Pioneer Imprints from Fifty States · Roger J. Trienens
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. 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.
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. 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.
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."
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. [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.] 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.
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. 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. 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.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.