Cambridge, Massachusetts, is entitled to the distinction of having the first printing-press in North America, which was under the charge of Stephen Daye. For this press the colony was mainly indebted to the Rev. Jesse Glover, a nonconformist minister possessed of a considerable estate, who had left England to settle among his friends in Massachusetts. Some gentlemen of Amsterdam also “gave towards furnishing of a printing-press with letters, forty-nine pounds and something more.” This was about 1638. The first book issued was the Bay Psalm-Book, in 1640.
The first book issued in the Middle Colonies was an Almanac, printed by William Bradford in 1685, near Philadelphia. Bradford was brought out from England in 1684 by William Penn. As the government of Pennsylvania became very restrictive in regard to the press, Bradford in 1693 removed to New York, and was appointed printer to that colony, where he established in 1725 the New York Gazette, the first newspaper published there. He died May 23, 1752, after an active and useful life of eighty-nine years.[5]
The first newspaper in America was the Boston News Letter, which was first issued by John Campbell on Monday, April 24, 1704: it was regularly published for nearly seventy-two years. The second was the Boston Gazette, begun December 21, 1719. The third was the American Weekly Mercury, issued in Philadelphia, by Andrew Bradford, on December 22, 1719. James Franklin, an elder brother of Benjamin, established the New England Courant, August 17, 1721.
The oldest living paper of the United States is the New Hampshire Gazette, published at Portsmouth, now (Oct. 7, 1892) one hundred and thirty-six years old.
The North American and United States Gazette leads the existing daily press of this country in point of antiquity. It is the successor of the Pennsylvania Packet, (begun in 1771 and becoming a daily paper in 1784,) and is still the chief commercial journal of Philadelphia.
The first paper-mill in America was established near Germantown, Pa., in 1690, by William Rittenhouse.[6]
TYPE-FOUNDING IN EUROPE.
For a long period after the discovery of printing, it seems that type-founding, printing, and binding went under the general term of printing, and that printers cast the types used by them, and printed and bound the works executed in their establishments. Type-founding became a distinct calling early in the seventeenth century. A decree of the Star Chamber, made July 11, 1637, ordained the following regulations concerning English founders:—
“That there shall be four founders of letters for printing, and no more.