Part 2

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.

[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

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

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.

[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.

[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

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.

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

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.