قراءة كتاب Pioneer Imprints From Fifty States
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style, and so it probably followed the publication of the Acts of Assembly. The Library purchased the unique copy for $8 at the second Brinley sale, held in March 1880.
[2] William Parks, Printer and Journalist of England and Colonial America (Richmond, 1926), p. 15.
[3] No. 1833 in U.S. Library of Congress, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Compiled with Annotations by E. Millicent Sowerby (Washington, 1952-59).
[4] See Sarah Travers Lewis (Scott) Anderson's Lewises, Meriwethers and Their Kin (Richmond, 1938), p. 61-62.
Maryland
After departing from Virginia, William Nuthead set up the first Maryland press at St. Mary's City sometime before August 31, 1685. This press continued in operation until a few years after Nuthead's widow removed it to Annapolis about 1695; yet nothing more survives from it than a single broadside and some printed blank forms.
In 1700 Thomas Reading began to operate a second press at Annapolis, and his output in that year included a collection of laws which is the earliest Maryland imprint now represented in the Library of Congress. Since the Library's is the only extant copy, it is particularly regrettable that its title page and considerable portions of the text are lacking. Catalogers have supplied it with the title: A Complete Body of the Laws of Maryland.[5]
The copy was formerly in the possession of the lawyer and diplomat John Bozman Kerr (1809-78). It might not have survived to this day were it not for his awareness of its importance, as shown in his flyleaf inscription:
? would this have been printed in Md at so early a period as 1700—in Md or elsewhere in the Colonies—It is dedicated to Mr Wm Bladen father, it is presumed, of Govr Thos Bladen, of whom Pope, the Poet, speaks so harshly—Having given much attention to Md History I know no book—calculated to throw more light upon manners & customs than this printed copy of the body of Md Law in 1700—The language of the early acts of assembly was much modified in 1715 & 1722—Here the Exact words are preserved as in the original acts—Unless in some old collection in England, five thousand dollars would not procure a like copy—Many years ago there was Extant, in MS, in Charles Co Court records, as I have been told, a similar collection—This printed copy is "the schedule annexed to 1699. c 46 & the act of 1700. c 8—
Sept 22d 1858
William Bladen, to whom the book is dedicated, was then clerk of the Upper House and had been instrumental in bringing Thomas Reading to Maryland. In fact, the records indicate that he assumed the role of publisher. If John Bozman Kerr had had access to the proceedings of the Lower House for the year 1700, he would have been most interested to find there Bladen's written proposal:
That if the house are desirous the body of Laws should be printed soe that every person might easily have them in their houses without being troubled to goe to the County Court house to have recourse thereto.
That the house made [sic] an Order for printeing thereof and that every County be Oblidged to take one faire Coppy endorsed and Titled to be bound up handsomely and that for the encouragement of the undertaker each County pay him therefore 2000lbs of Tobo upon delivery the said booke of Laws....
This was approved on May 9.[6] The printing was not wholly satisfactory, for on May 17 of the next year an errata list was ordered printed.[7]
[5] It is no. 7 in Lawrence C. Wroth's A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland (Baltimore, 1922). Besides listing it in his bibliography, Wroth discusses the book at length on p. 22-26.
[6] Archives of Maryland, vol. 24 (1904), p. 83-84.
[7] Ibid., p. 198.
Pennsylvania
Like William Nuthead, William Bradford introduced printing in more than one Colony, and he began his American career by establishing the first Pennsylvania press at Philadelphia in 1685. Here that same year he printed Good Order Established in Pennsilvania & New-Jersey in America, the earliest Pennsylvania imprint in the Library of Congress and the second known example of Bradford's press. The author, Thomas Budd, was a successful Quaker immigrant, who settled first at Burlington, N.J., and later at Philadelphia. He intended his description of the two Colonies to stimulate further immigration, and he printed this statement on the title page verso:
It is to be noted, that the Government of these Countries is so settled by Concessions, and such care taken by the establishment of certain fundamental Laws, by which every Man's Liberty and Property, both as Men and Christians, are preserved; so that none shall be hurt in his Person, Estate or Liberty for his Religious Perswasion or Practice in Worship towards God.
Because neither place nor printer is named in the book, it was long thought to have been printed at London, but typographical comparisons made during the latter part of the 19th century demonstrated