was completed first.
Still earlier printing, however, is contained in the first volume of
Trott's _Laws_, though the volume was not completed until September
1736. Timothy began to print the laws shortly after November 15, 1734,
and the first sheets were ready in May 1735.[21]
This publication in two folio volumes is a landmark of Colonial
printing; it was Timothy's most ambitious undertaking by far, one
he carried out with remarkable taste and skill. The title page,
printed in black and red, is particularly striking. Nicholas Trott,
the editor, was a learned jurist who played a leading role in South
Carolina's affairs, becoming chief justice in 1703. In the preface he
sets forth his guiding purpose in compiling the _Laws_:
Thus I have endeavoured as much as in me lies, and have
spared for no Pains, to make this Work not only useful,
but plain and easy, even to the meanest Capacity, wherein
if I have obtained my End, I shall not think my Labour ill
bestowed: For as every Man is a Debtor to his Country, and
we are not born only for our selves, so I tho't I could not
do a more useful Service for the Province in which it has
pleased God to cast my Lot for several years past, than to
make such an _Edition_ of the Laws, as might be of general
Use to all the Inhabitants thereof; that so every one being
acquainted with the Laws of the Place, may readily give
Obedience to the same; in which (next to their religious
Duties to GOD) not only their Duty, but also their Safety
and happiness doth consist.
The Library of Congress owns three copies of this rare book, all
lacking some pages. The copy most distinguished in its provenance
bears on its title page the signature of William Bull, Jr., five times
Acting Governor of South Carolina between 1760 and 1775. Also on this
title page is the late 18th-century signature of one Thomas Parker.
Another copy is inscribed "Thomas Farr jun^r. [another hand:] of St.
Andrew's Parish 12^{th}. May 1773"; and in the following century it
was given "With Edward Logan's kind regards to James Parker Esq. 18
Feb 1868." Thomas Farr can be identified as a merchant,[22] but the
later names have not been traced. The third Library copy retains no
marks of previous ownership.
[Illustration: (Nicholas Trott's compilation of _The Laws of the
Province of South-Carolina_.)]
[Footnote 21: Douglas C. McMurtrie, _The First Decade of Printing in
the Royal Province of South Carolina_ (London, 1933).]
[Footnote 22: A. S. Salley, ed., _Marriage Notices in The
South-Carolina Gazette and Its Successors_ (Baltimore, 1965), p. 21.]
North Carolina
The first printer active in North Carolina was James Davis, a native
of Virginia, who probably received his training from William Parks at
Williamsburg.[23] Davis settled at New Bern in 1749, and in the same
year he began printing _The Journal of the House of Burgesses_.
The earliest North Carolina imprint in the Library of Congress,
printed by Davis in 1751, is carefully described in its title, _A
Collection of All the Public Acts of Assembly, of the Province of
North-Carolina: Now in Force and Use. Together with the Titles of all
such Laws as are Obsolete, Expired, or Repeal'd. And also, an exact
Table of the Titles of the Acts in Force, Revised by Commissioners
appointed by an Act of the General Assembly of the said Province, for
that Purpose; and Examined with the Records, and Confirmed in full
Assembly_.
This collection is sometimes called "Swann's Revisal" after the
commissioner William Swann, who did a major part of the editing and
wrote the dedication to Governor Gabriel Johnston. One of the acts,
passed on March 7, 1746, begins with the preamble, "Whereas for
Want of the Laws of this Province being Revised and Printed, the
Magistrates are often at a Loss how to discharge their Duty, and the
People transgress many of them through Want of knowing the same...."
These words reflect not only a shortage of copies, but also the need
to rectify discrepancies in the manuscript copies by publishing a
uniform text.
Davis did not complete the volume until about November 15, 1751, when
he advertised it in his newspaper, _The North-Carolina Gazette_. Four
distinct issues of the edition can be identified;[24] and of these,
the Library of Congress owns both the third, in which the laws of 1751
and 1752 (not shown in the table) are added, and the fourth, which is
like the third but with a title page dated 1752 and a new table.
The Library's copy of the third issue bears on the title page the
signature of Michael Payne, a resident of Edenton, N.C., who served
in the State legislature during the 1780's. The Library purchased
it in 1936 from Richard Dillard Dixon of Edenton for $500. The copy
of the fourth issue is signed "Will Cumming" in an early hand, and
it is inscribed to Samuel F. Phillips, who was Solicitor General of
the United States from 1872 to 1885 and who appears to have been the
latest owner of the book before its addition to the Library in 1876.
[Illustration: (_A Collection of All the Public Acts of Assembly, of
the Province of North-Carolina: Now in Force and Use. Together with
the Titles of all such Laws as are Obsolete, Expired, or Repeal'd.
And also, an exact Table of the Titles of the Acts in Force, Revised
by Commissioners appointed by an Act of the General Assembly of the
said Province, for that Purpose; and Examined with the Records, and
Confirmed in full Assembly_. Printed by James Davis in 1751.)]
[Footnote 23: See W. S. Powell's introduction to _The Journal of the
House of Burgesses, of the Province of North-Carolina, 1749_ (Raleigh,
1949), p. vii.]
[Footnote 24: Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Eighteenth Century North Carolina
Imprints_ (Chapel Hill, 1938), p. 50.]
New Hampshire
[Illustration: (Nathaniel Ames' _An Astronomical Diary: or, An
Almanack for the Year of Our Lord Christ, 1757_ Printed by Daniel
Fowle, 1756.)]
The Boston printer Daniel Fowle felt himself unjustly punished by
the Massachusetts Assembly for supposedly printing an objectionable
pamphlet in 1754. He consequently removed to Portsmouth in New
Hampshire and started that Colony's first press in 1756.
The first New Hampshire book, preceded only by issues of _The
New-Hampshire Gazette_, was printed by Fowle in the same year. It
is Nathaniel Ames' _An Astronomical Diary: or, An Almanack for the
Year of Our Lord Christ, 1757_. The Library of Congress owns one of
four known copies of a singularly interesting later issue or state
of the edition, featuring on its next-to-last page a historical note
printed within an ornamental border: "_The first_ Printing Press
_set up in_ Portsmouth New Hampshire, _was on August_ 1756; _the_
Gazette _publish'd the 7th of October; and this_ Almanack _November
following_."
Almanacs written by Nathaniel Ames of Dedham, Mass., were bestsellers
in mid-18th century America. This almanack for the year 1757,
evidently reprinted from the Boston edition, is a somber one
reflecting recent set-backs in England's conflict with France. A verse
on the title page strikes the keynote:
MINORCA'S gone! OSWEGO too is lost!
Review the Cause: or BRITAIN pays the Cost:
These sad EVENTS have silenced my Muse ...
The rebound Library of Congress copy, which bears no marks of previous
ownership, is listed in the Library catalog of 1878 and presumably was
obtained not long before then.
At about the same time the Library acquired and similarly rebound two
other Daniel Fowle imprints of undetermined provenance, both of which
are dated 1756 but were published later than the almanac. There is
some question whether one of them, Jonathan Parsons' _Good News from
a Far Country_, was begun at Boston or at Portsmouth. In any event,
Fowle placed the following notice in the November 4, 1756, issue of
his _Gazette_: "Good News from a far country: in seven discourses by
Rev. Jonathan Parsons is soon to be published. Five of the sermons
have already been set up and lack of paper prevents completion until
a supply of paper arrives from London which is probable at an early
date." Not until April 1757 did Fowle advertise the book for sale.[25]
The other imprint dated 1756 is Samuel Langdon's _The Excellency of
the Word of God, in the Mouth of a Faithful Minister_,[26] a sermon
delivered on November 3 and also delayed in printing for lack of
suitable paper. Both books were probably completed in the early
months of 1757 but dated old style. There is a noticeable difference
between the paper on which they are printed and the crude paper of the
almanac, such as Fowle used for his newspaper.
[Footnote 25: See _Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society_,
1915, new series, vol. 25, p. 329.]
[Footnote 26: A Library of Congress stamp on this copy is dated 1876.]
Delaware
James Adams of Londonderry, Ireland, after working more than seven
years with Franklin and Hall in Philadelphia, established Delaware's
first press at Wilmington in 1761.
[Illustration: (_The Wilmington Almanack, or Ephemeries_, _for the
Year of Our Lord, 1762. By Thomas Fox, Philom_.)]
The Library of Congress possesses one of two extant imprints out of
four that Adams is known to have issued at Wilmington in the latter
part of that year: _The Wilmington Almanack, or Ephemeries_ [sic],
_for the Year of Our Lord, 1762 ... By Thomas Fox, Philom_.[27]
Copies, according to the title page, were also "to be had, in
_Philadelphia_, of William Falkner." The publication is the first in
an annual series of "Wilmington Almanacs," all printed by Adams, that
were prepared for the years 1762 to 1794.
The otherwise unknown author, Thomas Fox (possibly a pseudonym),
brings himself to the reader's attention in this statement:
Kind Reader,
Having for some Years observed those Almanacks published in
America; and having formerly, in Europe, learned the Use
of Mr. Thomas Street's Tables, with some others, and being
willing to crowd in among the rest, I have calculated an
Almanack for the Year 1762....
More interesting than the colorless prose and verse selections
accompanying the astronomical tables are the printer's advertisements,
such as the following notice near the end of the book:
BIBLES, Testaments, Psalters, Spelling-Books, Primers,
Merchants blank Books, Writing-Paper, Ink, all Sorts of
Blanks, _viz._, Bills of Lading, Kerry Bills, Penal Bills,
Bills of Sale, Arbitration Bonds, Apprentices Indentures,
Bonds with and without Judgment, to be sold at the
Printing-Office in Wilmington.--Also, very good Lampblack.
* * * Ready money for clean Linen Rags, at the above Office.
The Library's copy of the almanac has been detached from a bound
volume and bears no evidence of early ownership. It was acquired by
exchange from Dodd, Mead & Company in 1908, at a valuation of $15.
[Footnote 27: No. 3 in Evald Rink, _Printing in Delaware 1761-1800_
(Wilmington, 1969).]
Georgia
[Illustration: (_An Act to Prevent Stealing of Horses and Neat Cattle;
and for the More Effectual Discovery and Punishment of Such Persons
as Shall Unlawfully Brand, Mark, or Kill the Same._ Printed by James
Johnston.)]
An act for the provision of printing, passed by the Georgia
Legislature on March 4, 1762, stated that "_James Johnston_, lately
arrived in this province from _Great-Britain_, recommended as a person
regularly bred to and well skilled in the art and mystery of printing,
hath offered to set up a printing press in the town of _Savannah_."
Employed to print the Colony's statutes, Johnston had readied the
first Georgia press by April 7, 1763, when he began to publish his
newspaper, _The Georgia Gazette_.
From the year 1763 the Library of Congress owns several official
imprints bound up in a volume of Georgia laws enacted from 1755 to
1770 and one unofficial imprint, _The South-Carolina and Georgia
Almanack, for the Year of Our Lord, 1764 ... By John Tobler, Esq._
This almanac, which the distinguished collector Wymberley Jones De
Renne gave the Library in 1907, was published by December 8, 1763,
and probably printed very shortly before. The earliest of Johnston's
many official imprints, predating all his other work except _The
Georgia Gazette_, are thought to be two acts advertised in that paper
on June 2, 1763. They are entitled _An Act to Prevent Stealing of
Horses and Neat Cattle; and for the More Effectual Discovery and
Punishment of Such Persons as Shall Unlawfully Brand, Mark, or Kill
the Same_ and _An Act for Ascertaining the Qualifications of Jurors,
and for Establishing the Method of Balloting and Summoning of Jurors
in the Province of Georgia_. They had been passed on March 27, 1759,
and April 24, 1760, and were printed in folio in four and six pages,
respectively. Both acts are represented in the Library of Congress
bound volume of early Georgia laws. Only two other copies of each are
known to be extant.
Various owners inscribed their name in this book. Joseph Stiles, who
operated the Vale Royal Plantation near Savannah from 1806 until
his death in 1838, owned at least the latter part of it, where his
signature and that of his son, the evangelist Joseph C. Stiles, may be
seen. Another owner of the same part was John C. Nicholl (1793-1863),
a prominent lawyer and jurist who served as mayor of Savannah in 1836
and 1837. A later owner of the entire volume was a certain S. H.
McIntire, not known to have any Savannah connections, who inscribed it
in June 1878. The Library of Congress purchased it in June 1909 from
the Statute Law Book Company of Washington, D.C. for $2,500.
Louisiana
[Illustration: (EXTRAIT De Régistres, des Audiances du Conseil
Supérieur, de la Province de la Loüisiane. Du 7. May 1765. ENTRE
L'ABBE DE L'ISLE DIEU, Vicaire Général du Diocèse de Québec, & de
cette Province, Demandeur en Requête, le Procureur Général du Roi,
joint.)]
Only after printing penetrated the Thirteen Colonies did the French
printer Denis Braud carry the art to Louisiana. His earliest known
work, an official broadside concerning the transfer of Louisiana from
French to Spanish ownership, was printed at New Orleans in 1764.
The earliest Louisiana imprint in the Library of Congress is the
second extant example of Louisiana printing. The Library's unique copy
is a four-page, folio-sized document signed by Garic, clerk of the
Superior Council of Louisiana, and headed, "EXTRAIT De Régistres, des
Audiances du Conseil Supérieur, de la Province de la Loüisiane. Du
7. May 1765. ENTRE L'ABBE DE L'ISLE DIEU, Vicaire Général du Diocèse
de Québec, & de cette Province, Demandeur en Requête, le Procureur
Général du Roi, joint." It is a decree restricting the activities
of the Capuchin friar Hilaire Genoveaux and suppressing a catechism
circulated by him which apparently had also been printed at New
Orleans. The title of the catechism, as preserved in the text of the
decree, is _Catechisme pour la Province de la Loüisianne, &c. Rédigé
par le R. P. Hilaire, Protonotaire du St. Siége & Supérieur Général de
la Mission des Capucins en ladite Province, pour être seul enseigné
dans sadite Mission_. The contemporary importance of the surviving
document lay in its connection with a far-reaching struggle between
the Jesuit and Franciscan orders over ecclesiastical authority in
Louisiana. Although it contains no imprint statement naming place of
publication or printer, typographical features of the document serve
to identify it as the work of Denis Braud.[28]
That this unique copy belonged to an official archive--presumably
that of the Superior Council of Louisiana--the following manuscript
additions make apparent. There is first a notation: "Joint a la lettre
de M. Aubry, Command. a la Louisianne du 7. May 1765." (Aubry had
succeeded d'Abbadie as commandant, or governor, after the latter's
death in February 1765.) A second column in manuscript contains the
same date as a filing guide and this descriptive title: "Arrest du
Conseil Superieur de la Louisianne portant deffense au Pere Hilaire
Capucin de simississer [_i. e._ s'immiscer] dans aucune Jurisdiction
Ecclesiastique autre que celle qui lui est permise par son seul titre
de superieur de la mission des RR. PP. Capucins de cette Colonie." At
the end of the column is a cross reference: "Voyez les lettres de M.
l'Abbe de LIsle Dieu Vicaire g[e]n[er]al de M. de Quebek en 1759 et
1760 et sa Correspond. a ce sujet."
The subsequent history of this document has not been traced before
October 17, 1905, when C. F. Libbie & Co auctioned it off with the
library of Israel T. Hunt, a Boston physician. The Library of Congress
was able to obtain it on that date for $10.45.
[Footnote 28: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Early Printing in New
Orleans_ (New Orleans, 1929), p. 25-26 and 88. McMurtrie mistakenly
locates the original at the New York Public Library, which owns a
photostat copy.]
Vermont
Formed as an independent republic in 1777, Vermont in the next year
appointed the brothers Alden and Judah Padock Spooner of Connecticut
to be her official printers. Publications under their imprint were
issued at Dresden, before and later named Hanover, in 1778 and 1779;
but in February 1779 this town, along with 15 others east of the
Connecticut River, returned to the jurisdiction of New Hampshire. The
earliest printing from within the present borders of Vermont came
from the town of Westminster, where Judah Padock Spooner and Timothy
Green, son of the State Printer of Connecticut, undertook the official
printing late in 1780.
The Library of Congress possesses three Dresden imprints dated 1779.
The first two listed here name Alden Spooner as printer, while the
third names both brothers. They are Ira Allen's _A Vindication of
the Conduct of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, Held
at Windsor in October 1778, Against Allegations and Remarks of the
Protesting Members, With Observations on Their Proceedings at a
Convention Held at Cornish, on the 9th Day of December 1778_; Ethan
Allen's _A Vindication of the Opposition of the Inhabitants of
Vermont to the Government of New-York, and of Their Right to Form
into an Independent State. Humbly Submitted to the Consideration of
the Impartial World_; and _Acts and Laws of the State of Vermont, in
America_. The earliest of the three would appear to be Ira Allen's
48-page _Vindication_, known from a printer's bill of February 10,
1779, to have been produced by then in 450 copies.[29] The Library's
rebound copy is inscribed "from y^e author" beneath its imprint
statement, and at the head of the title page is written, "Nath^l
Peabody^s Book." Nathaniel Peabody (1741-1823), a New Hampshire
legislator, served as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1779
and 1780. His book was ultimately listed in the _Catalogue of Books
Added to the Library of Congress During the Year 1871_.
[Illustration: _Ira Allen (1751-1814), miniature attributed to Edward
G. Malbone, ca. 1795-1798. Courtesy of the Robert Hull Fleming Museum,
the University of Vermont, Burlington._]
The Library holds the other two Dresden imprints in duplicate. A copy
of the _Acts and Laws_ was formerly in the Hazard Pamphlets, acquired
with the collection of Peter Force (see p. 8, above). Ebenezer Hazard
(1744-1817) was an early collector of Americana. The two copies of
Ethan Allen's _Vindication_, both printed on blue paper, are in the
Hazard Pamphlets, volume 47, number 3, and in Colonial Pamphlets,
volume 19, number 6. The latter pamphlet volume originally formed
part of Thomas Jefferson's library, obtained by the Congress in 1815
(see p. 3, above).[30]
The earliest example of printing from present-day Vermont in the
Library is a document printed by Judah Padock Spooner at Westminster
in 1781[31]: _Acts and Laws, Passed by the General Assembly of the
Representatives of the State of Vermont, at their Session at Windsor,
April 1781_. In four pages, it contains only "An Act for the Purpose
of emitting a Sum of Money, and directing the Redemption of the
same." The Act provides for a land tax, stating in justification that
"The Land is the great Object of the present War, and receives the
most solid Protection of any Estate, a very large Part of which has
hitherto paid no Part of the great Cost arisen in defending it, whilst
the Blood and Treasure of the Inhabitants of the State has been spent
to protect it, who many of them owned but a very small part thereof."
The Library of Congress copy bears the following inscription: "Secry's
Office 10^{th} August 1785. The preceding is a true Copy of an Act
passed by the Legislature of the State of Vermont April 14^{th}
1781--Attest Micah Townsend, Secry." Although a loyalist, Micah
Townsend served as secretary of state in Vermont from October 1781
until 1789.[32] The Library's copy also bears the autograph of a
private owner, Henry Stevens of Barnet, Vt., first president of the
Vermont Historical Society. After his death in 1867, his son Henry
Stevens, the bookseller, wrote that he left his home "full of books
and historical manuscripts, the delight of his youth, the companions
of his manhood, and the solace of his old age."[33] To judge from its
present library binding, this thin volume has been in the Library of
Congress collections since the 19th century.
[Footnote 29: See no. 12 in Marcus A. McCorison's _Vermont Imprints
1778-1820_ (Worcester, 1963).]
[Footnote 30: No. 3146 in U.S. Library of Congress, _Catalogue of the
Library of Thomas Jefferson, Compiled with Annotations by E. Millicent
Sowerby_ (Washington, 1952-59). See also no. 498.]
[Footnote 31: Imprint information supplied in McCorison, no. 47.]
[Footnote 32: See Chilton Williamson, _Vermont in Quandary_
(Montpelier, 1949), p. 133. On Townsend's divulging secret
intelligence to the British in April 1781, see J. B. Wilbur, _Ira
Allen_ (Boston and New York, 1928), p. 183-186.]
[Footnote 33: See W. W. Parker, _Henry Stevens of Vermont_ (Amsterdam,
1963), p. 21.]
Florida
[Illustration: FLORIDA GAZETTE. VOL. I. ST. AUGUSTINE, (E. F.)
SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1821. No. 3.]
Dr. William Charles Wells, one of many American loyalists who took
refuge in Florida, introduced printing at St. Augustine in 1783. There
he published a loyalist paper, _The East-Florida Gazette_, under the
imprint of his elder brother, the Charleston printer John Wells,
and with the assistance of a pressman named Charles Wright. Apart
from two books of 1784 bearing John Wells' imprint and a document
printed at Amelia Island in 1817 during the Spanish rule, no other
Florida publications survive from the years preceding United States
acquisition of the territory.[34]
Richard W. Edes, grandson of the Boston printer Benjamin Edes,
reestablished printing at St. Augustine, issuing the first number of
his weekly paper, the _Florida Gazette_, on the day of the transfer
of Florida's administration, July 14, 1821. The Library of Congress
holds 10 issues, constituting the best surviving file of this paper.
The earliest Florida printing in the Library is the third issue,
published July 28 and the earliest issue extant. This happens to be a
very curious example of printing. Of its four pages the second is half
blank and the third is totally blank, the following explanation being
given:
TO OUR PATRONS.
We are under the disagreeable necessity of issuing this
number of the Gazette, in its present form, owing to a
very lengthy advertisement, (occupying seven columns)
being ordered out the moment the paper was ready for the
Press. It being a personal controversy between Mr. _William
Robertson_, and Messrs. _Hernandez, Kingsley_ and _Yonge_,
Esquires, and a reply to Mr. Hernandez's publication
of last week, our readers would not have found it very
interesting. Its publication was countermanded on account
of an amicable arrangement being made by the parties about
one o'clock this day.
We hope this will be a sufficient apology to our
subscribers for the manner in which the Paper appears,
as it is impossible for it to be issued this day in any
other way, being short of hands. We pledge ourselves
another instance of the kind shall never occur--and assure
the public we feel much aggrieved at the imposition. The
advertisement of Mr. Wm. Robertson, headed "_Caution_" and
the reply by J. M. Hernandez, Esq. will be discontinued
after this week, and no further altercation between the
parties will be permitted thro' the medium of this Press.
The printed portions of this early issue include an installment of a
"Historical Sketch of Florida," extracts from various newspapers, and
among others the printer's own advertisements: "COMMERCIAL BLANKS,
For Sale at this Office. _Also_, Blank Deeds, Mortgages, &c. &c."
"Blank Bills of Lading, For Sale at the Gazette Office" and "BOOK
AND JOB PRINTING, Of every description, executed at this Office." In
this century the Library bound the 10 issues into a single volume.
Those dated November 24 and December 1 are addressed in ink to the
Department of State at Washington.
From the same year the Library of Congress holds 13 issues of _The
Floridian_, published at Pensacola beginning August 18, some of which
are also addressed to the Department of State. From this year, too,
the Library possesses _Ordinances, by Major-General Andrew Jackson,
Governor of the Provinces of the Floridas, Exercising the Powers of
the Captain-General, and of the Intendant of the Island of Cuba,
Over the Said Provinces, and of the Governors of Said Provinces
Respectively_, printed at St. Augustine by Edes. This pamphlet-sized
volume was advertised as "just published" in the September 15 issue of
the _Florida Gazette_; and the Library's copy, one of two extant,[35]
was autographed twice by "John Rodman Esquire" at St. Augustine.
Since he once added the designation "Collector" to his name, he is
readily identified as the person who placed the following announcement
in the November 24 issue of the _Gazette_: "JOHN RODMAN, Attorney &
Counsellor at Law, May be consulted on professional business, at his
Office in the Custom-House."
[Illustration: (Florida Gazette ads)]
[Footnote 34: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, "The Beginnings of Printing in
Florida," in _The Florida Historical Quarterly_, vol. 23 (1944-45), p.
[63]-96.]
[Footnote 35: See no. 36 in Thomas W. Streeter's
_Americana--Beginnings_ (Morristown, N.J., 1952).]
Maine
[Illustration: _The Falmouth Gazette and Weekly Advertiser_ (No. 2.)
Saturday, January 8, 1785. (Vol. 1.)]
Benjamin Titcomb and Thomas B. Wait introduced printing in the
District of Maine, then part of Massachusetts, with the first issue
of _The Falmouth Gazette and Weekly Advertiser_, dated January 1,
1785. Titcomb was a native of Falmouth, now Portland, who had gained
his experience at Newburyport, and Wait was formerly employed at
Boston.[36]
The Library of Congress possesses nine issues of _The Falmouth
Gazette_ from this first year of printing in Maine. Of these the
earliest is a partly mutilated copy of the second issue, dated January
8 and featuring a moralistic essay "On Entrance into Life, and the
Conduct of early Manhood." This issue contains one piece of news,
relayed from a Boston paper, that has importance for American printing
history, namely, the arrival in this country from Ireland, "that land
of gudgeons," of Mathew Carey, destined to become a leading printer
and publisher at Philadelphia. Since the Library of Congress copy is
inscribed "Mess^{rs} Adams & Nourse printers," it is interesting to
note that one of the Falmouth news items was reprinted in their Boston
paper, _The Independent Chronicle_, for January 20. Similarly, the
Library's copy of the August 13 issue of the _Gazette_ is addressed in
manuscript to the famous printer Isaiah Thomas at Worcester, and it
retains his editorial markings for the reprinting of two sections--a
news item and a poem on atheism--that subsequently appeared in the
September 1 and September 8 issues of _Thomas's Massachusetts Spy; or,
The Worcester Gazette_. It was largely by means of just such borrowing
amongst themselves that most early American newspapers were put
together.
Four of the Library's nine issues, including the Isaiah Thomas copy,
were purchased from Goodspeed's Book Shop for $13.50 in 1939. Four
of the remaining five, including the very earliest, appear from
their physical condition to have a common provenance. The five were
listed initially in the 1936 edition of _A Checklist of American
Eighteenth-Century Newspapers in the Library of Congress_.[37]
[Footnote 36: See R. Webb Noyes, _A Bibliography of Maine Imprints to
1820_ (Stonington, Maine, 1930), p. 7.]
[Footnote 37: The preface to this edition is dated June 1, 1935. A
sixth issue of the _Gazette_ (March 5) listed here was later replaced
by a better copy from the 1939 purchase.]
Kentucky
The printing history of Kentucky begins with the August 11, 1787,
issue of a Lexington newspaper, _The Kentucke Gazette_. John Bradford
of Fauquier County, Va., established this paper in partnership
with his younger brother, Fielding. They purchased their press at
Philadelphia in the spring of 1787 and transported it to Lexington by
way of Pittsburgh, where the first press to cross the Alleghenies had
been active since the preceding summer.[38]
The earliest Kentucky imprint in the Library of Congress is _The
Kentucke Gazette_ for March 1, 1788. Like five other issues of the
paper, available at the Library in facsimile, this original issue
opens with "Extracts from the journals of a convention begun and held
for the district of Kentucky at Danville in the county of Mercer on
the 17th day of September 1787." The extracts are resolutions looking
towards the separation of Kentucky from Virginia, and the following
one accounts for their publication in this paper:
[Resolved][39] That full opportunity may be given to the
good people of exercising their right of suffrage on an
occasion so interesting to them, each of the officers so
holding elections, shall continue the same from day to day,
for five days including the first day, and shall cause
these resolutions to be read immediately preceeding the
opening of the election at the door of the courthouse, or
other convenient place; and that Mr. Bradford be requested
to publish the same in his Kentucky Gazette, six weeks
successively, immediately preceeding the time of holding
said elections.
At a time for important decisions _The Kentucke Gazette_ served as a
means of airing different opinions on statehood, independence, and
constitutional questions. A long second portion of this March 1 issue
is an essay on liberty and equality signed by "Republicus." Critical
of certain sections of the proposed Federal Constitution, he opposes
a bicameral legislature, fears undue influence of the Congress over
State elections, and denounces any condoning of slavery. The remainder
of the issue includes an announcement of the ice breaking up on the
Ohio River, a report of an Indian raid, and an advertisement in this
vein: "I have been told that a certain Jordan Harris asserted in a
public and very positive manner, that I had acknowledged myself a liar
and a scoundrel in a letter to maj. Crittenden." The writer, Humphrey
Marshall, concludes that if said letter is published, "the public will
then see who is the liar and the scoundrel." This early issue bears
the name of the subscriber Richard Eastin, one of the first justices
of the peace in Jefferson County.[40]
The Library's only other examples of Kentucky printing from 1788 are
eight additional issues of the _Gazette_, for November 8 through
December 27, which have been detached from a bound volume and are
still joined together. These belonged to Walter Carr, who was serving
as a magistrate in Fayette County by 1792 and who in 1799 attended the
convention to form the second constitution of Kentucky.[41] Nothing
more can be ascertained about the acquisition of these holdings than
that the March 1 issue is first listed in the 1912 edition and that
the later issues are first listed in the 1936 edition of _A Checklist
of American Eighteenth-Century Newspapers in the Library of Congress_.
[Illustration: (THE KENTUCKE GAZETTE, March 1, 1788.)]
[Footnote 38: See J. Winston Coleman, Jr., _John Bradford, Esq._
(Lexington, Ky., 1950).]
[Footnote 39: Brackets in text.]
[Footnote 40: J. Stoddard Johnston, _Memorial History of Louisville_
(Chicago and New York [pref. 1896]), vol. 2, p. 3.]
[Footnote 41: C. R. Staples, _The History of Pioneer Lexington_
(Lexington, 1939), p. 78 and 151.]
West Virginia
Late in 1790 Nathaniel Willis, grandfather of the writer Nathaniel
Parker Willis, established at Shepherdstown the first press within the
present boundaries of West Virginia. For some years he had published
_The Independent Chronicle_ at Boston, and earlier in 1790 he had
been printing at Winchester, Va. At Shepherdstown Willis published
_The Potowmac Guardian, and Berkeley Advertiser_ from November 1790
at least through December 1791.[42] By April 1792 he had moved to
Martinsburg, where he continued publishing his newspaper under the
same title.
The earliest example of West Virginia printing in the Library of
Congress is a broadside printed at Martinsburg in 1792. Entitled
_Charter of the Town of Woodstock_ [Pa.], it consists of the printed
text of a legal document in the name of one John Hopwood and dated
November 8, 1791. The preamble of the document reveals its nature:
Whereas I John Hopwood, of Fayette-County, and Commonwealth
of _Pennsylvania_, have surveyed and laid out into
convenient lots or parcels, for the purpose of erecting
a Town thereon, the quantity of two hundred acres of
land, being part of the tract of land on which I now
live, situate in Union Township, and County aforesaid,
on the great road leading from the Town of Union to Fort
Cumberland, on the River Potowmack; and for the purpose
of encouraging the settlement, growth, and prosperity of
the said Town, as laid out agreeable to a plan and survey
thereof, hereunto annexed and recorded, together with this
instrument of writing, have determined to grant and confirm
to all persons, who shall purchase or become proprietors
of any lot or lots in the said Town, and to their heirs
and assigns, certain privileges, benefits, and advantages
herein after expressed and specified....
Access of the proposed town to the Potomac River is the clue to
why this broadside relating to an otherwise remote location in
Pennsylvania should have been printed in this part of West Virginia.
The _Charter_ is the third recorded West Virginia imprint apart from
newspaper issues, and the Library of Congress has the only known copy.
Written on the verso is: Col. Morr[----] And other early hands have
written there, "Hopwoods deeds" and "no body will have his Lotts."
At the Anderson Galleries sale of Americana held at New York on
November 9, 1927, the presumed same copy of the _Charter_ was sold
from the library of Arthur DeLisle, M.D. (1851-1925), librarian of
the Advocates' Library in Montreal.[43] It fetched $11. The Library
of Congress obtained it in October 1935 from the Aldine Book Shop in
Brooklyn for $35.
[Illustration: (Charter of the Town of Woodstock.)]
[Footnote 42: The latest extant Shepherdstown issue of _The Potowmac
Guardian_, for December 27, 1791, is reported in Clarence S. Brigham,
_Additions and Corrections to History and Bibliography of American
Newspapers 1690-1820_ (Worcester, Mass., 1961), p. 50.]
[Footnote 43: According to his obituary in the Montreal newspaper
_La Presse_, December 22, 1925, Arthur DeLisle obtained a degree
in medicine but never practiced that profession. "M. DeLisle
s'intéressait vivement à toutes les choses de l'histoire et, par des
recherches patientes et continues il fit de la bibliothèque du Barreau
ce qu'elle est aujourd'hui, l'enrichissant sans cesse de livres et
de documents précieux relatifs à l'histoire du droit, ainsi qu'à la
biographie des juges et des avocats de Montréal depuis 1828."]
Tennessee
The printers George Roulstone and Robert Ferguson introduced the
first Tennessee printing at Hawkins Court House, now Rogersville,
with the November 5, 1791, issue of _The Knoxville Gazette_. Both
men came to the Tennessee country, or Southwest Territory, by way of
North Carolina. Their newspaper remained at Hawkins Court House until
October 1792, while Knoxville, chosen as the seat of the Territorial
government, was being constructed.
The earliest Tennessee imprint in the Library of Congress is probably
the eight-page official publication entitled _Acts and Ordinances
of the Governor and Judges, of the Territory of the United States
of America South of the River Ohio_, which according to Douglas C.
McMurtrie "was certainly printed by Roulstone at Knoxville in 1793,
though it bears no imprint to this effect."[44] Its contents, relating
principally to the definition of separate judicial districts within
the Territory, are dated from June 11, 1792, to March 21, 1793, and
the printing could have been accomplished soon after the latter date.
[Illustration: _Patch-repairs help to preserve not only the title page
but the first page of the text, which is printed on the verso._]
The Library of Congress copy is one of those afterwards prefixed to
and issued with a much more extensive work printed by Roulstone in
1794: _Acts Passed at the First Session of the General Assembly of
the Territory of the United States of America, South of the River
Ohio, Began and Held at Knoxville, on Monday the Twenty-Fifth Day of
August, M,DCC,XCIV_. The Library's volume lost its 1794 title page at
an early date, and it is the exposed second leaf, the title page of
1793, that bears the inscription, "Theodorick Bland June 1st 1799."
Theodorick Bland (1777-1846) was to be chancellor of Maryland for many
years. His correspondence preserved by the Maryland Historical Society
reveals that he practiced law in Tennessee from 1798 to 1801. From
such evidence as its Library of Congress bookplate, the volume would
appear to have entered the Library around the late 1870's.
The earliest dated example of Tennessee printing in the Library is the
_Knoxville Gazette_ for June 1, 1793, issued a month after Ferguson
retired from the paper. The issue begins with a lengthy selection by
Benjamin Franklin, which is prefaced in this way:
Messrs. _Printers_,
I beg you to publish in your next number of the Knoxville
Gazette, the following extracts, from a narrative of the
massacres in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania; of a number
of friendly Indians, by persons unknown; written by the
late Dr. _Benjamin Franklin_, whose many benevolent acts,
will immortalize his memory, and published in a British
Magazine,[45] in April 1764.
I am your obedient servant,
W.B.
The subscriber was undoubtedly William Blount, the Territorial
Governor appointed by President Washington in 1790, who perhaps hoped
that the sympathy towards Indians expressed by Franklin might temper
public reaction against Indian raids figuring so large in the local
news. Readers of the same June 1 issue learned of such crimes as the
scalping of a child near Nashville, and they may have been moved by
the following paragraph which the editor interjected in the news
reports:
The Creek nation must be destroyed, or the south western
frontiers, from the mouth of St. Mary's to the western
extremities of Kentucky and Virginia, will be incessantly
harassed by them; and now is the time. [_Delenda est
Carthago._][46]
Both this issue and the June 15 issue, the sole Library of Congress
holdings of the _Gazette_ for the year 1793, are inscribed "Claiborne
Watkins, esq^r." They probably belonged to the person of that name
residing in Washington County, Va., who served as a presidential
elector in 1792.[47]
[Footnote 44: _Early Printing in Tennessee_ (Chicago, 1933), p. 21.]
[Footnote 45: _The Gentleman's Magazine._ Franklin's _A Narrative of
the Late Massacres_ was published separately at Philadelphia in the
same year.]
[Footnote 46: Brackets in text. Several issues carried this paragraph.
See William Rule, ed. _Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee_
(Chicago, 1900), p. 74.]
[Footnote 47: See _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_, vol. 6 (1886),
p. 140.]
Ohio
William Maxwell of New York, after failing to establish himself at
Lexington, Ky., moved on to Cincinnati in the Northwest Territory and
thereby became the first Ohio printer. His work at Cincinnati began
with the November 9, 1793, issue of his newspaper, _The Centinel of
the North-Western Territory_.[48]
The earliest known Ohio book, also printed by Maxwell, is the earliest
example of Ohio printing to be found at the Library of Congress: _Laws
of the Territory of the United States North-West of the Ohio: Adopted
and Made by the Governour and Judges, in Their Legislative Capacity,
at a Session Begun on Friday, the XXIX Day of May, One Thousand, Seven
Hundred and Ninety-Five, and Ending on Tuesday the Twenty-Fifth Day of
August Following_.... Dated 1796, "Maxwell's Code," as this book is
sometimes called, was not the first publication of Northwest Territory
laws, others having been printed at Philadelphia in 1792 and 1794.
The printer set forth a "Proposal" concerning the forthcoming work in
the _Centinel_ of July 25, 1795:
W. Maxwell being appointed by the legislature to print
for them 200 copies of their laws, he thinks it would
be greatly conducive towards the instruction and common
benefit of all the citizens to extend the impression to
1000 copies.... The price, in boards, to subscribers, will
be at the rate of nineteen cents for every 50 pages, and to
non-subscribers, thirty cents.[49]
[Illustration: _Pages from the first book printed in Ohio._]
He completed the volume in 225 pages, with numerous printed sidenotes
that make it easy to consult. An incidental reference to printing
occurs in a law for land partition (p. 185-197) which states that land
proprietors "may subscribe a writing, and publish the same in one or
more of the public News-papers printed in the Territory, in the State
of Kentucky, and at the seat of government of the United States,
for twelve successive weeks" in order to announce the appointment
of commissioners to divide their property into lots. Subsequently,
advertisements were to be placed in the newspapers for six weeks to
announce a balloting or drawing for the subdivided lots.
[Illustration: (Northwest Territory Laws)]
The Library of Congress owns two copies of this Cincinnati imprint.
One, lacking the title page and final leaf, is bound in a volume of
unknown provenance, possibly obtained about 1912, containing four
early editions of Northwest Territory laws. The other is a separate
copy, lacking the last three leaves. This more interesting copy has
two inscriptions on its title page, the words written uppermost
posing some difficulty: "Ex Biblioth[eca] Sem[inari]i [----] S[anc]ti
Sulp[icii] Baltimoriensis"; but they make clear that this copy once
belonged to the Sulpician seminary founded at Baltimore in 1791 and
now named St. Mary's Seminary. A number of similarly inscribed books
still retained by the seminary were once part of a special faculty
library that merged with the regular seminary library about 1880. Many
books from the faculty library bear signatures of individual priests
who were their original owners. Thus the second inscription "Dilhet"
refers to Jean Dilhet (1753-1811), a Sulpician who spent nine years in
this country and was assigned to the pastorate of Raisin River (then
in the Northwest Territory, in what is now Monroe County, Mich.) from
1798 to 1804. During 1804 and 1805 he worked in Detroit with Father
Richard, who later established a press there (see next section).[50]
Its absence from the Library's early catalogs implies that the present
copy was acquired sometime after 1875. Two date stamps indicate that
the Library had it rebound twice, in 1904 and 1947.
[Footnote 48: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Pioneer Printing in Ohio_
(Cincinnati, 1943).]
[Footnote 49: Quoted from Historical Records Survey, American
Imprints Inventory, no. 17, _A Check List of Ohio Imprints 1796-1820_
(Columbus, 1941), p. 21.]
[Footnote 50: See the short biography of Dilhet in the preface to his
_Etat de l'église catholique ou Diocèse des Etats-Unis de l'Amérique
septentrionale.... Translated and annotated by Rev. P. W. Browne_
(Washington, D.C., 1922).]
Michigan
In 1796 John McCall, the earliest printer active in Michigan, issued
at Detroit a 16-page Act of Congress relating to Indian affairs.
Apart from blank forms printed on the same press before its removal
to Canada in 1800, no other specimens of Michigan printing survive
antedating the press that Father Gabriel Richard, the influential
Sulpician priest, established at Detroit in 1809.
Entry number 2 in the _Preliminary Check List of Michigan Imprints
1796-1850_ (Detroit, 1942)[51] describes a 12-page publication said to
exist in a unique copy at the Library of Congress: _To the Honourable
the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States. Memorial
of the citizens of the United States, situated north of an east and
west line, extending thro' the southward bend of Lake Michigan, and
by the Act of Congress of 30th April 1802 attached to, and made part
of the Indiana Territory ..._ ([Detroit? 1802?]). This entry is, in
bibliographical parlance, a ghost. Actually, the Library of Congress
possesses the work only as a negative photostat of a manuscript
document which is preserved at the National Archives.[52]
The earliest _bona fide_ Michigan imprint in the Library of Congress
is _L'Ame penitente ou Le nouveau pensez-y-bien; consideration sur
les ve'rite's eternelles, avec des histoires & des exemples ..._
printed at Detroit in 1809. The printer, James M. Miller, of Utica,
N. Y., was the first of three operators of Father Richard's press.
This particular imprint is the fourth item in a standard bibliography
of the press, which calls it "the first book of more than 24 pages
printed in Detroit or Michigan."[53] As a matter of fact, it is a very
substantial work of 220 pages, albeit in a small duodecimo format. It
is a reprint of a devotional book first published in France in the
18th century and attributed to a prolific Jesuit author, Barthélemy
Baudrand (1701-87). As head of the Catholic Church in the area, Father
Richard wanted to make such religious literature available to the
largely French-speaking inhabitants.
[Illustration: (_L'AME PENITENTE OU LE NOUVEAU PENSEZ-Y-BIEN;
CONSIDERATION SUR LES VE'RITE'S ETERNELLES, Avec des Histoires & des
Exemples ..._ printed by James M. Miller at Detroit in 1809.)]
The Library of Congress copy of _L'Ame penitente_, in a speckled calf
binding of uncertain date, was obtained through a 1954 exchange with
Edward Eberstadt & Sons. It had been offered in one of the bookselling
firm's catalogs earlier that year for $500.[54]
[Footnote 51: Historical Records Survey, American Imprints Inventory,
no. 52.]
[Footnote 52: The original is in Record Group 46 at the National
Archives; the Library's photostat is in the Manuscript Division. The
imaginary imprint recurs as no. 3168 in _American Bibliography, a
Preliminary Checklist for 1802_, comp. by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H.
Shoemaker (New York, 1958).]
[Footnote 53: A. H. Greenly, _A Bibliography of Father Richard's Press
in Detroit_ (Ann Arbor, 1955).]
[Footnote 54: Catalogue 134, no. 392. Two years later the same firm
offered another copy for $750, in its Catalogue 138, no. 428.]
Mississippi
Mississippi's first printer was Andrew Marschalk of New York, an Army
lieutenant stationed at Walnut Hills, close to the eventual site of
Vicksburg.[55] There, probably in 1798, he attracted attention by
printing a ballad on a small press he had acquired in London. At the
request of Governor Winthrop Sargent, Marschalk undertook in 1799
to print the laws of Mississippi Territory, and for that purpose he
built a larger press at Natchez. Late in 1799 a second printer, Ben
M. Stokes, purchased this press from Marschalk and soon commenced
a weekly paper, _The Mississippi Gazette_. On May 5, 1800, James
Green, a printer from Baltimore, introduced a rival paper at Natchez,
_Green's Impartial Observer_.
The Library of Congress earliest Mississippi imprint was designed to
controvert remarks by "The Friend of the People" in _Green's Impartial
Observer_ for November 1, 1800. It is a small broadside "From the
Office of J. Green" that would seem to corroborate the printer's
impartiality, at least in this particular dispute. Captioned "To
the Public," dated November 8, 1800, and signed by eight members
of the new Territorial House of Representatives, it refers to "an
exaggerated estimate of the supposed expence attending the second
grade of Government"; and it continues, "We therefore consider it our
duty to counteract the nefarious and factious designs of the persons
concerned" in the anonymous article. Mississippi's second grade of
Territorial government had come about in 1800 with the creation of a
legislature to enact the laws, theretofore enacted by the Governor and
three judges. The authors of this broadside itemize the maximum annual
expenses for operating the legislature, concluding with a comparison
of the total estimates: their $2,870 as opposed to the $15,050 of "The
Friend of the People."
[Illustration: "To the Public," dated November 8, 1800]
In addition the Library of Congress has a lengthy rebuttal to the
November 8 statement on a broadside also captioned "To the Public,"
dated at Natchez "November 15th, 1809" (a misprint for 1800), and
signed "The Friend of the People." The writer begins:
Fellow-Citizens,
Of all the extraordinary performances I ever beheld, the
late hand-bill, signed by eight members of our house of
representatives, is the _most_ extraordinary--and I doubt
not that it will be considered by the country at large as
the legitimate offspring of the subscribers; being replete
with that unauthorized assumption of power, and those round
assertions so truly characteristic--propagated for the
avowed purpose of 'undeceiving the people' in a matter of
the first moment, and yet not containing one authenticated
fact for them to found an opinion on--but resting all upon
their mere _dictum_, penetrating into future events, and
proclaiming what _shall be_ the decisions of legislators
not yet elected.
His argument against his opponents' cost estimates touches upon
certain fundamental issues, such as the threat of an aristocratic rule
if the stipend for legislators is indeed kept very low. Towards the
end he notes an instance of intimidation:
One thing more I would observe--a very threatening letter
has been written to the printer denouncing vengeance on
him, if he does not deliver up the author of "_the friend
of the people_"--this I take to be an attempt to frighten
and preclude further investigation, but it will be of
little avail when the interests of my fellow citizens are
so deeply concerned.
That James Green, although not named, is the printer of this second
broadside can be demonstrated by typographical comparison with
the January 24 and February 21, 1801 issues of _Green's Impartial
Observer_, available at the Library of Congress.
The two broadsides cited are the only copies recorded in Douglas
C. McMurtrie's _A Bibliography of Mississippi Imprints 1798-1830_
(Beauvoir Community, Miss., 1945).[56] They bear manuscript notations,
in an identical hand, that suggest use in an official archive; and
the earlier broadside is stated to be "from M^r Banks, Nov^r 12^{th}
1800." Sutton Bankes, one of the eight signers, is presumably referred
to here. The second broadside has, besides a brief caption in this
hand, a more elegantly written address: "His Excellency Winthrop
Sergent Bellemont." Bellemont was one of Governor Sargent's residences
near Natchez.
It is interesting that at the time Governor Sargent expressed himself
privately on the earlier broadside as follows:
They [the members of the House of Representatives] are
undoubtedly the proper Guardians of their own honour and
Conduct, but nevertheless, will not take it amiss, in a
Communication intended only for themselves, that I should
observe it has always been Considered derogatory to the
Dignity of Public Bodies, to notice anonymous writings, in
the style and Manner of the Hand Bills,--it opens a broad
Avenue to Retort and Satire, with many other obvious and
unpleasant Consequences.[57]
[Footnote 55: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Pioneer Printing in
Mississippi_ (Atlanta, 1932); and Charles S. Sydnor, "The Beginning of
Printing in Mississippi," _The Journal of Southern History_, vol. 1,
1935, p. [49]-55.]
[Footnote 56: Nos. 11 and 12.]
[Footnote 57: From letter dated November 12, 1800, in _The Mississippi
Territorial Archives_, compiled and edited by Dunbar Rowland, vol. 1
(1905), p. 301-302.]
Indiana
Elihu Stout, whose family moved from New Jersey to Kentucky in 1793,
probably learned printing as an apprentice to Kentucky's first
printer, John Bradford. He is known to have been in Bradford's employ
at Lexington in 1798, and later he worked at Nashville. Invited by
Governor William Henry Harrison to do the official printing for the
Indiana Territory, Stout settled at Vincennes and began publishing his
newspaper, the _Indiana Gazette_, on July 31, 1804.[58]
The Library of Congress' Indiana holdings begin with a copy of the
second known imprint excepting newspaper issues, printed by Stout late
in 1804: _Laws for the Government of the District of Louisiana, Passed
by the Governor and Judges of the Indiana Territory, at Their First
Session, Uegun_ [sic] _and Held at Vincennes, on Monday the First Day
of October, 1804_.[59] In March 1804 Congress had divided the lands of
the Louisiana Purchase into two parts, the southern part becoming the
Territory of Orleans (ultimately the State of Louisiana), the northern
and larger part becoming the District of Louisiana. As explained
in the preamble to the first law in this collection, "the Governor
and Judges of the Indiana Territory [were] authorized by an act of
Congress to make Laws for the District of Louisiana." They possessed
this special authority from March 1804 until March 1805.
Fifteen laws make up the 136-page work. They are written in plain
language, and the 10th, "Entitled a law, respecting Slaves," is a
particularly engrossing social document. To illustrate, its second
provision is
That no slave shall go from the tenements of his master,
or other person with whom he lives without a pass, or
some letter or token, whereby it may appear that he is
proceeding by authority from his master, employer or
overseer, if he does it shall be lawful for any person
to apprehend and carry him before a justice of the peace
to be by his order punished with stripes, or not, in his
discretion.
A subsequent compilation of laws made after the District became the
Territory of Louisiana is described on p. 45, below.
[Illustration: (_Laws for the Government of the District of Louisiana,
Passed by the Governor and Judges of the Indiana Territory, at Their
First Session, Uegun and Held at Vincennes, on Monday the First Day of
October, 1804_. Printed by Elihu Stout late in 1804.)]
The Library has handsomely rebound its copy in ruby morocco. Formerly
it must have been in a wretched state, evidenced by the extreme
marginal deterioration of its now laminated pages. It contains the
signature of James Mackay (1759-1822), a Scottish fur trader,
surveyor, and explorer who was later remembered at St. Louis as "the
first English speaking white man who ever came west of the Mississippi
river," and who was appointed "Commandant of the territory of Upper
Louisiana" in 1803.[60] When the territory passed from Spanish to
American rule in 1804, he became a judge of the Court of Quarter
Sessions,[61] in which capacity he would have needed the volume of
laws. The Library's copy is one of six unrelated volumes that were
purchased together for $750 from the Statute Law Book Company of
Washington, D.C., in 1905.
[Footnote 58: See V. C. (H.) Knerr, _Elihu Stout, Indiana's First
Printer_ (ACRL microcard series, no. 48; Rochester, N.Y., 1955).]
[Footnote 59: No. 2 in C. K. Byrd and H. H. Peckham, _A Bibliography
of Indiana Imprints 1804-1853_ (Indianapolis, 1955).]
[Footnote 60: W. S. Bryan and Robert Rose, _A History of the Pioneer
Families of Missouri_ (St. Louis, 1876), p. 173-174.]
[Footnote 61: _Missouri Historical Society Collections_, vol. 4, no. 1
(1912), p. 20.]
Alabama
The earliest extant Alabama imprint is thought to be _The Declaration
of the American Citizens on the Mobile, with Relation to the British
Aggressions. September, 1807_, which was printed "on the Mobile"
at an unspecified date. No one has yet identified the printer of
this five-page statement inspired by the _Chesapeake-Leopard_ naval
engagement. The next surviving evidence is a bail bond form dated
February 24, 1811, and printed at St. Stephens by P. J. Forster, who
is reported to have worked previously at Philadelphia.[62]
A second St. Stephens printer, Thomas Eastin, founded a newspaper
called _The Halcyon_ sometime in 1815, after Alabama newspapers had
already appeared at Fort Stoddert (1811), Huntsville (1812), and
Mobile (1813). Eastin had formerly worked at Nashville, at Alexandria,
La., and at Natchez in association with Mississippi's first printer,
Andrew Marschalk.[63] His work at St. Stephens included a 16-page
pamphlet, which is among the three or four earliest Alabama imprints
other than newspaper issues[64] and is the first specimen of Alabama
printing in the Library of Congress. Headed "To the Citizens of
Jackson County," it is signed by Joseph P. Kennedy and has on its
final page the imprint, "St. Stephens (M.T.) Printed by Tho. Eastin.
1815." Here "M.T." denotes the Mississippi Territory, which in 1817
divided into the Alabama Territory and the State of Mississippi. St.
Stephens was an early county seat of Washington County, now part of
Alabama, whereas Jackson County, to whose inhabitants the author
addresses himself, lies within the present Mississippi borders.
[Illustration: _James Madison, President of the U--States----_
"St. Stephens (M.T.) Printed by Tho. Eastin. 1815."]
Joseph Pulaski Kennedy wrote this pamphlet after an election in which
he ran unsuccessfully against William Crawford of Alabama to represent
Jackson County in the Territorial legislature.[65] His stated purpose
is to refute "malicious falsehoods ... industriously circulated"
against him before the election, foremost among them the charge that
but for him Mobile Point "would never have been retaken"; and he
summarizes his actions as an officer "in the command of the Choctaws
of the United States" during the dangerous final stage of the War of
1812 when the town of Mobile nearly fell into British hands.
The only recorded copy of this little-known pamphlet is inscribed to
"James Madison President of the U States." It owes its preservation to
its inclusion among the Madison Papers in possession of the Library of
Congress.[66]
[Footnote 62: Copies of both imprints are described under nos. 1548
and 1549 in _The Celebrated Collection of Americana Formed by the
Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter_ (New York, 1966-69), vol. 3. _The
Declaration_ was reprinted in _The Magazine of History, with Notes and
Queries_, extra no. 8 (1925), p. [45]-55.]
[Footnote 63: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _A Brief History of the First
Printing in the State of Alabama_ (Birmingham, 1931), p. 6.]
[Footnote 64: No. 4 in Historical Records Survey. American Imprints
Inventory, no. 8, _Check List of Alabama Imprints, 1807-1840_
(Birmingham, 1939); no. 3 in the section, "Books, Pamphlets, etc."
in R. C. Ellison, _A Check List of Alabama Imprints 1807-1870_
(University, Ala., 1946).]
[Footnote 65: See Cyril E. Cain, _Four Centuries on the Pascagoula_
([State College? Miss., 1953-62]), vol. 2, p. 8-9 (naming Crawford
only).]
[Footnote 66: It is in vol. 78, leaf 22. This volume, containing
printed material only, is in the Rare Book Division.]
Missouri
[Illustration: _Some of the subjects covered in_ The Laws of the
Territory of Louisiana.]
Joseph Charless, with a background of printing experience in his
native Ireland, in Pennsylvania, and in Kentucky, became the first
man to establish a printing press west of the Mississippi River.
Meriwether Lewis, Governor of the Territory of Louisiana, was
instrumental in bringing Charless to St. Louis, the Territorial
capital, and there the printer launched his weekly newspaper, the
_Missouri Gazette_, on July 12, 1808.[67] His awareness of his place
in history is demonstrated by a copy of _Charless' Missouri & Illinois
Almanac, for 1818_, printed in 1817, which the State Department
Library transferred to the Library of Congress in August 1962. It
is inscribed: "A tribute of respect from the first Press that ever
crossed the Mississippi."[68]
The earliest example of Missouri printing in the Library of Congress
is _The Laws of the Territory of Louisiana. Comprising All Those Which
Are Now in Force Within the Same_, printed at St. Louis by Charless
with the imprint date 1808. Besides newspaper issues this was long
thought to be the first Missouri imprint. A document of April 29,
1809, appearing on p. 373 proves that it was not completed until after
that date, however, and recent authorities have relegated it to second
or third place in terms of publication date.[69]
Consisting of 376 numbered pages with a 58-page index, the book is
a compilation of the laws of 1804 and 1806-08. Those of 1804 carry
over from the compilation for the District of Louisiana, which is the
Library's earliest Indiana imprint, and the same law on slavery quoted
on p. 41, above, is among those reprinted. Typical of the later laws
is "An Act Concerning Strays," from which the following section is
presented for its incidental reference to printing:
Sec. 4. Every person taking up a stray horse, mare or
colt, shall within two months after the same is appraised,
provided the owner shall not have claimed his property
during that time, transmit to the printer of some public
newspaper printed within this territory, a particular
description of such stray or strays and the appraisment
thereof, together with the district and place of residence
certified by the clerk, or by the justice before whom such
stray was appraised, to be inserted in such paper three
weeks succesively, for the advertising of which the printer
shall receive his usual and stated price for inserting
advertisements in his newspaper.
In 1809 the _Missouri Gazette_ was still the only newspaper available
to print these advertisements.
The Library of Congress must have obtained its copy of this book
during the final quarter of the 19th century, when the "Law
Department" stamp on the title page was in use.
[Footnote 67: See David Kaser, _Joseph Charless, Printer in the
Western Country_ (Philadelphia [1963]). A printed form, surviving in
a copy dated in manuscript July 8, 1808, may have been printed by
Charless at St. Louis; see no. 1836 in _The Celebrated Collection of
Americana Formed by the Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter_ (New York,
1966-69), vol. 3.]
[Footnote 68: See U.S. Library of Congress, _Quarterly Journal of
Current Acquisitions_, vol. 20 (1962-63), p. 199 and plate facing p.
197.]
[Footnote 69: See Kaser, _Joseph Charless_, p. 71-74; V. A. Perotti,
_Important Firsts in Missouri Imprints, 1808-1858_ (Kansas City,
1967), p. 1-4.]
Texas
Aaron Mower of Philadelphia set the type for volume 1, number 1, of
the _Gaceta de Texas_, dated "Nacogdoches, 25 de Mayo, de 1813," which
is preserved at the National Archives and is the earliest evidence of
printing activity in Texas. A political dispute forced the removal of
Mower's press and type from Nacogdoches to Natchitoches, in Louisiana,
where this Spanish-language newspaper was actually printed and
issued.[70] Other transient presses operated briefly at Galveston in
1817, at Nacogdoches in 1819, and at San Antonio de Bexar in 1823.[71]
The permanent establishment of Texas printing dates from September
1829, when Godwin B. Cotten introduced a press at San Felipe and
founded the _Texas Gazette_. In March 1832 he relocated at Brazoria.
D. W. Anthony purchased both the press and the paper in the summer
of 1832, and until July 1833 he continued to publish the paper at
Brazoria under a new name, _The Constitutional Advocate and Texas
Public Advertiser_.
The earliest Texas printing in the Library of Congress is the number
of the paper dated June 15, 1833, which offers news only from the
United States and from overseas. "From the City of Mexico," writes
Anthony, "we have heard nothing this week, except mere disjointed
rumors from the interior. By the arrival of the next mail at San
Felipe, we may reasonably expect that some certain intelligence will
be received, of what the legislatures have done." Gathering news was
one problem; he reveals another in the following paragraph:
We are glad to be able at length, to present the ADVOCATE
to our readers, on a sheet of its accustomed size. We
stated before, that its being diminished two columns
lately, was the consequence of a mistake made by our
merchant in filling our order for paper. We now have an
ample supply, and of excellent quality, so that we shall
have no more apologies to offer on that score. These
things, however, cost money, and that in hand, which we
hope our good friends will not altogether forget.
Among the advertisements is the usual "JOB PRINTING DONE AT THIS
OFFICE" and also an announcement of the "CONSTITUTION OF TEXAS, With
or without the Memorial, For Sale at this Office and at the stores
of W. C. White, San Felipe: David Ayres, Montville: and T. W. Moore,
Harrisburg." Anthony printed these historic documents shortly after
the Texas convention held at San Felipe in April, and the _Advocate_
began to carry this advertisement on May 11, 1833.[72]
The Library's copy of the four-page newspaper has been removed from
a bound volume. Since it is inscribed "Intelligencer, W. C.," it
was obviously sent to the office of the _National Intelligencer_
at Washington City, as the capital was then called. It is slightly
mutilated: an item has been cut from an outer column, affecting the
third and fourth pages. There is no record of the issue in _A Check
List of American Newspapers in the Library of Congress_ (1901), but
its location does appear in the union list, _American Newspapers
1821-1936_ (1937).
[Illustration: _Last page of_ The Constitutional Advocate and Texas
Public Advertiser, _June 15, 1833_.]
[Footnote 70: See Clarence S. Brigham, _History and Bibliography of
American Newspapers 1690-1820_ (Worcester, 1947), p. [1069].]
[Footnote 71: A reliable survey of early Texas printing is in Thomas
W. Streeter's _Bibliography of Texas 1795-1845_ (Cambridge [Mass.]
1955-60), pt. 1, vol. 1, p. xxxi-lxi.]
[Footnote 72: See nos. 40 and 41 in Streeter's _Bibliography of
Texas_.]
Illinois
Illinois' first printing took place at Kaskaskia, the no longer
existent Territorial capital. In 1814 Governor Ninian Edwards induced
the Kentucky printer Matthew Duncan to settle there, and probably in
May of that year Duncan founded a weekly newspaper, _The Illinois
Herald_.
The earliest Illinois imprint in the Library of Congress, listed as
number 4 in Cecil K. Byrd's definitive bibliography, is _Laws of
the Territory of Illinois, Revised and Digested under the Authority
of the Legislature. By Nathaniel Pope_, published by Duncan in two
volumes dated June 2 and July 4, 1815. Nathaniel Pope (1784-1850), who
prepared this earliest digest of Illinois statutes, went to Kaskaskia
upon being appointed secretary of the newly authorized Illinois
Territory and did important organizational work there in the spring
of 1809 before Governor Edwards' arrival. On December 24, 1814, the
legislature decreed that Pope should receive $300 "for revising the
laws of this Territory making an index to the same, and superintending
the printing thereof."[73] The work he produced was to a large extent
based on an 1807 revision of the laws of the Indiana Territory, from
which Illinois had recently been separated.[74]
[Illustration: (_Laws of the Territory of Illinois, Revised and
Digested under the Authority of the Legislature. By Nathaniel Pope_)]
Even though it paid him for his labor and authorized printing,
the Illinois Legislature never enacted Pope's digest into law.
Nevertheless, the work had a certain importance, as explained by its
20th-century editor, Francis S. Philbrick:
"The first thing that anyone will notice who opens
this volume is that Pope began the practice of
topical-alphabetical arrangement to which the lawyers of
Illinois have now been accustomed for more than a hundred
years. At the time of its appearance the work's importance
was increased by the fact that it collected, so far as
deemed consistent and still in force, the laws of 1812,
1813, and 1814. These enactments--though presumably all
accessible in manuscript, for a time, at the county seats,
and in many newspapers--had not all appeared in book form;
nor did they so appear until fifteen years ago [i. e., in
1920-21]."[75]
The Library of Congress set of two rebound volumes is seriously
imperfect, with numerous missing leaves replaced in facsimile. The
volumes were purchased in June 1902 from the Statute Law Book Company
in Washington together with a volume of Illinois session laws of
1817-18 for a combined price of $225.
[Footnote 73: See _Collections of the Illinois State Historical
Library_, vol. 25, 1950, p. 178.]
[Footnote 74: Ibid., vol. 28, 1938, p. xviii.]
[Footnote 75: Ibid., p. xxi.]
Arkansas
[Illustration: (_Laws of the Territory of Arkansas: Comprising the
Organic Laws of the Territories of Missouri and Arkansas, with the
Amendments and Supplements Annexed; All Laws of a General Nature
Passed by the General Assembly of the Territory of Missouri, at the
Session Held in 1818; Together with the Laws Passed by the General
Assembly of the Territory of Arkansas, at the Sessions in 1819 and
1820._)]
William E. Woodruff, the first Arkansas printer, was a Long Islander
who served his apprenticeship at Sag Harbor with Alden Spooner, nephew
of the early Vermont printer of that name. Woodruff transported
printing equipment purchased at Franklin, Tenn., to the Post of
Arkansas, and there, on November 20, 1819, he began to publish _The
Arkansas Gazette_. He later moved his press to Little Rock, where the
newspaper has continued to the present day.[76]
In his _History and Bibliography of American Newspapers 1690-1820_
(Worcester, Mass., 1947) Clarence S. Brigham locates the only complete
file of early issues of the _Gazette_ at the Library of Congress.
It must be reported here, regretfully, that the Library released
these along with later issues for exchange in July 1953 as part of a
space-saving operation, after making microfilm copies for retention.
Subsequently the same file, extending from 1819 to 1875, was described
at length under item 649 in Edward Eberstadt and Sons' Catalog 134
(Americana) issued in 1954.
Two copies of the first book published in Arkansas, printed by
Woodruff at the Post of Arkansas and dated 1821, now share the
distinction of being the earliest specimens of Arkansas printing in
the Library. The fact that Arkansas officially separated from the
Missouri Territory in July 1819 helps to explain the title of this
book: _Laws of the Territory of Arkansas: Comprising the Organic
Laws of the Territories of Missouri and Arkansas, with the Amendments
and Supplements Annexed; All Laws of a General Nature Passed by the
General Assembly of the Territory of Missouri, at the Session Held in
1818; Together with the Laws Passed by the General Assembly of the
Territory of Arkansas, at the Sessions in 1819 and 1820_.
In the initial issue of the _Gazette_ Woodruff claimed to have
established his press entirely at his own expense. His imprint on
these _Laws_ discloses his eventual employment as official "printer to
the Territory," and among the resolutions of the new general assembly
to be found in this volume is that of April 1, 1820, appointing
Woodruff to the position. A resolution of the assembly, approved
October 25, 1820, directs how official documents printed by him were
to be distributed:
RESOLVED ... That the governor be, and he is hereby,
authorized to have printed in pamphlet form, a sufficient
number of copies of the laws of the present general
assembly, and all laws of a general nature passed by the
general assembly of Missouri, in eighteen hundred and
nineteen, and also the laws passed by the governor and
judges of this territory, which have not been repealed
by this general assembly; and to distribute such laws on
application of those entitled to copies, in the manner
herein-after provided, to wit: To the governor and
secretary each one copy; to the judges of circuit and
county courts, to the clerk of superior court, to the
sheriff of each county, to every justice of the peace, to
every constable, to the prosecuting attorney in behalf of
the United States, and circuit or county court prosecuting
attornies, to the territorial auditor, to the territorial
treasurer, to the coroner of each county, to every member
of the general assembly, each one copy: _Provided_, it
shall be the duty of every officer, on his or their going
out of office, to deliver the copy of the laws with
[which][77] he shall have been furnished, in pursuance of
this resolution, to his successor in office.
_Resolved also_, That a sufficient number of copies shall
be sent, by order of the governor, to the care of the
several clerks of each county, in this territory, whose
duty it shall be to distribute one copy to every officer or
person allowed one in the foregoing part of this resolution.
_Resolved also_, That the governor be, and he is hereby,
authorized to draw on the territorial treasurer for the
amount of expenses arising thereon, which are not otherwise
provided for by law.
The two copies in possession of the Library of Congress carry no marks
of previous ownership. One was recorded in the _Catalogue of Additions
to the Library of Congress Since December, 1833_, dated December 1,
1834.[78] Whether this was the copy which retains a late 19th-century
bookplate or the copy which the Library had rebound in 1914 is
uncertain.
[Footnote 76: See _Wilderness to Statehood with William E. Woodruff_
(Eureka Springs, Ark., 1961); Rollo G. Silver, _The American Printer
1787-1825_ (Charlottesville, 1967), p. 140.]
[Footnote 77: Brackets in text.]
[Footnote 78: Page 12 (combined entry: "Laws of Arkansas, &c., &c.,
1818 to 1821, 1823, and 1825").]
Hawaii
[Illustration: (Hawaiian Primer, printed by Elisha Loomis.)]
Hawaii's first printer was a young American named Elisha Loomis,
previously employed as a printer's apprentice at Canandaigua, N.Y. He
arrived at Hawaii with a group of Boston missionaries in 1820; but use
of the printing press that he brought with him had to be delayed owing
to the lack of a written Hawaiian language, which the missionaries
proceeded to devise. At a special ceremony held at Honolulu on
January 7, 1822, a few copies of the earliest Hawaiian imprint were
struck off: a broadside captioned "Lesson I." Its text was afterwards
incorporated in a printed primer of the Hawaiian language.[79]
Loomis printed 500 copies of the primer in January, and in September
1822 he printed 2,000 copies of a second edition. The latter edition
is the fifth recorded Hawaiian imprint,[80] as well as the earliest to
be found among the Library of Congress holdings. In 16 pages, without
a title page or an imprint statement, it opens with a section headed
"THE ALPHABET" and includes lists of syllables, lists of words, and
elementary Hawaiian readings of a religious character consistent with
their missionary purpose.
The Library's copy is shelved in a special Hawaiiana Collection in the
Rare Book Division. Bound with it is another rare primer in only four
pages, captioned "KA BE-A-BA," which Loomis printed in 1824.[81] The
small volume is in a black, half leather binding, with an old Library
of Congress bookplate marked "Smithsonian Deposit." Since the final
text page is date-stamped "1 Aug., 1858," the volume was probably
received or bound by the Smithsonian Institution in that year. The
Smithsonian transferred most of its book collection to the Library
of Congress in 1866-67 and has continued to deposit in the Library
quantities of material which it receives largely in exchange for its
own publications. The Hawaiian rarities in this particular volume were
cataloged at the Library in 1918.
[Footnote 79: See T. M. Spaulding, "The First Printing in Hawaii,"
_The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America_, vol. 50,
1956, p. 313-327; R. E. Lingenfelter, _Presses of the Pacific Islands
1817-1867_ (Los Angeles, 1967), p. 33-44.]
[Footnote 80: See H. R. Ballou and G. R. Carter, "The History of
the Hawaiian Mission Press, with a Bibliography of the Earlier
Publications," _Papers of the Hawaiian Historical Society_, no. 14,
1908, p. [9]-44.]
[Footnote 81: The penciled note on p. [1], "Second Ed. Spelling Book,"
would appear to identify it with no. 10 in the Ballou and Carter
bibliography.]
Wisconsin
[Illustration: Green-Bay Intelligencer. VOL. I. NAVARINO, WEDNESDAY
DECEMBER 11, 1833. NO. 1.]
"With a handful of brevier and an ounce or two of printer's ink"--as
he later recollected--Wisconsin's first printer managed to produce
1,000 lottery tickets at Navarino, now the city of Green Bay, in
1827. The printer was Albert G. Ellis, who had previously worked
as an apprentice at Herkimer, N.Y. He could not undertake regular
printing at Navarino before obtaining a printing press in 1833; then,
in partnership with another young New Yorker named John V. Suydam, he
began to publish the _Green-Bay Intelligencer_.[82]
The first issue of this newspaper, dated December 11, 1833, is the
oldest example of Wisconsin printing known to survive, and it is
represented in the Library of Congress collections. Neatly printed in
fine type on a small sheet, the four-page issue shows professional
competence. The publishers apologize for the type they use and
for the necessity, owing to limited patronage, of commencing the
_Intelligencer_ on a semimonthly basis. Their front page features
an Indian story entitled "The Red Head," chosen from some "fabulous
tales ... politely furnished us by a gentleman of this place, who
received them from the mouths of the native narrators." Inclusion of
the story accords with a stated editorial policy of giving faithful
descriptions of the character and manners of the natives. Some
articles in this issue concern proposed improvements on the Fox and
Wisconsin Rivers that would open navigation between Green Bay and the
upper Mississippi. And the question where to locate the capital of an
anticipated Territory of Wisconsin is another topic of the day. The
Territory was not actually created until 1836.
Aside from its obviously having been detached from a bound volume,
there is no visible evidence of the Library of Congress copy's past
history. It does not figure in _A Check List of American Newspapers in
the Library of Congress_ (Washington, 1901); but it is registered in
the union list, _American Newspapers 1821-1936_ (New York, 1937).
The Library of Congress also owns the only known copy of
_Kikinawadendamoiwewin or almanac, wa aiongin obiboniman debeniminang
iesos, 1834_, printed at Green Bay on the _Intelligencer_ press. Its
14 leaves, printed on one side only, are within an original paper
cover bearing the manuscript title "Chippewa Almanac." A document
held by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin reveals that in
1834 the Catholic mission at Green Bay charged "the Menominee Nation
of Indians" for "an Indian Almanac rendered by signs equally useful
to those among the Natives who are unable to read their language,
published at Green Bay, 150 copies, $18"; and that the bill went
unpaid.[83] Since the almanac was intended for use in the year 1834,
it was likely printed before the end of 1833; yet there is no evidence
to suggest that it predates the _Intelligencer_. At the suggestion of
Douglas C. McMurtrie, the Library purchased its unique copy from the
Rosenbach Company for "$375.00 less usual discount" in 1931.
[Footnote 82: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Early Printing in Wisconsin_
(Seattle, 1931).]
[Footnote 83: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _The First Known Wisconsin
Imprint_ (Chicago, 1934).]
California
[Illustration: _Conclusion of General Vallejo's message to the
Governor of Alta California, which was printed on a press that had
been shipped from Boston via Hawaii._]
As early as 1830 Agustín V. Zamorano, executive secretary of the
Mexican territory of Alta California, was using limited printing
equipment to produce official letterheads. Zamorano later became
proprietor of California's first regular printing press, which was
shipped from Boston (via Hawaii) and set up at Monterey about July
1834. While he controlled this press--that is, until the uprising in
November 1836--Zamorano appears to have employed two printers, whose
names are unknown.[84]
Under the revolutionary government the same press continued in
operation at Monterey and at Sonoma, and the earliest California
printing in the Library of Congress is the first known Sonoma
issue: _Ecspocision_ [sic] _que hace el comdanante_ [sic] _general
interino de la Alta California al gobernador de la misma_. It is a
small pamphlet having 21 pages of text, preceded by a leaf bearing a
woodcut of an eagle. The text is dated from Sonoma, August 17, 1837,
and signed by Mariano G. Vallejo, beneath whose printed name is a
manuscript flourish.
Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1807-90) held the highest military
office of Alta California at the time of writing, his headquarters
then being at Sonoma. In his communication to the Governor, he
advocates certain commercial reforms summarized as follows in Hubert
Howe Bancroft's _History of the Pacific States of North America_ (San
Francisco, 1882-90):
His plan was to prohibit all coasting trade by foreign
vessels, and to transfer the custom-house from Monterey
to San Francisco. In defence of the first, he adduced the
well known practice on the part of traders of presenting
themselves at Monterey with a few cheap articles for
inspection, afterward taking on board from secure
hiding-places the valuable part of the cargo, to be sold
at other ports. Thus the revenue was grossly defrauded,
leaving the government without funds. By the change
proposed not only would smuggling cease and the revenues
be augmented, but Californians would be encouraged to
become owners of coasting vessels or to build up a system
of inland communication by mule-trains.... The transfer
of the custom-house was advocated on the ground of San
Francisco's natural advantages, the number and wealth of
the establishments tributary to the bay, and the importance
of building up the northern frontier as a matter of foreign
policy.[85]
General Vallejo was his own printer. In a manuscript "Historia de
California" he says of his pamphlet, "I wrote the attached statement
of which I sent the original to the governor of the State and which
I printed immediately in the small printing office that I had in
Sonoma and of which I was the only employee; I had the printed copies
distributed throughout all parts of California and furthermore I gave
some copies to the captains of merchant ships that were going to ports
in the United States of America."[86]
The Library of Congress copy shows that the general left something
to be desired as a printer, some pages being so poorly inked
as to be scarcely legible. This copy--one of but four known to
bibliographers--was previously in the possession of A. B. Thompson of
San Francisco, and the Library purchased it from him in February 1904
for $15.
[Footnote 84: See George L. Harding, _Don Agustin V. Zamorano_
(Los Angeles, 1934), p. 178-210; Herbert Fahey, _Early Printing in
California_ (San Francisco, 1956); H. P. Hoyt, "The Sandwich Island
Story of California's First Printing Press," _California Historical
Society Quarterly_, vol. 35 (1956), p. 193-204.]
[Footnote 85: Vol. 16 (1886), p. 87-88.]
[Footnote 86: Quoted from Herbert Fahey, _Early Printing in
California_, p. 27.]
Kansas
[Illustration: (_The Annual Register of Indian Affairs Within the
Indian (or Western) Territory. Published by Isaac M'Coy. Shawanoe
Baptist Mission House, Ind. Ter. January 1, 1835_)]
By introducing printing at the Shawanoe mission station in the Indian
Territory in March 1834, Jotham Meeker became the first printer of
what is now Kansas. He had learned his trade at Cincinnati and for
some years had served as a Baptist missionary and printer among
various Indian tribes.
The Library of Congress' earliest example of Kansas printing is the
first number of _The Annual Register of Indian Affairs Within the
Indian (or Western) Territory. Published by Isaac M'Coy. Shawanoe
Baptist Mission House, Ind. Ter. January 1, 1835_. Isaac McCoy
(1784-1846), publisher of four numbers of the _Annual Register_
between 1835 and 1838, was a prominent Baptist missionary, who also
served as an Indian agent and strongly advocated the colonization of
western Indians in a separate state. In this work he gives an account
of the several mission stations operated by various denominations in
the Indian Territory.
The following passage from the first number of the _Annual Register_
deals with the printer:
At the Shawanoe station is a printing press in operation,
under the management of Jotham Meeker, Missionary for the
Ottawas.
Mr. Meeker has invented a plan of writing (not like that of
Mr. Guess, the Cherokee), by which, Indians of any tribe
may learn to read in their own language in a few days. The
first experiment was made with a sprightly Chippewa boy,
wholly ignorant of letters, and of the English language.
He studied three hours each day for nine days; at the
expiration of which time there was put into his hands a
writing of about twenty lines, of the contents of which
he had no knowledge. After looking over it a few minutes,
without the aid of an instructer, the boy read off the
writing, to the unspeakable satisfaction of the teacher.
Upon this plan elementary school books have been prepared,
and printed, viz.--In Delaware, two; in Shawanoe, two; in
Putawatomie, one; and two in Otoe, besides a considerable
number of Hymns, &c. The design succeeds well.[87]
Jotham Meeker's surviving journal, from which extracts have been
published,[88] affords an interesting view of his work from December
15, 1834, when McCoy brought him the manuscript, until January 17,
1835, when he wrote, "Finish Br. M'Coy's Ann. Reg. a work of 52 pages,
including the Cover. 1000 copies."
Another source of information about the _Annual Register_ is Isaac
McCoy's book, _History of Baptist Indian Missions_ (Washington, New
York, and Utica, 1840), wherein he states,
I published it [the first number] at my own cost, and
circulated it gratuitously. One was sent to each member
of Congress, and to each principal man in the executive
departments of Government.[89]
Under the circumstances it is not surprising that three copies have
made their way into the Library of Congress collections. On their
respective title pages they are addressed in manuscript to "Hon
Nathaniel Silsbee U.S. Sen," "Hon Jno. Cramer H. Reprs. U S," and "Hon
Lucius Lyon H.R.U.S."
[Footnote 87: P. 24.]
[Footnote 88: In Douglas C. McMurtrie and Albert H. Allen, _Jotham
Meeker Pioneer Printer of Kansas_ (Chicago, 1930), p. 45-126.]
[Footnote 89: P. 481.]
New Mexico
The first press of New Mexico was imported overland from the United
States in 1834 to print _El Crepúsculo de la libertad_, a short-lived
newspaper supporting the election of its editor, Antonio Barreiro, to
the Mexican congress. It was operating at Santa Fe by August 1834 with
Ramón Abreu as proprietor and with Jesús María Baca as printer,[90]
the latter having learned his trade in Durango, Mexico.[91]
A broadside in the Library of Congress collections appears to be a
genuine copy of the earliest extant issue of this press. Entitled
_Lista de los ciudadanos que deberan componer los jurados de imprenta,
formada por el Ayuntamiento de este capital_, it lists, in accordance
with Mexican law, 90 men qualified to be jurors in cases of what
the law terms "denuncias de los escritos."[92] The broadside is
dated August 14, 1834, signed by "Juan Gallego, precidente--Domingo
Fernandez, secretario," and carries the Ramón Abreu imprint. This copy
must be one of 48 discovered in 1942 in a parcel marked "Benjamin
Read Papers" at the New Mexico Historical Society. Benjamin Read
(1853-1927) was an attorney who served in the New Mexico Legislature
and who published a number of works on the State's history.[93]
Before the find in 1942 only a single copy of the broadside was
located. The authenticity of these 48 copies has been questioned,
but in the opinion of the late collector Thomas W. Streeter they are
originals.[94] The Library obtained its copy by exchange from Edward
Eberstadt & Sons in May 1951.
The Library also has the only known copy of New Mexico's first book,
issued by the same press and dated 1834: _Cuaderno de ortografia.
Dedicado a los niños de los señores Martines de Taos._ A metal cut
on its title page, oddly depicting a moose, has been traced to
a contemporary Boston specimen book, which also displays a pica
type identical or very similar to that used in early New Mexican
imprints.[95] Authorship of the book has been attributed to Antonio
José Martínez (1793-1867), the parish priest in Taos, who arranged to
have the press and the printer move there in 1835. From 1826 to 1856
Martínez taught reading, writing, and arithmetic in his parish,[96]
and he undoubtedly had this work printed for the use of his own
pupils. It is divided into three sections: "De las letras," "De los
diptongos, uso de letras mayusculas, acentos y signos de institucion
para las citas," and "De la puntuacion de la clausula."[97] The copy
of this small book is soiled and worn from much thumbing. Penciled on
an inner page in an early, childlike hand is the name "Jesus Maria
Baldez." The Library purchased the book in 1931 from Aaron Flacks, a
Chicago bookseller, for $350 on the same day that it purchased its
earliest Wisconsin almanac (see p. 53, above) and likewise through the
intervention of Douglas C. McMurtrie.
[Illustration: (_Lista de los ciudadanos que deberan componer los
jurados de imprenta, formada por el Ayuntamiento de este capital_)]
[Footnote 90: See Roby Wentz, _Eleven Western Presses_ (Los Angeles,
1956), p. 11-13.]
[Footnote 91: See his obituary in _The Daily New Mexican_ (Santa Fe),
April 21, 1876.]
[Footnote 92: Quoted from _Coleccion de ordenes y decretos de la
Soberana junta provisional y soberanos Congresos generales de la
nacion mexicana_, vol. 4, 1829, p. 179.]
[Footnote 93: See obituary in _New Mexico Historical Review_, vol. 2,
1927, p. 394-397.]
[Footnote 94: See no. 61 in his _Americana--Beginnings_ (Morristown,
N.J., 1952).]
[Footnote 95: See _New Mexico Historical Review_, vol. 12, 1937, p.
13.]
[Footnote 96: Ibid., p. 5.]
[Footnote 97: It is reproduced in its entirety in Douglas C.
McMurtrie's _The First Printing in New Mexico_ (Chicago, 1929).]
Oklahoma
[Illustration: (_Istutsi in Naktsokv. Or The Child's Book._ By Rev.
John Fleming.)]
When the Cherokee Nation migrated from Georgia to the newly formed
Indian Territory, John Fisher Wheeler, who had been head printer of
the Cherokee Press at New Echota, proceeded to the Union Mission
Station on the Grand River, near the present location of Mazie,
Okla. There the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
supplied him with a new press on which in August 1835 he did the
first Oklahoma printing. Wheeler had served his apprenticeship at
Huntsville, Ala.[98]
One of two or three extant copies of the third recorded issue
of Oklahoma's first press is present in the Library of Congress
collections: _Istutsi in naktsokv. Or The Child's Book. By Rev.
John Fleming. Missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions._ Printed before October 31, 1835, in an edition of
500 copies, it is a 24-page primer with text in the Creek language
rendered in the Pickering alphabet and with woodcut illustrations
of animals and other subjects. A Creek Indian named James Perryman
or Pvhos Haco ("Grass Crazy") assisted with the translation.[99]
Fleming's work among the Indians has earned for him a notice in
the _Dictionary of American Biography_, where his "chief claim to
remembrance" is said to be "that he was the first to reduce to writing
the Muskoki or Creek language, which was a task of peculiar difficulty
on account of the numerous and puzzling combinations of consonants
involved."
The Library of Congress obtained the rare copy of its earliest
Oklahoma imprint through the Smithsonian Deposit (see p. 52, above) in
1878.
[Footnote 98: See Lester Hargrett, _Oklahoma Imprints 1835-1890_ (New
York, 1951), p. ix-x, 1-2.]
[Footnote 99: Ibid., no. 3.]
Iowa
[Illustration: Du Buque Visitor. "TRUTH OUR GUIDE, THE PUBLIC GOOD OUR
AIM." VOL. I. DU BUQUE (LEAD MINES) WISCONSIN TERRITORY, WEDNESDAY,
JANUARY 18, 1837. NO. 37]
The initial issue of the weekly _Du Buque Visitor_, dated May 11,
1836, is the oldest example of Iowa printing. John King, the first
proprietor of this four-page newssheet, acquired the press on which it
was printed at Chillicothe, Ohio. He employed William Cary Jones of
Chillicothe to "perform the duties of foreman in the printing office
... and likewise such other duties in superintending the publication
of the newspaper as may be required,"[100] and he employed the
Virginia-born printer Andrew Keesecker, lately of Galena, Ill., to be
the principal typesetter.
The earliest Iowa printing represented in the Library of Congress is
its partial file of the _Du Buque Visitor_, extending from January 18
to May 17, 1837.[101] On December 21, 1836, the proprietorship had
passed to W. W. Chapman, an attorney, and with the issue of February
1, 1837, William H. Turner became the owner. The paper maintained a
high standard throughout these changes, its issues justly displaying
the motto: "Truth our guide, the public good our aim." A reduction
in the size of certain issues furnishes evidence of the customary
difficulty of operating a pioneer press. As the March 15 issue
explains, "Within the last two months, so large an addition has been
made to the subscription list of the Visitor, that our stock of paper
of the usual size is exhausted, and we are constrained to issue, for
a week or two, a smaller sheet. By the first boat from St. Louis we
shall receive our spring and summer supply."
The Library's file dates from the period when Iowa still belonged to
the Wisconsin Territory. An editorial from the Library's earliest
issue advocates independent status:
DIVISION OF WISCONSIN TERRITORY
It gives us pleasure to see that Genl. Jones, our
delegate in congress, has introduced into the house
of representatives a resolution, "to inquire into the
expediency of establishing a seperate [sic] territorial
government for that section of the present territory of
Wisconsin which lies west of the Mississippi river," and
the same resolution has been introduced into the senate of
the United States by Dr. Linn of Missouri.
We sincerely hope that these resolutions will be acted
upon, and sanctioned by congress--if sanctioned, they will
have a most important bearing upon the future interest and
prosperity of the people on this side of the Mississippi.
Yes, we would rejoice that the 'Father of Waters' should
be the boundary to a new territory. The present territory
of Wisconsin, is much too large, and embraces too many
conflicting interests--the people on the east side of
the Mississippi are jealous of those on the west side,
and the west, of those on the east. Why not, under these
circumstances, give to the people on each side of the
Mississippi separate territorial governments? We believe
that such a measure would be highly satisfactory to the
people throughout the whole of Wisconsin territory.
The reasons for dividing the present territory of Wisconsin
are, in our opinion, well founded, for unless the people
governed can be united--unless their representatives
legislate for the good of the whole territory, there will
not be satisfaction--there will not be harmony, & the
government instituted to protect the rights of the people,
will become an engine in the hands of one part to oppress
the other.
It is, or should be, the policy of the United States,
in the establishment of temporary governments over her
territories, to adopt the best and most judicious means of
guarding the happiness, liberty, and property of her foster
children, so that when they enter the great family of the
Union, that they may be worthy of that exalted station.
[Illustration: (Newspaper ads)]
From later in 1837 the Library possesses _Iowa News_, which replaced
the _Du Buque Visitor_ after its expiration in May, in an imperfect
file extending from June 17 (the third number) to December 23. The
Library also has the _Wisconsin Territorial Gazette and Burlington
Advertiser_, printed at Burlington, in another incomplete file from
July 10 to December 2. The Library's three files of very early Iowa
newspapers have a common provenance, as most issues of each file
are addressed in manuscript to the Department of State, which was
in charge of Territorial affairs until 1873. These newspapers were
transferred to the Library of Congress sometime before the end of the
19th century.[102]
[Footnote 100: The full contract is quoted in Alexander Moffit's
article, "Iowa Imprints Before 1861," in _The Iowa Journal of History
and Politics_, vol. 36, 1938, p. 152-205. For a biography of Jones,
see William Coyle, ed. _Ohio Authors and Their Books_ (Cleveland,
1962, p. 346).]
[Footnote 101: Vol. 1, nos. 37-52; no. 47 wanting. The May 10 and May
17 issues are both numbered 52.]
[Footnote 102: They are recorded in _A Check List of American
Newspapers in the Library of Congress_ (1901).
In the Library's Broadside Collection (portfolio 19, no. 34) is a
printed notice of the Des Moines Land Company, with text dated from
Des Moines, September 4, 1837. This item cannot have been printed at
Des Moines, since printing did not reach there until 1849. It is not
listed in Alexander Moffit's "A Checklist of Iowa Imprints 1837-1860,"
in _The Iowa Journal of History and Politics_, vol. 36 1938, p. 3-95.]
Idaho
The first printing in Idaho--in fact, in the entire Pacific
Northwest--was done in 1839 at the Lapwai mission station, by the
Clearwater River, in what is now Nez Perce County. The printer was
Edwin Oscar Hall, originally of New York, who on orders of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions brought to this
wilderness site the same small press he had taken to the Hawaiian
Islands in 1835.[103]
Henry Harmon Spalding (1804-74), the missionary who had requested
this press, was the author of its first issue in Idaho, an eight-page
primer of the native language with an English title: _Nez-Perces
First Book: Designed for Children and New Beginners_. In May 1839
Hall printed 400 copies, of which no complete examples are known
to survive. An alphabet of Roman letters that Spalding utilized to
convey the Indian language proved to be impractical, and in August
the original edition was replaced by a revised 20-page edition of 500
copies with the same title.
The Library of Congress acquired this edition, then thought to be
the first Idaho book, in 1911. A few years later the bibliographer
Wilberforce Eames discovered pages of the earlier edition used as
reinforcements in the paper covers of the later one,[104] and on
February 18, 1922, another interested bibliographer, Howard M. Ballou,
wrote to the Librarian of Congress:
I have had your copy at the Library of Congress examined by
a friend who reports that she can distinguish that pages 5
and 6 are pasted in the front cover.
If you will have the covers of the Nez Perces First Book
soaked apart you will find you possess four pages of this
original Oregon book.
(By Oregon, of course, he meant the Oregon country at large rather
than the present State.) The Library did soak apart the covers and
found that it had two copies of the original leaf paged 5 and 6. One
of them, released for exchange in October 1948, subsequently joined
two other original leaves to form an almost complete copy in the Coe
Collection at Yale University.[105]
[Illustration: _A page from the original edition of the_ Nez Perces
First Book.]
The Library made its fortunate acquisition with a bid of $7.50 at a
Philadelphia auction sale conducted by Stan V. Henkels on May 23-24,
1911. The item[106] was among a group of books from the library of
Horatio E. Hale (1817-96), who served as philologist with the famed
Wilkes Expedition of 1838-42. He probably obtained his copy about
1841, the year the expedition reached Oregon.
[Footnote 103: See Roby Wentz, _Eleven Western Presses_ (Los Angeles,
1956), p. 23-26.]
[Footnote 104: See _The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society_,
vol. 23, 1922, p. 45-46.]
[Footnote 105: See no. 73 (note) in Thomas W. Streeter's
_Americana--Beginnings_ (Morristown, N.J., 1952).]
[Footnote 106: No. 588 in the sale catalog.]
Oregon
[Illustration: Oregon Spectator. "Westward the Star of Empire takes
its way." Vol. I Oregon City, (Oregon Ter.) Thursday, May 28, 1846.
No. 9.]
Medare G. Foisy performed the first Oregon printing in 1845 with type
owned by the Catholic mission at St. Paul. Apparently without the
benefit of a permanent press, he printed at least two official forms,
and there is evidence that he produced tickets for an election held on
June 3, 1845. Foisy was a French Canadian who had worked at the Lapwai
mission press for Henry Harmon Spalding (see p. 63, above) during the
fall and winter of 1844-45.[107]
Later certain forward-looking settlers organized the Oregon Printing
Association, obtained a printing press, hired a printer named John
Fleming, who had migrated to Oregon from Ohio,[108] and founded the
_Oregon Spectator_ at Oregon City on February 5, 1846. This was the
earliest English-language newspaper in North America west of the
Missouri River.[109] The earliest Oregon printing in the Library of
Congress is the ninth semimonthly number of the _Oregon Spectator_,
dated May 28, 1846. It is a small four-page sheet presently bound
with 15 other numbers of the _Spectator_ through May 13, 1847. All
bear the newspaper's motto: "Westward the Star of Empire takes its
way." When this ninth number was printed, the Oregon Country was still
jointly occupied by the United States and Great Britain. Shortly
after, on June 15, 1846, the U.S. Senate ratified the Oregon Treaty,
whereby the Oregon Country was divided at the 49th parallel. News of
the ratification as reported in the New York _Gazette and Times_ of
June 19 reached Honolulu in time to be printed in the _Polynesian_
of August 29, and the information was reprinted from that paper in
the November 12 issue of the _Spectator_, which is included in the
Library's file.
The issue of May 28 has a decidedly political emphasis because of
impending local elections, and among its articles is an amusing
account of a meeting at which several inexperienced candidates proved
embarrassingly "backward about speaking." The difficulty of obtaining
information for the paper is illustrated by a section headed "Foreign
News," consisting of a letter from Peter Ogden, Governor of Fort
Vancouver, in which he gives a brief account of the political upheaval
in Britain over the Corn Law question. He cites as the source of
his information a letter he received via "an express ... from [Fort]
Nesqually." He concludes, "In three or four days hence we shall
receive newspapers, and I trust further particulars." The last page of
this issue is given entirely to the printing of an installment of "An
Act to establish Courts, and prescribe their powers and duties," which
had been passed by the provisional legislature.
In addition to its small volume of issues from 1846 and 1847, the
Library of Congress has an incomplete volume of _Spectator_ issues
from September 12, 1850, to January 27, 1852, when the paper had a
larger format and appeared weekly. Evidence for the provenance of the
earlier volume is the inscription, "J. B. McClurg & C.," on the issue
of December 24, 1846, designating a Honolulu firm which carried this
advertisement in the same _Spectator_:
J. B. McClurg & Co.
SHIP CHANDLERS,
GENERAL AND COMMISSION
MERCHANTS.
JAMES B. McCLURG, }
ALEXANDER G. ABELL, } HONOLULU, OAHU,
HENRY CHEVER. } SANDWICH ISLANDS.
Several issues in the later volume are addressed either to the "State
Department" or to "Hon. Daniel Webster," who was Secretary of State
at the time. The Library's _A Check List of American Newspapers_,
published in 1901, records holdings only for December 12, 1850, to
February 27, 1851, but all of the _Spectator_ issues look as if they
have been in the Library from an early date.
[Illustration: (Rules for House-Wives.)]
[Footnote 107: See nos. 1-2 in George N. Belknap's _Oregon Imprints
1845-1870_ (Eugene, Ore. [1968]).]
[Footnote 108: See _The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society_,
vol. 3, 1902, p. 343.]
[Footnote 109: See Roby Wentz, _Eleven Western Presses_ (Los Angeles,
1956), p. 27-30.]
Utah
[Illustration: (_Ordinances, Passed by the Legislative Council of
Great Salt Lake City, and Ordered to be Printed_)]
Brigham Young's nephew Brigham Hamilton Young was the first printer
within the present boundaries of Utah. A manuscript "Journal History"
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints records that on
January 22, 1849, "Brigham H. Young and Thomas Bullock were engaged
in setting type for the fifty cent bills, paper currency. This was
the first typesetting in the [Salt Lake] Valley. The bills were to be
printed on the press made by Truman O. Angell."[110]
The Law Library of the Library of Congress keeps in a small manila
envelope a remarkable group of five very early examples of Utah
printing, some of which must have been issued in 1850. The one
that seems to be the earliest has the title _Ordinances, Passed by
the Legislative Council of Great Salt Lake City, and Ordered to be
Printed_. This piece--like the others without indication of place or
date of printing--may be assigned to a press from Boston which reached
Salt Lake City in August of 1849 and supplanted the original homemade
press. Listed as number 3 in Douglas C. McMurtrie's _The Beginnings of
Printing in Utah, with a Bibliography of the Issues of the Utah Press
1849-1860_ (Chicago, 1931), it is a four-page leaflet containing nine
ordinances passed between February 24 and December 29, 1849. Among
them are a "Penalty for Riding Horses Without Leave, Driving Cattle
Off the Feeding Range, &c." and "An Ordinance Creating an Office for
the Recording of 'Marks and Brands' on Horses, Mules, Cattle, and All
Other Stock."
A 34-page pamphlet entitled _Constitution of the State of Deseret_
(not in McMurtrie; Sabin 98220) is obviously from the same press.
Appended to the constitution, which was approved November 20, 1849,
are several ordinances passed between March 9, 1849, and March 28,
1850. Another issue of this press (not in McMurtrie or Sabin) is
a slightly mutilated three-page leaflet: _Rules and Regulations
for the Governing of Both Houses of the General Asse{mbly} of the
State of Deseret, When in Joint Session; and for Each Respective
House, When in Separate Session. Adopted by the Senate and House of
Representatives, December 2, 1850._ Of unspecified date is a single
leaf, unrecorded and apparently unique, captioned _Standing Committees
of the House_. Finally, there is among these imprints a copy of the
80-page _Ordinances. Passed by the General Assembly of the State of
Deseret_, known as the "Compilation of 1851" and listed as number 8 by
McMurtrie, who writes, "A copy of the 1851 volume in the library of
the Church Historian's Office was used in 1919 for making a reprint,
but the original has since disappeared.[111] A copy is said to be in
private ownership in California." The latter is undoubtedly the one
now in the Library of Congress.
The only one of these extremely rare imprints to show marks of
previous ownership is the "Compilation of 1851." It was autographed by
Phinehas Richards, who served both as representative and as senator in
the provisional legislature of the state of Deseret. Whether the other
four pieces also belonged to him is not clear; in any event all five
came into the hands of his son, Franklin Dewey Richards (1821-99),
who for half a century was an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints, becoming president of the Apostles' Quorum, and
who served as Church Historian for the last 10 years of his life.[112]
A Library of Congress purchase order dated October 31, 1940, reveals
that these imprints were contained in a bound volume labeled "Laws of
Utah--F. D. Richards"; that by agreement the Library had them removed
from the volume and subsequently returned it to Mr. Frank S. Richards,
in care of the San Francisco bookseller John Howell; and that the
price paid for the detached items was $1,600. Frank S. Richards, an
attorney residing in Piedmont, Calif., is a great-grandson of Franklin
Dewey Richards, most of whose books he has given to the Bancroft
Library of the University of California.
[Footnote 110: Quoted from Wendell J. Ashton, _Voice in the West,
Biography of a Pioneer Newspaper_ (New York, 1950), p. 367, note
17. This book is about Utah's first newspaper, the _Deseret News_,
established June 15, 1850, of which the earliest original issue in the
Library of Congress is dated May 31, 1851.]
[Footnote 111: It is now available again at the Church Historian's
Office. Another copy is in the Harvard Law Library.]
[Footnote 112: See Franklin L. West, _Life of Franklin D. Richards_
(Salt Lake City [1924]).]
Minnesota
[Illustration (_Minnesota Chronicle and Register_ St. Paul, Minnesota
Territory, Saturday, August 25, 1819. Vol. 1 No. 1)]
Minnesota's first printer was James Madison Goodhue of Hebron, N.H.
An Amherst College graduate, he had abandoned a legal career to run a
pioneer newspaper at Lancaster, Wis. Shortly after the establishment
of the Minnesota Territory, he moved his printing equipment to St.
Paul, and on April 28, 1849, he founded his weekly newspaper, _The
Minnesota Pioneer_. It is reported that even though he brought along
two printers, Goodhue himself worked both as compositor and pressman,
and further that the printing press he used at Lancaster and St. Paul
was the same on which Iowa's first printing had been performed.[113]
The Library of Congress' scattered file of this first Minnesota
newspaper contains just one 1849 issue, dated October 25.
Taking precedence as the Library's earliest example of Minnesota
printing is the first issue, dated August 25, 1849, of another
St. Paul paper, the _Minnesota Chronicle and Register_, which
resulted from the merger of two early rivals of the _Pioneer_. In an
introductory editorial the proprietors, James Hughes and John Phillips
Owens, make certain claims on behalf of this paper:
Our union bases us upon a foundation which renders our
permanent success beyond a contingency. The combining
of the two offices places us in possession of probably
the best and most complete printing establishment on
the Mississippi, above St. Louis. These advantages,
with our practical experience in the art, the aid of
health and a free good will, and a moderate share of the
other requisites, we hope will enable us to give the
Chronicle and Register a place in the front rank of well
executed, useful and instructive newspapers.... We have
two new Washington Printing Presses, with all the recent
improvements attached. We defy any establishment in the
Union to produce superior pieces of machinery in the way of
Hand Presses. Our assortment of book and job type is also
of the newest and handsomest styles, and comprises larger
quantities and greater varieties than can be found this
side of St. Louis. And we are happy to announce we have
more coming.
They also make an interesting statement of editorial policy:
The Chronicle and Register have each a reputatation [sic]
at home and abroad, gained during the few months of their
separate existence. The views of the respective editors
in regard to general politics, and the relation they bear
upon these matters to our present administrations, National
and Territorial, has been a matter of no concealment on
the part of either. And were it not for one reason, we
would here let this subject rest. But the ground Minnesota
at present occupies is neutral. We have no vote in the
Legislative councils of the Nation, no vote for President.
Why should we then divide and distract our people upon
questions that they have no voice in determining? Why array
each other in separate bands as Whigs and Democrats when
such a course can only show the relative strength of the
two parties, without adding one iota to the prosperity and
welfare of either? The measures of one or the other of the
great parties of the country will receive the sanction
of the next Congress, and no thanks to Minnesota for her
votes. We as citizens, and as whigs, are willing to leave
it for the future to determine which of these parties are
to sway the destinies of our Territory.
The Library has eight issues of the _Chronicle and Register_ from
the year 1849, as well as later ones through February 17, 1851, all
bearing its motto: "The greatest good for the greatest number."
Many of the earlier issues are addressed to John M. Clayton, who
was Secretary of State until July 1850, and some later issues are
addressed to his successor, Daniel Webster. (The Library's file of
_The Minnesota Pioneer_ also has a State Department provenance.)
[Illustration: (Short newspaper items)]
In addition the Library of Congress owns three official publications
printed by James Madison Goodhue in 1849: _Message from the Governor
of Minnesota Territory to the Two Houses of the Legislative Assembly,
at the Commencement of the First Session, September 4, 1849_;
_Rules for the Government of the Council of Minnesota Territory,
and Joint Rules of the Council and House, Adopted at a Session of
the Legislature, Commenced September 3, 1849_; and _Message of the
Governor, in Relation to a Memorial from Half-Breeds of Pembina_.[114]
On September 5, the day after it authorized Goodhue to do its
printing, the newly formed legislature ordered the first two of these
titles printed in editions of 500 and 100 copies, respectively.[115]
The Library copies of both pamphlets are unbound, without marks of
personal ownership. The first is an older acquisition of undetermined
origin; the second a 1940 purchase from the Rosenbach Company in New
York, at $165. The third title was ordered printed in 300 copies on
October 1, 1849, the day the Governor's message was delivered.[116]
It is a four-page leaflet, one of 73 rare American imprints that the
printing historian Douglas C. McMurtrie sold to the Library for $600
in 1935.
[Footnote 113: See M. W. Berthel, _Horns of Thunder, the Life and
Times of James M. Goodhue, Including Selections from his Writings_
(St. Paul, 1948).]
[Footnote 114: These are nos. 18, 66, and 23 in Esther Jerabek's _A
Bibliography of Minnesota Territorial Documents_ (St. Paul, 1936).
Unrecorded in this bibliography are two early pamphlets printed by
the _Chronicle and Register_: _Courts of Record in the Territory of
Minnesota; Approved Nov. 1, 1849--Took Effect Dec. 1, 1849_ and _Law
of the Territory of Minnesota; Relative to the Powers and Duties of
Justices. Approved November First, 1849--Took Effect December First,
1849_. The Library's copies are inscribed to Elisha Whittlesey,
comptroller, U. S. Treasury Department.]
[Footnote 115: See _Journal of the Council During the First Session
of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Minnesota_ (St. Paul,
1850), p. 23.]
[Footnote 116: Ibid., p. 51.]
Washington
[Illustration: (_Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory
of Washington, Passed at the Second Regular Session, Begun and Held
at Olympia, December 4, 1854, in the Seventy-Ninth Year of American
Independence_)]
[Illustration: (_Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of
Washington, ..._ continued)]
The earliest recorded example of Washington printing is the first
number of _The Columbian_, published at Olympia on September 11, 1852.
The founders of this newspaper were James W. Wiley and Thornton F.
McElroy, who purchased a press on which the Portland _Oregonian_ had
for a short time been printed and which before that saw service in
California.[117]
In 1853 the Territory of Washington was created from the northern part
of the Territory of Oregon, and on April 17, 1854, the new Territorial
legislature elected James W. Wiley to be Washington's first official
printer. The earliest specimen of Washington printing held by the
Library of Congress appears to be the following example of his work,
printed at Olympia in 1855: _Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the
Territory of Washington, Passed at the Second Regular Session, Begun
and Held at Olympia, December 4, 1854, in the Seventy-Ninth Year
of American Independence_. It includes an act passed at the second
session, on February 1, 1855, specifying the size and distribution of
the original edition:
Sec. 1. _Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the
Territory of Washington_, That the Public Printer be, and
is hereby required to print in pamphlet form, six hundred
copies of the laws of the present session, and a like
number of the laws of the last session of the Legislative
Assembly....
Sec. 2. It shall be the duty of the Secretary of the
territory to forward to each county auditor in the
territory fifteen copies of the laws of each session for
the use of the county officers, and two copies for each
member of the Legislative Assembly, and to each officer of
the Legislative Assembly, one copy of said laws.
The Library owns three copies of this 75-page official document, all
acquired probably during the last quarter of the 19th century. They
are in old Library bindings and bear no marks of prior ownership.
Among the Library's collections are five other Olympia imprints of
the same year but from the press of the second official printer,
George B. Goudy, who was elected on January 27, 1855. One of these, a
work of more than 500 pages, the Library also holds in three copies:
_Statutes of the Territory of Washington: Being the Code Passed by
the Legislative Assembly, At Their First Session Begun and Held at
Olympia, February 27th, 1854. Also, Containing the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Organic Act
of Washington Territory, the Donation Laws, &C., &C._ The others are
_Journal of the Council of the Territory of Washington: Together With
the Memorials and Joint Resolutions of the First Session of {the}
Legislative Assembly ..._; _Journal of the House of Representatives
of the Territory of Washington: Together With the Memorials and Joint
Resolutions of the First Session of the Legislative Assembly ..._;
_Journal of the Council of the Territory of Washington, During the
Second Session of the legislative Assembly ..._; and _Journal of the
House of Representatives of the Territory of Washington: Being the
Second Session of the Legislative Assembly ..._.
Most official printing in the Territories was paid for by the Federal
Government, and copies of many publications were sent to Washington,
D.C., to meet certain administrative requirements. In some copies now
at the Library of Congress visible evidence to this effect remains,
as in the above-mentioned Council and House journals for the second
legislative session, both inscribed to "Library State Dept." Although
the Department of State continued to exercise broad supervision over
the Territories at this period, supervision of their official printing
was assigned, as it had been since 1842, to the Treasury Department.
The cover or halftitle now bound in at the end of the above-mentioned
House journal for the first legislative session bears notations
made in the office of the Treasury Department's first comptroller,
who exercised this particular responsibility.[118] One is a barely
legible record in pencil: "Recd Oct 14/56 in letter of Sec Mason of
Augt 26/56"; and another is in ink: "Finding enclosed to Sec Mason
March 31/57." These notations refer to correspondence between the
comptroller and the secretary of the Territory of Washington about
remuneration for printing. Part of the correspondence is still
retained at the National Archives (in Record Group 217).
[Footnote 117: See Roby Wentz, _Eleven Western Presses_ (Los Angeles,
1956), p. 35-38.]
[Footnote 118: See W. A. Katz, "Tracing Western Territorial Imprints
Through the National Archives," _The Papers of the Bibliographical
Society of America_, vol. 59 (1965), p. 1-11. Two Minnesota documents
inscribed to the comptroller are cited in footnote no. 2 on page 69.]
Nebraska
[Illustration: (_Laws, Resolutions and Memorials, Passed at the
Regular Session of the First General Assembly of the Territory of
Nebraska, Convened at Omaha City, on the 16th Day of January, Anno
Domini, 1855. Together with the Constitution of the United States, the
Organic Law, and the Proclamations Issued in the Organization of the
Territorial Government_)]
Scholarly investigation has revealed that a supposed early instance
of Nebraska printing--the Mormon _General Epistle_ "written at Winter
Quarters, Omaha Nation, west bank of Missouri River, near Council
Bluffs, North America, and signed December 23d, 1847"--actually issued
from a St. Louis press.[119] The Library of Congress copy of this
imprint is consequently disqualified for discussion here, as are also
the Library's three issues of the _Omaha Arrow_, beginning with the
initial number dated July 28, 1854, since these issues were printed in
Iowa, at Council Bluffs, before Omaha acquired its own press.
Nebraska printing begins in fact with the 16th number of the _Nebraska
Palladium_, issued at Bellevue on November 15, 1854. Previously issued
at St. Mary's, Iowa, the paper takes pride in introducing printing
to the newly formed Territory of Nebraska and identifies the men
responsible:
The first printers in our office, and who have set up
the present number, are natives of three different
states--Ohio, Virginia, and Massachusetts, namely: Thomas
Morton, foreman, Columbus, Ohio (but Mr. Morton was born in
England); A. D. Long, compositor, Virginia; Henry M. Reed,
apprentice, Massachusetts.[120]
The first Nebraska books were printed at Omaha by the Territorial
printers Sherman & Strickland in 1855, and they are represented in the
Library of Congress collections: _Laws, Resolutions and Memorials,
Passed at the Regular Session of the First General Assembly of the
Territory of Nebraska, Convened at Omaha City, on the 16th Day of
January, Anno Domini, 1855. Together with the Constitution of the
United States, the Organic Law, and the Proclamations Issued in the
Organization of the Territorial Government; Journal of the Council at
the First Regular Session of the General Assembly, of the Territory
of Nebraska, Begun and Held at Omaha City, Commencing on Tuesday the
Sixteenth Day January, A. D. 1855, and Ending on the Sixteenth Day of
March, A. D. 1855_; and _Journal of the House of Representatives, of
the First Regular Session of the General Assembly of the Territory
of Nebraska ..._. These three official publications record quite
fully the work of the first Nebraska Legislature, which consisted of
a council of 13 and a house of 26 members. From later in the same
year the Library owns still another Sherman & Strickland imprint:
_Annual Message of Mark W. Izard, Governor of the Territory of
Nebraska, Addressed to the Legislative Assembly, December 18, 1855_.
The Governor delivered this address at the convening of the second
legislature.
The press on which these four books were printed had been transported
to Omaha from Ohio, and it was used to produce the initial number
of the _Omaha Nebraskan_, January 17, 1855.[121] On March 13, with
the approval of a joint resolution which may be read in the _Laws,
Resolutions and Memorials_, John H. Sherman and Joseph B. Strickland
became the official printers of the Territory; and "An Act to provide
for Printing and Distributing the Laws of Nebraska Territory," also
approved on March 13, stipulated that a thousand copies of the
laws and resolutions of the first legislature be printed. Two of
the thousand copies are listed as a "present" in _Additions Made
to the Library of Congress, Since the First Day of November, 1855.
November 1, 1856_ (Washington, 1856).[122] They are still on the
Library shelves, along with a third copy received by transfer from
another Government agency in 1911. The Library received its copy of
the _Journal of the Council_ in 1867 and its copy of the _Journal of
the House of Representatives_ probably not much later in the 19th
century.[123] The Statute Law Book Company sold the Library Governor
Izard's _Annual Message_ for $22 in October 1935.
[Footnote 119: See no. 65 in Thomas W. Streeter's
_Americana--Beginnings_ (Morristown, N.J., 1952). The Library of
Congress possesses one copy, not two as here reported.]
[Footnote 120: Quoted from Douglas C. McMurtrie's "Pioneer Printing in
Nebraska" in _National Printer Journalist_, vol. 50, no. 1 (January
1932), p. 20-21, 76-78.]
[Footnote 121: Ibid., p. 76.]
[Footnote 122: P. 99.]
[Footnote 123: The latter title is indicated as wanting in a
collective entry for Council and House journals in the _Catalogue of
Books Added to the Library of Congress, from December 1, 1866, to
December 1, 1867_ (Washington, 1868), p. 282.]
South Dakota
In 1858 the Dakota Land Company sent out from St. Paul to Sioux
Falls a newspaper editor named Samuel J. Albright, a printer named
J. W. Barnes, and a printing press which Albright later insisted was
the original Goodhue press (see above, p. 68), despite conflicting
accounts of its history. If his testimony is correct, the same press
introduced printing in Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. It appears
to have been first used at Sioux Falls to print a small election
notice dated September 20, 1858; in the following summer, it was used
to print South Dakota's first newspaper, _The Democrat_.[124]
Establishment of the Territory of Dakota in 1861 attracted a second
Dakota press to the new Territorial capital at Yankton. The earliest
Dakota, or South Dakota, printing in the Library of Congress is from
the newspaper associated with that press, _The Dakotian_, first
published on June 6, 1861, by Frank M. Ziebach and William Freney
of Sioux City, Iowa. The Library's earliest holding is the 13th
number, which is dated April 1, 1862, and exhibits the paper's motto:
"'Let all the Ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, thy God's and
Truth's.'--_Wolsey._" This number follows upon a transfer of the
editorship and proprietorship to Josiah C. Trask of Kansas, who
announces,
We have secured the interest which Mr. ZIEBACH, the former
publisher of this paper, held in the office, and have made
extensive additions for book work, &c.--We are now engaged
in executing the incidental printing of the Legislative
Assembly of this Territory under peculiar disadvantages;
yet we believe it will compare favorably with the work of
many older Territories. We are prepared to execute any
style of printing to the satisfaction of patrons.
By using fine print, Trask was able to present much material in this
four-page issue. Among its contents are the text of the Governor's
message to the first Territorial legislature and several U.S. laws
passed by the first session of the 37th Congress. The lead editorial,
"What We Mean to Do," contains the following statement of policy
regarding the Civil War:
At present, there is no room for disagreement in politics.
So far as our knowledge extends, all parties join heartily
in an indorsement of the truly patriotic and conservative
course adopted by the President in the management of
this war. He is not a patriot who will allow any slight
disagreement te [sic] turn him from a straightforward
opposition to the ambitious men who are now heading a
Rebellion to destroy the fairest Government ever known.
Until this war is ended by a suppression of the Rebellion,
unless a change is forced upon us, we shall walk with men
of ALL parties, in an earnest, honest purpose to do what we
can to strengthen the arms of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, in whatever
acts he may deem best for the people who have called him to
his present proud position. In this determination we feel
that all our patrons will sustain us.
The editorial concludes with an appeal to support the paper:
Few persons can know the expense and care requisite for
a publication like this so far West. We feel that our
Territory cannot support more than one or two papers. One
of these must be at the Capital, and we shall endeavor
to make this one worthy the support of all. We expect to
receive pecuniary encouragement from men of all parties and
all parts. After a few weeks, when we are better acquainted
and our paper is better known, we shall ask for the
assistance which will be due us from those whom we labor to
benefit.
A Library of Congress bound volume contains an incomplete but
substantial run of _The Dakotian_ from April 1, 1862, to December 17,
1864, without any marks of provenance. In addition the Library owns
a file of South Dakota's third newspaper, _The Dakota Republican_,
beginning with volume 1, number 31, published at Vermillion on April
5, 1862. This newspaper has for its motto "Our Country If Right, If
Wrong, God Forgive, But Our Country Still!" The Library's issue of
April 12, 1862, is inscribed "Wm H James"--this would be William
Hartford James of Dakota City, Nebr., who served as Acting Governor
of Nebraska in 1871-1872--and some of its 1868 and 1869 issues are
inscribed "Dept of State." All of these papers are accounted for
in _A Check List of American Newspapers in the Library of Congress_
(1901).
[Illustration: (_The Dakotian_)]
From the year 1862 the Library also possesses four books printed at
Yankton all bearing the imprint of Josiah C. Trask, Public Printer:
_Council Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of
Dakota, to which is Prefixed a List of the Members and Officers of
the Council, With Their Residence, Post-Office Address, Occupation,
Age, &c._; _House Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory
of Dakota, to which is Prefixed a List of the Members and Officers
of the House_ ...; _General Laws, and Memorials and Resolutions
of the Territory of Dakota, Passed at the First Session of the
Legislative Assembly, Commenced at the Town of Yankton, March 17, and
Concluded May 15, 1862. To Which are Prefixed a Brief Description
of the Territory and its Government, the Constitution of the United
States, the Declaration of Independence, and the Act of Organizing
the Territory_; and _Private Laws of the Territory of Dakota, Passed
at the First Session of the Legislative Assembly_....[125] Single
copies of the Council and House journals were in the Library by
1877. The Library has four copies of the _General Laws_ and _Private
Laws_, bound together as issued; two copies are probably 19th-century
accessions, the third came from the Department of Interior in 1900,
and the fourth was transferred from an unspecified Government agency
in 1925.
[Footnote 124: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _The Beginnings of the Press
in South Dakota_ (Iowa City, Iowa, 1933). On the disputed history of
the Goodhue press, see M. W. Berthel, _Horns of Thunder_ (St. Paul,
1948), p. 26, note 3.]
[Footnote 125: These are nos. 7, 9, 4, and 5, respectively, in Albert
H. Allen's _Dakota Imprints 1858-1889_ (New York, 1947).]
Nevada
[Illustration: _Joseph T. Goodman, editor of the_ Territorial
Enterprise. _Courtesy of the New York Public Library._]
Nevada owes its first printing to W. L. Jernegan, who in partnership
with Alfred James established a weekly newspaper, the _Territorial
Enterprise_, at Genoa, then in western Utah Territory, on December
18, 1858. Jernegan had transported his printing equipment across the
Sierras from Yolo County, Calif.[126]
The earliest Nevada imprint in the Library of Congress dates
from 1862, the year after Nevada's establishment as a separate
Territory: _Second Annual Message of Governor James W. Nye, to the
Legislature of Nevada Territory, November 13, 1862. Together with
Reports of Territorial Auditor, Treasurer, and Superintendent of
Public Instruction._ Printed at Carson City by J. T. Goodman & Co.,
Territorial printers, this publication has 48 pages, not including
the title page printed on its yellow wrapper. Joseph T. Goodman was
not only involved with official printing at this time, but he was
also editing the _Territorial Enterprise_, which was then located
at Virginia City and had become a daily paper. He is perhaps best
remembered for launching Mark Twain on a literary career when he
employed him as a reporter in August 1862.[127]
Governor Nye's _Second Annual Message_ covers an important period of
national history. Strongly pro-Union, it gives an optimistic account
of the year's events in the Civil War and bestows high praise on
Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of September 22,
1862: "As an engine of war, its formidability is a powerful warrant
of early peace, and as a measure of humanity, the enlightened world
receives it with acclamations of unbounded joy." Part of the message
concerns expected consequences from a bill recently passed by Congress
authorizing construction of a Pacific Railroad, which would profoundly
affect life in Nevada:
No State nor Territory will derive such inestimable
advantage from the road as the Territory of Nevada.
Situated, as we are, in what, during a great portion of
the year, is an almost inaccessible isolation of wealth;
with mountains covered with perpetual snow frowning down
directly upon us at the west, and with a series of ranges,
difficult to cross, at the east of us, with a wilderness
fit only for the original inhabitants of the waste,
stretching away a thousand miles, and intervening between
us and the frontier of agricultural enterprise; and with no
means of receiving the common necessaries of life, except
through the expensive freightage of tediously traveling
trains of wagons; the value of the road to us will be
beyond calculation.
The inscription "Library Depr State" on the Library of Congress copy
indicates it must have been submitted to the Department of State,
which in 1862 was still in charge of the United States Territories.
A date stamp on its wrapper suggests that it was transferred to the
Library of Congress by December 1900, while a stamp on page 2 reveals
that it was in custody of the Library's Division of Documents in
September 1907.
[Footnote 126: See Richard E. Lingenfelter, _The Newspapers of Nevada_
(San Francisco, 1964), p. 47-49.]
[Footnote 127: See Ivan Benson, _Mark Twain's Western Years_ (Stanford
University, Calif. [1938]), chapters 4-6.]
Arizona
[Illustration: (_The Weekly Arizonian_)]
Printing began in Arizona with the establishment of _The Weekly
Arizonian_, at the mining town of Tubac, on March 3, 1859. The Santa
Rita Mining Company, which owned this newspaper, had imported the
first press from Cincinnati, and the first printers are said to have
been employees of the company named Jack Sims and George Smithson.[128]
The Library of Congress file of the _Arizonian_ starts with the issue
of August 18, 1859, the earliest example of Arizona printing now held
by the Library. The paper had removed from Tubac to Tucson shortly
before that date under rather dramatic circumstances. Edward E. Cross,
its first editor, vigorously opposed a movement in favor of separating
Arizona from New Mexico and organizing it as an independent territory.
In attacking population statistics put forward by Sylvester Mowry, the
leader of that movement, Cross impugned Mowry's character, whereupon
Mowry challenged him to a duel, which was fought with rifles on July
8 without injury to either party. Mowry subsequently purchased the
printing press and moved it to Tucson. Under a new editor, J. Howard
Wells, the _Arizonian_'s positions were completely reversed.[129]
The issue of August 18 supports the candidacy of Sylvester Mowry
for delegate to Congress, in an election scheduled for September
1. In view of past events it was understandable that the paper
should encourage a heavy vote, not only to demonstrate the unity of
Arizonians desiring Territorial status, but also to indicate the
extent of the population. The following short article relates to the
recurrent topic of numbers:
A SLIGHT MISTAKE
We understand Col. Bonneville says he has taken the names
of all the Americans, between the Rio Grande and the Santa
Cruz, and they number only one hundred and eighty. Come and
pay us a longer visit, Colonel, and count again. There are
nearly that number in and around Tucson alone, and there
are a good many of us that dislike to be denationalized
in so summary a manner. The Overland Mail Company alone,
employs some seventy five Americans, between here and the
Rio Grande, and they justly think, they have a right to be
included, as well as the farmers living on the San Pedro
and the Miembres rivers, it is hardly fair to leave them
out. It is nearly as bad as cutting down the Americans on
the Gila and Colorado to twelve. When there are ten times
that number. Try it again Colonel, for evidently there is a
slight mistake, some where.
In the same issue is a notice illustrating the production difficulties
characteristic of a frontier press:
We have to apologize to the readers of the Arizonian, for
the delay in issuing this our regular number; the detention
has been unavoidably caused, by the indisposition of our
printer. We hope it may not occur again, and will not as
far as lays in our power to prevent it.
When examined as recently as 1932, a Library of Congress binding
contained 10 issues of the _Arizonian_ from the year 1859, beginning
July 14; however, that early issue has been missing from the binding
at least since 1948. One mark of provenance occurs among the remaining
issues: an inscription on the issue of August 18, the upper half of
which has been cut away but which unquestionably reads, "Gov Rencher."
The recipient was Abraham Rencher (1798-1883), a distinguished North
Carolinian who was serving as Governor of the Territory of New Mexico
in 1859. By whatever route, these issues reached the Library early
enough to be recorded in _A Check List of American Newspapers in the
Library of Congress_ (1901).
[Illustration: (Column from _Arizonian_)]
[Footnote 128: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _The Beginnings of Printing
in Arizona_ (Chicago, 1937), p. 31, note 9.]
[Footnote 129: See Estelle Lutrell, _Newspapers and Periodicals of
Arizona 1859-1911_ (Tucson, 1950), p. 7-8, 63-64. For more on Cross
and Mowry, see Jo Ann Schmitt, _Fighting Editors_ (San Antonio, 1958),
p. 1-21.]
Colorado
The earliest examples of Colorado printing are the first numbers of
two competing newspapers, which were issued at Denver on April 23,
1859, only about 20 minutes apart.[130] Taking precedence was the
_Rocky Mountain News_, published by William N. Byers & Co. and printed
with equipment purchased in Nebraska. Its printers were John L. Dailey
of Ohio, a member of the company, and W. W. Whipple of Michigan.[131]
The Library of Congress recently acquired its earliest example of
Colorado printing, a broadside entitled _Laws and Regulations of the
Miners of the Gregory Diggings District_, attributed to the Byers &
Co. press. Printed sometime after July 16, 1859, it is one of but
two located copies of the first extant Colorado imprint other than
a newspaper or newspaper extra.[132] The laws, passed at miners'
meetings on June 8 and July 16, apply to the district named for John
Gregory, whose successful prospecting helped to stimulate the famous
Pike's Peak gold rush. They were placed in historical context by Peter
C. Schank, assistant chief of the American-British Law Division in the
Library of Congress, in an article announcing this acquisition:
the laws themselves are intrinsically valuable because they
served as a model for much succeeding legislation, not only
for other mining districts, but for State and national
enactments as well. Despite the promulgation of California
district laws 10 years earlier, the Gregory laws, perhaps
because of the district's fame, the presence of prospectors
with previous experience in other mining areas, and the
imminent adoption of the first national mining statute, had
a unique influence on the development of mining law in this
country.[133]
The lower margin of the Library's copy is inscribed, "Favor of Stiles
E Mills, July 20th 1863." Neither the identity of Mr. Mills nor the
intervening provenance has been established. In recent years this
copy belonged to Thomas W. Streeter (1883-1965) of Morristown, N. J.,
owner of the most important private library of Americana assembled
during the 20th century. The Library of Congress paid $2,800 for the
broadside at that portion of the Streeter sale held by Parke-Bernet
Galleries on April 23-24, 1968.[134]
Previously the Library's first example of Colorado printing was the
second issue of a small newspaper sheet, _The Western Mountaineer_,
published at Golden City on December 14, 1859. This newspaper was
printed on the same press, actually the first to reach Colorado, that
under different ownership had lost the close race to print the first
newspaper at Denver. Gold is a prominent topic in this particular
issue, which includes an interesting account of the prospector,
George Andrew Jackson, based on information he himself supplied.
The Library's copy seems to have been detached from a bound volume,
probably before its listing in _A Check List of American Newspapers
in the Library of Congress_ (1901). Penciled on its front page are
the name "Lewis Cass [Esquire?]" and what appears to be another name
beginning with "Amos." Lewis Cass was Secretary of State at the time
of publication.
[Illustration: (_Laws and Regulations of the Miners of the Gregory
Diggings District_)]
[Footnote 130: See Douglas C. McMurtrie and Albert H. Allen, _Early
Printing in Colorado_ (Denver, 1935).]
[Footnote 131: See _History of the City of Denver, Arapahoe County,
and Colorado_ (Chicago, 1880), p. 395 and 641.]
[Footnote 132: See no. 68 in Thomas W. Streeter's
_Americana--Beginnings_ (Morristown, N.J., 1952).]
[Footnote 133: U.S. Library of Congress, _The Quarterly Journal of the
Library of Congress_, vol. 26 (1969), p. 229.]
[Footnote 134: It is described under no. 2119 in _The Celebrated
Collection of Americana Formed by the Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter_
(New York, 1966-69), vol. 4.]
Wyoming
The oldest relics of Wyoming printing are June and July 1863 issues
of the _Daily Telegraph_, published at Fort Bridger in what was then
the Territory of Utah. The printer and publisher of this newspaper was
Hiram Brundage, telegraph operator at the Fort, who had previously
been associated with the Fort Kearney _Herald_ in the Territory of
Nebraska.[135] No printing is known to have been performed in Wyoming
between 1863 and 1867, with the possible exception of a disputed
imprint dated 1866,[136] and the first permanent Wyoming press dates
from the founding of the _Cheyenne Leader_ in September 1867.
The earliest example of Wyoming printing in the Library of Congress
is a 24-page pamphlet printed at Green River by "Freeman & Bro.,
book and job printers" in 1868: _A Vocabulary of the Snake, or,
Sho-Sho-Nay Dialect by Joseph A. Gebow, Interpreter. Second Edition,
Revised and Improved, January 1st, 1864._ It was printed on the press
of the _Frontier Index_, a migratory newspaper which commenced when
the Freemans bought out the Fort Kearney _Herald_ in Nebraska. This
press moved westward from place to place as the Union Pacific Railroad
penetrated into southern Wyoming, and it stopped at Green River for
about two months in 1868.[137]
The first edition of Gebow's _Vocabulary_ was printed at Salt Lake
City in 1859, and the first printing of the second edition at Camp
Douglas, Utah, in 1864. The vocabulary proper is prefaced only by the
following statement:
Mr. Joseph A. Gebow, having been a resident in the
Mountains for nearly twenty years, has had ample
opportunity of acquiring the language of the several tribes
of Indians, and offers this sample of Indian Literature,
hoping it may beguile many a tedious hour to the trader,
the trapper, and to any one who feels an interest in the
language of the Aborigines of the Mountains.
Even for those unfamiliar with the native dialect, the words and
phrases in English can be beguiling. Among the phrases chosen for
translation are "Go slow, friend, don't get mad" and "You done wrong."
[Illustration: (_A Vocabulary of the Snake, or, Sho-Sho-Nay Dialect by
Joseph A. Gebow, Interpreter. Second Edition, Revised and Improved,
January 1st, 1864._)]
The present Library of Congress copy is inscribed to the Smithsonian
Institution, and to judge from a date stamp it was added to the
Smithsonian Library by May 1870. Later it was transferred to the
Library of Congress through the Smithsonian Deposit (see above,
p. 52). It is in an old library binding with the original printed
wrappers bound in.
[Footnote 135: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Early Printing in Wyoming
and the Black Hills_ (Hattiesburg, Miss., 1943), p. 9-10.]
[Footnote 136: Ibid., p. 10, note 1.]
[Footnote 137: Ibid., p. 39. On p. 48 McMurtrie argues that the
pamphlet was printed in the month of October.]
Montana
Authorities do not agree on when or by whom Montana's first printing
was undertaken. It was either at Bannack or Virginia City, both
gold-mining towns, probably in October 1863.[138]
The earliest Montana imprints in the Library of Congress were printed
at Virginia City in 1866 by John P. Bruce, who owned _The Montana
Democrat_ and was designated Public Printer. Of these, the first may
be an eight-page pamphlet, _Reports of the Auditor, Treasurer, and
Indian Commissioner, of the Territory of Montana_. The latest document
incorporated in the text is dated February 22, 1866, and the pamphlet
was printed in the office of _The Montana Democrat_ probably not long
after that date. Most likely the second Montana imprint in the Library
is the _Message of Governor Thomas Francis Meagher, to the Legislature
of Montana Territory, Delivered on the 6th Day of March, 1866_. Three
thousand copies were ordered, according to a printed note on the
eighth and final page of this work. Neither of these two imprints
bears any mark of provenance, and both appear to have entered the
Library before the turn of the century.
Another early example of Montana printing in the Library is the 22d
number, dated April 12, 1866, of _The Montana Democrat_, a sizable
four-page sheet displaying the paper's motto: "Be faithful in all
accepted trusts." It is addressed in pencil to the State Department.
From about the same time the Library can boast two copies of _Laws
of the Teritory_ [sic] _of Montana, Passed at the Second Session of
the Legislature, 1866. Beginning March 5, 1866, and Ending April 14,
1866_, a work of 54 pages. Although copy one is imperfect, lacking
pages 49-54, it is of interest for the penciled inscription on its
title page: "President Johnson."
[Illustration: (REPORT OF THE AUDITOR OF THE TERRITORY OF MONTANA.)]
The Library of Congress also owns three copies of a celebrated Montana
book published at Virginia City in the same year by the proprietors
of _The Montana Post_ press, S. W. Tilton & Co.: _The Vigilantes of
Montana, or Popular Justice in the Rocky Mountains. Being a Correct
and Impartial Narrative of the Chase, Trial, Capture and Execution
of Henry Plummer's Road Agent Band, Together With Accounts of the
Lives and Crimes of Many of the Robbers and Desperadoes, the Whole
Being Interspersed With Sketches of Life in the Mining Camps of the
"Far West;" Forming the Only Reliable Work on the Subject Ever
Offered the Public._ The author, Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, was an
Englishman who served Virginia City as a teacher and as editor of
the _Post_, where his work originally appeared in installments. This
first edition in book form contains 228 pages of text. The Library
date-stamped copy one in 1874. Copy two was deposited for copyright
in 1882, the year that D. W. Tilton put out a second edition. Copy
three bears the signature of Henry Gannett (1846-1914), geographer
of the U.S. Geological Survey and at the time of his death president
of the National Geographic Society. It contains a "War Service
Library" bookplate and an "American Library Association Camp Library"
borrower's card (unused). The Library of Congress received the copy
from an unknown source in 1925.[139]
[Footnote 138: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Pioneer Printing in Montana_
(Iowa City, Iowa, 1932); the Introduction to McMurtrie's _Montana
Imprints 1864-1880_ (Chicago, 1937); and Roby Wentz, _Eleven Western
Presses_ (Los Angeles, 1956), p. 49-51.]
[Footnote 139: Three Virginia City imprints dated 1866 are excluded
from the present account. One of them (McMurtrie 19) cannot have been
issued before January 10, 1867. The others (McMurtrie 130 and 131)
were actually printed in Maine according to McMurtrie's bibliography.
None of the Library of Congress copies of these imprints has a notable
provenance.]
North Dakota
[Illustration: FRONTIER SCOUT. Capt. E. G. Adams, Editor. LIBERTY AND
UNION. Lieut. C. H. Champney, Publisher Vol. 1. FORT RICE, D. T.,
AUGUST 10, 1865 No. 9.]
As early as 1853 a printing press is said to have been at the St.
Joseph mission station, site of the present town of Walhalla, but
there is no evidence that the press was actually used there. The first
confirmed North Dakota printing was done on a press which Company I
of the 30th Wisconsin Volunteers brought to Fort Union in June 1864.
In July of that year a small newspaper, the _Frontier Scout_, made
its appearance at the fort, and extant issues name the Company as
"proprietors" and identify (Robert) Winegar and (Ira F.) Goodwin, both
from Eau Claire but otherwise unknown, as publishers.[140] Possibly
antedating the _Frontier Scout_ is a rare broadside notice which
either issued from the same press (not before June 17) or else could
be the first extant Montana imprint.[141]
With its early North Dakota newspapers the Library of Congress has a
facsimile reprint of the _Frontier Scout_, volume 1, number 2 (the
first extant issue), dated July 14, 1864. The Library's earliest
original specimen of North Dakota printing is a copy of the _Frontier
Scout_, volume 1, number 9 in a new series of issues at the paper's
second location, Fort Rice. Dated August 10, 1865, this issue names
Capt. E. G. Adams as editor and Lt. C. H. Champney as publisher. The
Library's copy is printed on a four-page sheet of blue-ruled notebook
paper.
The contents of the August 10 issue are almost entirely from the pen
of Captain Adams, who saw fit to run the statement: "Every article in
the paper is original and sees the light for the first time." A long
poem about Columbus, which he entitled "San Salvador," occupies most
of the front page. More interesting is a second-page editorial headed
"Indian Impolicy," rebuking the authorities in Washington for not
allowing General Sully a free hand in his current operations against
the Indians (whom the editor calls "these miserable land-pirates").
From this issue one gains an impression that Fort Rice must have been
a dreary post. The following is under date of August 6 in a section
captioned "Local Items":
By the Big Horn and Spray [vessels] the Q. M. Dept. at Fort
Rice receive 4500 sacks of corn. The Mail arrives. The
wolves are howling on all sides tonight; we can see them,
some of them are as large as year old calves. The first cat
arrives at Fort Rice. There are so many rats and mice here
it is a great field for feline missionaries.
The Library of Congress obtained its copy of this issue of the
_Frontier Scout_ through an exchange with the South Dakota Historical
Society in November 1939.
[Footnote 140: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, "Pioneer Printing in North
Dakota," _North Dakota Historical Quarterly_, vol. 6, 1931-32, p.
221-230.]
[Footnote 141: See no. 2036 in _The Celebrated Collection of Americana
Formed by the Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter_ (New York, 1966-69), vol.
4.]
Alaska
Printing is not known to have been undertaken by the Russians in
Alaska,[142] nor can a broadside notice of 1854 printed by an English
searching party aboard H.M.S. _Plover_ at Point Barrow[143] be
properly considered as Alaskan printing. The first printing in Alaska
evidently followed its transfer to United States rule on October 18,
1867.
Despite the absence of a bibliography or trustworthy history of early
Alaskan printing, it seems safe to say that the earliest imprints
were the orders issued by the Military District of Alaska beginning
with General Orders No. 1, dated October 29, 1867.[144] The District
headquarters were at Sitka. There is no statement on the orders about
place of printing, but it is difficult to imagine how they could
have been printed elsewhere than Alaska and still have served their
immediate purpose.
The earliest Alaskan printing in the Library of Congress is a series
of general orders dating from April 11, 1868, to July 1, 1870. These
orders, printed as small sheets and leaflets, are mostly of a routine
character, the majority reporting courts-martial held at Sitka. In
the General Orders No. 1, of April 11, 1868, Jefferson C. Davis
announces his assumption of command of the Department of Alaska, which
superseded the Military District of Alaska on March 18, 1868, and he
names the members of his departmental staff. The orders are printed on
different kinds of paper, including blue-ruled, and many of them carry
official signatures in manuscript. General Orders No. 13, of December
31, 1868, is stamped: "Received Adjutant Gen'ls Office Apr 6 1870."
The whole series is bound into a volume, now destitute of both covers,
which was weeded from the Army War College Library sometime after
World War II. The National War College transferred it to the Library
of Congress in or about 1953.
Since the facts surrounding the Army press have yet to be documented,
it may be well to consider the civilian printing of Alaska also.
This apparently began with the initial issue of _The Alaskan Times_,
dated April 23, 1869, and printed on a press obtained from San
Francisco.[145] The _Times_ ceased publication in 1870. Apart from
the general orders of 1868-70, the earliest Alaskan printing in the
Library is its file of _The Sitka Post_ beginning with the second
issue, dated November 5, 1876. The _Post_, published in a small
six-page format on the 5th and 20th of each month, was the second
newspaper to be printed in Alaska. Neither the _Times_ nor the _Post_
identifies its printer.
Featured in the November 5 issue is "The Cavalry Fight at Brandy
Station," an extract from L. P. Brockett's _The Camp, the Battle
Field, and the Hospital_ (Philadelphia, 1866). Following this is
a forceful editorial on "The Indian Campaign," which advocates
committing a greater number of U.S. troops to the war against the
Sioux. Certain advertisements in this issue are noteworthy because
they relate to the paper itself. One is on the fourth page:
We wish to call the Attention of all BUSINESS MEN who
intend to Trade in Alaska to the fact that The Sitka Post
is the Only Newspaper PUBLISHED in the TERRITORY. It is
devoted entirely to the Interests of ALASKA; will never
be made the organ of any party [o]r ring, political,
commercial, or otherwise; and will make it its object to
give the news of the TERRITORY. ALL ENTERPRISING MEN who
wish to bring their BUSINESS before the Public of Alaska
Territory cannot do better than by ADVERTISING in The Sitka
Post.
Another appears on the last page:
MEN OF ENTERPRISE! TAKE NOTICE! The SITKA POST Is the
only Paper printed in Alaska. It is the best medium of
Advertising. It circulates in Sitka, Wrangel, Stikeen,
Kodiak; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, Cal; Baltimore,
Md, and Washington, D. C. Send your Advertisements to J. J.
Daly Editor, Sitka Post, Sitka, A.
And there is a brief appeal at the end of the last page:
Wanted--More subscribers and contributors to this paper.
[Illustration: (Orders issued by the Military District of Alaska)]
The Library of Congress file of the _Post_ is in an old Library
binding and extends from number 2 without break to the 14th and final
number, dated June 5, 1877. The first page in the volume bears a
Library date stamp of 1877. Also on the first page is the signature
"M. Baker," preceded by the words "Purchased by" in a different hand.
Thus the file was apparently assembled by Marcus Baker (1849-1903), a
noted cartographer and writer on Alaska who was employed from 1873 to
1886 by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Some issues are addressed
in pencil to individual subscribers, three of whom can be positively
identified from company muster rolls at the National Archives as
members of the 4th Artillery, U.S. Army, stationed at Sitka. They
are "Ord[nance] Serg[ean]t [George] Go[l]kell"; "H[enry] Train," a
corporal in Company G; and "W[illiam] J. Welch," a bugler in Company G.
[Footnote 142: See Valerian Lada-Mocarski, "Earliest Russian Printing
in the United States," in _Homage to a Bookman; Essays ... Written for
Hans P. Kraus_ (Berlin, 1967), p. 231-233.]
[Footnote 143: See no. 3525 in _The Celebrated Collection of Americana
Formed by the Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter_ (New York, 1966-69), vol.
6.]
[Footnote 144: See ibid., no. 3531.]
[Footnote 145: Photostat copy in the Library of Congress examined.]
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
The images have not been cleaned up in order to keep the worn look
of the old documents. The texts within the images have not been
transcribed with the exception of some titles. Image descriptions,
added for convenience, are within parentheses below the images.
Captions found in the original book are not enclosed in parentheses.
All [sic] notes were from the original book.
Retained spelling variations found in the original book.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pioneer Imprints From Fifty States, by
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