Part 1

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

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.

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.

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

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]

[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.

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."

[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]