Part 5

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).

[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]

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

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

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

"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

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]