In 1675 a press was established at Boston by John Foster, a graduate of Harvard College, under a licence from the College. Besides the official work of the colony and theological literature, he printed several pamphlets on the war between the English and the Indians. He died in 1681, when he was succeeded by Samuel Green, junior, who continued printing there until 1690. In the following year three printers' names are found in the imprints of books: R. Pierce, Benjamin Harris, and John Allen. Benjamin Harris is afterwards called 'Printer to his Excellency, the Governor and Council,' but in 1693 Harris removed from 'over against the Old Meeting House,' to 'the Bible over against the Blew Anchor,' and another printer, Bartholomew Green, seems to have shared with him the official work.
Pennsylvania was the next of the colonies to establish a press; its first printer, William Bradford, setting up there in 1685, in which year he printed Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense, or, America's Messinger, Being an Almanack for the Year of Grace 1686.
In 1688 Bradford issued proposals for printing a large Bible (Hildeburn, Issues of the Pennsylvania Press, vol. i. p. 9), but they came to nothing. In 1692 he printed several pamphlets for George Keith, the leader of the schism among the Quakers, and for this he was imprisoned. On his release he removed to New York. A press was also set up in Virginia in 1682, but was suppressed, and no printing allowed there until 1729. The name of the printer is not known, but is believed to have been William Nuthead, who set up a press in Maryland in 1689 with a similar result.
The first printer in New York was William Bradford, who began work there on the 10th April 1693. Among his most famous publications before the close of the seventeenth century was Keith's Truth Advanced, a quarto of 224 pages, printed on paper manufactured at his own mill and issued in 1694; in the same year he also printed The Laws and Acts of the General Assembly.