[Rhode Island]
(Benjamin Franklin's Rhode-Island Almanack for the Year 1728)
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.