[116] Ibid., p. 51.
[Washington]
(Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Washington, Passed at the Second Regular Session, Begun and Held at Olympia, December 4, 1854, in the Seventy-Ninth Year of American Independence)
(Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Washington, ... continued)
The earliest recorded example of Washington printing is the first number of The Columbian, published at Olympia on September 11, 1852. The founders of this newspaper were James W. Wiley and Thornton F. McElroy, who purchased a press on which the Portland Oregonian had for a short time been printed and which before that saw service in California.[117]
In 1853 the Territory of Washington was created from the northern part of the Territory of Oregon, and on April 17, 1854, the new Territorial legislature elected James W. Wiley to be Washington's first official printer. The earliest specimen of Washington printing held by the Library of Congress appears to be the following example of his work, printed at Olympia in 1855: Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Washington, Passed at the Second Regular Session, Begun and Held at Olympia, December 4, 1854, in the Seventy-Ninth Year of American Independence. It includes an act passed at the second session, on February 1, 1855, specifying the size and distribution of the original edition: