Kentucky

[36]See R. Webb Noyes,A Bibliography of Maine Imprints to 1820(Stonington, Maine, 1930), p. 7.[37]The preface to this edition is dated June 1, 1935. A sixth issue of theGazette(March 5) listed here was later replaced by a better copy from the 1939 purchase.

[36]See R. Webb Noyes,A Bibliography of Maine Imprints to 1820(Stonington, Maine, 1930), p. 7.

[37]The preface to this edition is dated June 1, 1935. A sixth issue of theGazette(March 5) listed here was later replaced by a better copy from the 1939 purchase.

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 isThe Kentucke Gazettefor 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 decisionsThe Kentucke Gazetteserved 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 theGazette, 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 ofA Checklist of American Eighteenth-Century Newspapers in the Library of Congress.

THE KENTUCKE GAZETTE, March 1, 1788.(THE KENTUCKE GAZETTE, March 1, 1788.)[Click image for larger view.]

(THE KENTUCKE GAZETTE, March 1, 1788.)[Click image for larger view.]

[38]See J. Winston Coleman, Jr.,John Bradford, Esq.(Lexington, Ky., 1950).[39]Brackets in text.[40]J. Stoddard Johnston,Memorial History of Louisville(Chicago and New York [pref. 1896]), vol. 2, p. 3.[41]C. R. Staples,The History of Pioneer Lexington(Lexington, 1939), p. 78 and 151.

[38]See J. Winston Coleman, Jr.,John Bradford, Esq.(Lexington, Ky., 1950).

[39]Brackets in text.

[40]J. Stoddard Johnston,Memorial History of Louisville(Chicago and New York [pref. 1896]), vol. 2, p. 3.

[41]C. R. Staples,The History of Pioneer Lexington(Lexington, 1939), p. 78 and 151.

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 publishedThe Independent Chronicleat Boston, and earlier in 1790 he had been printing at Winchester, Va. At Shepherdstown Willis publishedThe Potowmac Guardian, and Berkeley Advertiserfrom 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. EntitledCharter 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 ofPennsylvania, 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.

TheCharteris 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 theCharterwas 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.

Charter of the Town of Woodstock.(Charter of the Town of Woodstock.)[Click on image for larger view.]

(Charter of the Town of Woodstock.)[Click on image for larger view.]

[42]The latest extant Shepherdstown issue ofThe 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.[43]According to his obituary in the Montreal newspaperLa 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."

[43]According to his obituary in the Montreal newspaperLa 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."

The printers George Roulstone and Robert Ferguson introduced the first Tennessee printing at Hawkins Court House, now Rogersville, with the November 5, 1791, issue ofThe 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 entitledActs 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.

Patch-repairs help to preserve not only the title page but the first page of the text, which is printed on the verso.Patch-repairs help to preserve not only the title page but the first page of the text, which is printed on the verso.

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, onMonday 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 theKnoxville Gazettefor 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.

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 theGazettefor the year 1793, are inscribed "Claiborne Watkins, esqr." They probably belonged to the person of that name residing in Washington County, Va., who served as a presidential elector in 1792.[47]

[44]Early Printing in Tennessee(Chicago, 1933), p. 21.[45]The Gentleman's Magazine.Franklin'sA Narrative of the Late Massacreswas published separately at Philadelphia in the same year.[46]Brackets in text. Several issues carried this paragraph. See William Rule, ed.Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee(Chicago, 1900), p. 74.[47]SeeCalendar of Virginia State Papers, vol. 6 (1886), p. 140.

[44]Early Printing in Tennessee(Chicago, 1933), p. 21.

[45]The Gentleman's Magazine.Franklin'sA Narrative of the Late Massacreswas published separately at Philadelphia in the same year.

[46]Brackets in text. Several issues carried this paragraph. See William Rule, ed.Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee(Chicago, 1900), p. 74.

[47]SeeCalendar of Virginia State Papers, vol. 6 (1886), p. 140.

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 theCentinelof 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]

Pages from the first book printed in Ohio.Pages from the first book printed in Ohio.

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.

Northwest Territory Laws(Northwest Territory Laws)

(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.

[48]See Douglas C. McMurtrie,Pioneer Printing in Ohio(Cincinnati, 1943).[49]Quoted from Historical Records Survey, American Imprints Inventory, no. 17,A Check List of Ohio Imprints 1796-1820(Columbus, 1941), p. 21.[50]See the short biography of Dilhet in the preface to hisEtat 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).

[48]See Douglas C. McMurtrie,Pioneer Printing in Ohio(Cincinnati, 1943).

[49]Quoted from Historical Records Survey, American Imprints Inventory, no. 17,A Check List of Ohio Imprints 1796-1820(Columbus, 1941), p. 21.

[50]See the short biography of Dilhet in the preface to hisEtat 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).

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 thePreliminary 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 earliestbona fideMichigan imprint in the Library of Congress isL'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.

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.(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.)

(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 ofL'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]

[51]Historical Records Survey, American Imprints Inventory, no. 52.[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 inAmerican Bibliography, a Preliminary Checklist for 1802, comp. by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker (New York, 1958).[53]A. H. Greenly,A Bibliography of Father Richard's Press in Detroit(Ann Arbor, 1955).[54]Catalogue 134, no. 392. Two years later the same firm offered another copy for $750, in its Catalogue 138, no. 428.

[51]Historical Records Survey, American Imprints Inventory, no. 52.

[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 inAmerican Bibliography, a Preliminary Checklist for 1802, comp. by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker (New York, 1958).

[53]A. H. Greenly,A Bibliography of Father Richard's Press in Detroit(Ann Arbor, 1955).

[54]Catalogue 134, no. 392. Two years later the same firm offered another copy for $750, in its Catalogue 138, no. 428.

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" inGreen's Impartial Observerfor 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."

"To the Public," dated November 8, 1800("To the Public," dated November 8, 1800)

("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 themostextraordinary—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 ofthe first moment, and yet not containing one authenticated fact for them to found an opinion on—but resting all upon their meredictum, penetrating into future events, and proclaiming whatshall bethe decisions of legislators not yet elected.

Fellow-Citizens,

Of all the extraordinary performances I ever beheld, the late hand-bill, signed by eight members of our house of representatives, is themostextraordinary—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 ofthe first moment, and yet not containing one authenticated fact for them to found an opinion on—but resting all upon their meredictum, penetrating into future events, and proclaiming whatshall bethe 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 ofGreen's Impartial Observer, available at the Library of Congress.

The two broadsides cited are the only copies recorded in Douglas C. McMurtrie'sA 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 MrBanks, Novr12th1800." 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]

[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.[56]Nos. 11 and 12.[57]From letter dated November 12, 1800, inThe Mississippi Territorial Archives, compiled and edited by Dunbar Rowland, vol. 1 (1905), p. 301-302.

[56]Nos. 11 and 12.

[57]From letter dated November 12, 1800, inThe Mississippi Territorial Archives, compiled and edited by Dunbar Rowland, vol. 1 (1905), p. 301-302.

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, theIndiana 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.

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.(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.)

(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 JamesMackay (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.

[58]See V. C. (H.) Knerr,Elihu Stout, Indiana's First Printer(ACRL microcard series, no. 48; Rochester, N.Y., 1955).[59]No. 2 in C. K. Byrd and H. H. Peckham,A Bibliography of Indiana Imprints 1804-1853(Indianapolis, 1955).[60]W. S. Bryan and Robert Rose,A History of the Pioneer Families of Missouri(St. Louis, 1876), p. 173-174.[61]Missouri Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, no. 1 (1912), p. 20.

[58]See V. C. (H.) Knerr,Elihu Stout, Indiana's First Printer(ACRL microcard series, no. 48; Rochester, N.Y., 1955).

[59]No. 2 in C. K. Byrd and H. H. Peckham,A Bibliography of Indiana Imprints 1804-1853(Indianapolis, 1955).

[60]W. S. Bryan and Robert Rose,A History of the Pioneer Families of Missouri(St. Louis, 1876), p. 173-174.

[61]Missouri Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, no. 1 (1912), p. 20.

The earliest extant Alabama imprint is thought to beThe 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 theChesapeake-Leopardnaval 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 calledThe Halcyonsometime 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.

James Madison, President of the U—States—— "St. Stephens (M.T.) Printed by Tho. Eastin. 1815."James Madison, President of the U—States——"St. Stephens (M.T.)Printed by Tho. Eastin. 1815."

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]

[62]Copies of both imprints are described under nos. 1548 and 1549 inThe Celebrated Collection of Americana Formed by the Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter(New York, 1966-69), vol. 3.The Declarationwas reprinted inThe Magazine of History, with Notes and Queries, extra no. 8 (1925), p. [45]-55.[63]See Douglas C. McMurtrie,A Brief History of the First Printing in the State of Alabama(Birmingham, 1931), p. 6.[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).[65]See Cyril E. Cain,Four Centuries on the Pascagoula([State College? Miss., 1953-62]), vol. 2, p. 8-9 (naming Crawford only).[66]It is in vol. 78, leaf 22. This volume, containing printed material only, is in the Rare Book Division.

[63]See Douglas C. McMurtrie,A Brief History of the First Printing in the State of Alabama(Birmingham, 1931), p. 6.

[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).

[65]See Cyril E. Cain,Four Centuries on the Pascagoula([State College? Miss., 1953-62]), vol. 2, p. 8-9 (naming Crawford only).

[66]It is in vol. 78, leaf 22. This volume, containing printed material only, is in the Rare Book Division.

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