His next extant piece of work is an almanac for 1650, his next the third edition (the second, as noted above, had been printed at London in 1647) of the Bay Psalter, “printed by Samuel Green at Cambridge in New-England, 1651.” This was followed in 1652 by Richard Mather’s The Summe of Certain Sermons upon Genes. 15. 6, a treatise on Justification by Faith, and then Green seems to have begun to busy himself with work for the Corporation in England for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England, or Corporation for the Indians, as it is easier to call it. A second press was sent over to enable this work to be undertaken, and a Primer by John Eliot (“the Apostle to the Indians”) was printed in 1654, and the Books of Genesis and Matthew the next year, all three in the Indian language, all three now known only from records. The same destruction has befallen an Indian version of some of the Psalms mentioned as having been printed in 1658, but of another Indian book of the same year, Abraham Peirson’s Some helps for the Indians, shewing them how to improve their natural reason to know the true God, and the true Christian Religion, two issues have been preserved, one in the New York Public Library, the other at the British Museum. Another edition, dated the next year, is also at the Museum, though it has escaped the notice of Mr. Evans, the author of the latest “American Bibliography.” By this time the Corporation for the Indians had sent over a skilled printer, Marmaduke Johnson, to aid Green in his work. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he had left a wife in England, Johnson flirted with Green’s daughter, and this conduct, reprehensible anywhere, in New England brought down on him fines of £20 and a sentence of deportation, which, however, was not carried out. Johnson’s initials appears in conjunction with Green’s in A Brief Catechism containing the doctrine of Godlines, by John Norton, teacher of the Church at Boston, published in 1660, and the two men’s names in full are in the Indian New Testament of 1661 and the complete Bible of 1663. Of the New Testament it is conjectured that a thousand, or perhaps fifteen hundred copies, were printed, of which five hundred were bound separately, and forty of these sent to England. How many copies were printed of the Old Testament is not known, but of the complete Bible some forty copies are still extant in no fewer than eight variant states produced by the presence or absence of the Indian and English titlepages, the dedication, etc., while of the New Testament about half as many copies may be known.
During the progress of the Indian Bible Green had continued his English printing on his other press, and had produced among other things Propositions concerning the subject of Baptism collected by the Boston Synod, and bearing the imprint “Printed by S.G. for Hezekiah Vsher at Boston in New England 1662.” Printing at Boston itself does not appear to have begun until 1675, when John Foster, a Harvard graduate, was entrusted with the management of a press, and during that and the six following years printed there a number of books by Increase Mather and other ministers, as well as some almanacs. On his death in 1681 the press was entrusted to Samuel Sewall, who, however, abandoned it in 1684. Meanwhile, Samuel Green had continued to print at Cambridge, and his son, Samuel Green junior, is found working by assignment of Sewall and for other Boston booksellers. In 1690 his brother Bartholomew Green succeeded him, and remained the chief printer at Boston till his death in 1732.
At Philadelphia, within three years of its foundation in 1683, a Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense, or America’s Messinger: being and [sic] almanack for the year of grace 1686, by Samuel Atkins, was issued with the imprint, “Printed and sold by William Bradford, sold also by the Author and H. Murrey in Philadelphia and Philip Richards in New York, 1685,” and in the same year there was published anonymously Thomas Budd’s Good Order established in Pennsilvania & New Jersey in America, being a true account of the country; with its produce and commodities there made. In 1686 Bradford printed An Epistle from John Burnyeat to Friends in Pensilvania and A General Epistle given forth by the people of the Lord called Quakers; in 1687 William Penn’s The excellent privilege of liberty and property being the birthright of the free-born subjects of England; in 1688 a collection including Böhme’s The Temple of Wisdom, Wither’s Abuses Stript and Whipt, and Bacon’s Essays, edited by Daniel Leeds. In 1689 Bradford began working for George Keith, and three years later he was imprisoned for printing Keith’s Appeal from the Twenty Eight Judges to the Spirit of Truth and true Judgement in all faithful Friends called Quakers. In consequence of this persecution Bradford left Philadelphia the next year and set up his press at New York. Reinier Jansen and Jacob Taylor are subsequently mentioned as printers at Philadelphia, and in 1712 Andrew Bradford, son of William, came from New York and worked there until his death in 1742. From 1723 he had as a competitor Samuel Keimer, and it was in Keimer’s office that Benjamin Franklin began printing in Philadelphia. His edition of a translation of Cicero’s Cato Major on Old Age, by J. Logan of Philadelphia, is said to have been the first rendering of a classic published in America.
Meanwhile, William Bradford had set up his press in New York in 1693, and obtained the appointment of Government Printer. His earliest productions there were a number of official Acts and Proclamations, on which he placed the imprint, “Printed and Sold by William Bradford, Printer to King William and Queen Mary, at the City of New York.” In 1700 he was apparently employed to print an anonymous answer to Increase Mather’s Order of the Gospel, and a heated controversy arose as to whether the refusal of Bartholomew Green to print it at Boston was due to excessive “awe” of the President of Harvard or to a more praiseworthy objection to anonymous attacks. Bradford remained New York’s only printer until 1726, when Johann Peter Zenger set up a press which became notable for the boldness with which it attacked the provincial government. Such attacks were not regarded with much toleration, nor indeed was the press even under official regulation greatly beloved by authority. In 1671 Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, in an official document remarked: “I thank God we have not free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years. For learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them and libels against the government. God keep us from both.” Eleven years later (21 February, 1682) there is an entry in the Virginian records: “John Buckner called before the Ld Culpeper and his council for printing the laws of 1680, without his excellency’s license, and he and the printer ordered to enter into bond in £100 not to print anything hereafter, until his majesty’s pleasure shall be known.” As a result there was no more printing in Virginia till about 1729, nor are any other towns than those here mentioned known to have possessed presses during the seventeenth century, the period within which American books may claim the dignity of incunabula.
[55] Mr. Duff is no doubt right in his suggestion that this is A very declaration of the bond and free wyll of man: the obedyence of the gospell and what the gospell meaneth, of which a copy, with colophon, “Printed at Saint Albans,” is in the Spencer Collection at the John Rylands Library. This increases Hertfort’s total to eight.
[56] Mr. Duff plausibly suggests that Overton’s name in the colophon was merely a device for surmounting the restrictions on the circulation in England of books printed abroad.
[57] Those recorded by Mr. E. G. Duff in his Sandars Lectures on “The English Provincial Printers, Stationers, and Bookbinders to 1557,” by my reckoning number 114.
[58] This reckoning was made in 1896, but the proportion has not been substantially altered.
[59] The colophon to the Chronicles which commemorates Leeu has already been quoted (p. 81).