The Printer in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg - An Account of his Life & Times, & of his Craft

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Title: The Printer in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg - An Account of his Life & Times, & of his Craft
Author: Rouse, Parke
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Printer in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg - An Account of his Life & Times, & of his Craft" ***

THE
PRINTER
in Eighteenth-Century
_WILLIAMSBURG_

An Account of his Life & Times, & of his Craft

_Williamſburg Craft Series_

_WILLIAMSBURG_
Publiſhed by _Colonial Williamſburg_
MMI

[Illustration: Decorative page header.]

_A Word to the Reader about Eighteenth-Century Typography_

[Illustration: Decorative Capital.]

The paragraphs on this Page and the next have been ſet in an
eighteenth-century Manner. The Type uſed is _Caſlon_, developed in the
early Part of the eighteenth Century by _William Caſlon_, the greateﬅ of
the Engliſh Letter Founders. _Caſlon_ in 1734 iſſued his firﬅ Broadſide
Specimen Sheet of Type Faces cut at his Foundry during the preceding
Decade and a Half.

Although _Caſlon_ is famous for the beautiful Type that bears his Name,
he deſerves equal Credit for deſigning ſome of the moﬅ handſome Type
Ornaments or “Flowers” ever developed, before or after his Time. Such
Type Flowers had many Uſes—to embelliſh Initial Letters at the Beginning
of a Chapter in a Book; as decorative Devices in a ſingle Row over a
Type Heading ﬅarting a new Page in a Book; or over Headings each Time a
new Subject was introduced in a Text. Flowers were caﬅ to all the
regular Bodies of the Letter from the ſmall (_Nonpareil_) to the large
(_Great Primer_) Size. The Type Flowers uſed at the Head of this Page,
in the built-up Initial opening the firﬅ Paragraph, and elſewhere in
this Publication are reproduced from original eighteenth-century Flowers
excavated at the Site of the Printing Office on _Duke of Glouceﬅer_
Street in _Williamſburg_.

The longs “s” ſo evident in theſe Paragraphs originated in the _German_
Hand Script. Early _German_ Type Founders attempted to reproduce
Handwriting as cloſely as poſſible. In the Attempt the long “s” was
evolved and was adopted by the firﬅ _Engliſh_ Printers who learned their
Trade from the _Germans_. The long “s” remained in general Uſe until
about the Year 1800. It was always uſed at the Beginning and in the
Middle of a Word, but never to terminate a Word. It can eaſily be
recognized by the Fact of having only half a Croſſbar or none at all,
whereas the Letter “f” has a full Croſſbar.

Ligatures, ſuch as ct, ſb, ſſ, ſi, ſſi, ſk, ſl, ſſl, ﬅ, ﬁ, ﬃ, ﬀ, ﬂ, ﬄ,
were developed where a long “s” or an “f” overlapped the following
Letter. Caﬅing the two Characters together avoided Damage to the
overlapping Letter. Although ſome Ligatures have fallen into Diſuſe, the
ﬁ, ﬃ, ﬀ, ﬂ, and ﬄ are ﬅill common today.

Printers alſo applied, through much of the Century, ſome Rules of Style
which the modern Reader may find odd if not awkward. For Example, they
began all Nouns with a capital Letter, thus diﬅinguiſhing them from
other Parts of Speech ſuch as Adjectives, Verbs, &c. In the ſame
Faſhion, they capitalized Expreſſions of particular Emphaſis, and Titles
of Honor and Eminence. The Names of Perſons and Places they not only
began with capital Letters but usually ſet in _Italic_ Type as well.

With the exception of certain _Scottiſh_ faces, small Capitals were
found in _Roman_ Fonts of Type only. They were employed to denote
Emphaſis and Streſs, and were uſed where the large Capitals would not
fit, i.e., were too long. Small Capitals were alſo found in the firﬅ
Word of the firﬅ Paragraph after every Break in Context of a Chapter or
Section of Text.

Strange though ſome eighteenth-century Printing may appear to today’s
Reader, there is one Point that ſhould be ﬅreſſed. The Idioſyncracies of
a Type Page of the Period were not merely Whims of individual Printers.
They were the Faſhion of the Time. When a Printer uſed ſeveral Sizes and
Styles of Type on a Page, he was practicing what he and his
Contemporaries conſidered to be good Typography.

The Printer in
Eighteenth-Century
_Williamsburg_

[Illustration: Decorative header.]

_The Printer in Eighteenth-Century_ Williamsburg

[Illustration: Decorative Capital.]

If you had visited Williamsburg in the year 1743, say, and wanted to
post a letter, buy a book, a newspaper, or some writing paper, or talk
with an influential townsman, you would have sought out the shop of
William Parks on Duke of Gloucester Street. Parks published the
_Virginia Gazette_, the first newspaper in the Virginia colony, and his
printing office served also as post office, bookshop, stationery store,
and general information center.

It was a place of many sounds and smells, and of much activity. There
you would find ink-smudged printer’s devils carefully sorting type under
the watchful eye of the journeyman printer, an accomplished craftsman
and exacting instructor. There you would also find the bookbinder among
his calfskins, marbled papers, glues, and presses. And on the shelves,
waiting for buyers, were pamphlets and leatherbound volumes produced in
the shop or imported from England.

Perhaps, if you were lucky, you might see a postrider burst in with
London papers, rushed from a ship just arrived from England. Then the
printing shop was never livelier, for the coming of news from abroad was
an exciting event. At such times, Printer Parks probably stopped what he
was doing, culled the choicest items from the London journals, and made
space for them on the front page of the next issue of the _Gazette_. In
a day or so, “the freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestick,” would be on
their way to Parks’s subscribers.

In the small (1,500 people) capital of Williamsburg, this printing
office was a nerve center through which news of the vast outer world
reached Virginians and, in turn, news of His Majesty’s largest American
colony was conveyed to other colonists and their homeland. By modern
standards it was a small printing shop. But in its effect on the people
of the Virginia colony, it was a powerful civilizing force. As one of
eight or nine printers of colonial newspapers, moreover, William Parks,
through his paper, kept the people of the other colonies informed of the
major events that were taking place in the oldest and largest outpost of
Britain in America.

_THE PRINTING OFFICE TODAY_

For these reasons, Colonial Williamsburg has re-created an
eighteenth-century printing office as one of its series of craft shops.
Here the twentieth-century visitor will find equipment such as was used
two hundred years ago in similar printing establishments on Duke of
Gloucester Street operated by Parks and later by William Hunter, Joseph
Royle, Alexander Purdie, John Dixon, William Hunter, Jr., William Rind,
and their successors. Here a master printer and his apprentice, in the
leather aprons and full-cut breeches of the period, set by hand type
closely resembling that which Parks used.

To print its pages of hand-set type, the present Printing Office has in
operation three so-called “English Common Presses” such as were built in
the eighteenth century. One, believed to have been made about 1750, was
given to Colonial Williamsburg by American Type Founders, Incorporated,
and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Of the other two, one was
designed by Ralph Green of Chicago after a careful study of the handful
of known eighteenth-century presses in the United States, and both were
built by Colonial Williamsburg craftsmen.

In addition to the _Gazette_, tracts, pamphlets, and books poured from
Parks’s press from the time he came to Williamsburg about 1730 until he
died on a voyage to England in 1750. Surviving examples of his work
reveal that he first used Dutch type, which was followed by the more
pleasing face so “friendly to the eye” developed by William Caslon in
England. From matrices similar to Caslon’s originals, his successors in
the type-founding business have cast the letters used on the restored
Williamsburg press. Parks’s neat printing and binding ornaments, so
characteristic of the classical-minded eighteenth century, have been
similarly reproduced. Eighteenth-century printers’ tools were made from
the careful drawings in Diderot’s Encyclopedia and from other sources.

To provide the kind of paper used by eighteenth-century printers,
Colonial Williamsburg began research in the 1930s into the history of
the town’s only paper mill. Started by Parks about 1743 with the help of
his friend Benjamin Franklin, the mill is believed to have outlived him.
Examples of its product were identified in 1936 in a German Bible and a
song book printed in Pennsylvania in 1763. Paper that simulated the
Parks paper was thereupon reproduced, and was used in some of the work
of the Printing Office and in some Colonial Williamsburg books designed
after examples of Parks’s work. Even the specks and spots of the
original Parks paper were imitated by a mixture of ground flaxseed
incorporated into the paper to insure the appearance of authenticity.

Visitors to the Printing Office today may not see counterparts of the
postriders who brought mail to Parks’s printing shop and post office,
but nearly everything else is there. As in colonial days, the central
figure is still the printer, bending over his press and producing in a
day’s work what one modern, mechanized press can turn out in a few
minutes.

_WILLIAMSBURG’S FIRST PRINTER_

Although the colony of Virginia was founded in 1607, it was not until
the eighteenth century that printing was established there. This delay
was largely due to governmental policy. In seventeenth-century England
and her colonies, freedom of the press was yet to be established. Even
laws passed by governing bodies could not without official permission be
printed and circulated for the benefit of citizens. Until the Licensing
Act of 1662 expired in 1695, the printing trade in England was confined
to London, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and to the English
city of York. The governors of the royal colony of Virginia felt
empowered to refuse permission for the establishment of printing until
the year 1690, after which printers were governed by royal instructions
which required a license and permission from the governor as a
prerequisite to setting up shop.

Sir William Berkeley, who was governor of Virginia from 1642 to 1652 and
again from 1660 to 1677, summarized the attitude of most officials of
his day in his famous statement, “But, I thank God, there are no free
schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years;
for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the
world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best
government. God keep us from both.” (Berkeley was in error: free schools
_had_ existed in Virginia, though printing had not.)

In 1682, a few years after Berkeley wrote, a printer named William
Nuthead came to Jamestown, then the capital of Virginia, proposing to
serve the government by printing the acts of the Assembly. He was
ordered by the Governor’s Council to await royal approval. Several
months later a new governor arrived with an order from the king that “no
person be permitted to use any press for printing upon any occasion
whatsoever.” Nuthead moved to Maryland, and printing in Virginia was
delayed fifty years.

[Illustration: _Title page of TYPOGRAPHIA, printed by William Parks
upon the establishment of his press in Williamsburg; reproduced from
the only surviving copy—in the John Carter Brown Library,
Providence, Rhode Island._]

_TYPOGRAPHIA._
AN
ODE,
ON
PRINTING.

Inſcrib’d to the Honourable
WILLIAM GOOCH, ^_Eſq_;
His Majesty’s Lieutenant-Governor, and Commander in
Chief of the Colony of _VIRGINIA_.

—— _Pleni ſunt omnes Libri, plenæ ſapientum voces, plena Exemplorum
vetuﬅas; quæ jacerent in Tenebris omnia, niſi Literarum Lumen
accederet._
Cic. Orat. pro Archia.

_WILLIAMSBURG:_
Printed by William Parks. M,DCC,XXX.

Before 1730, however, a more tolerant attitude had developed. With the
permission of Governor William Gooch, the English-born William Parks
moved that year from Annapolis to Williamsburg, which had succeeded
Jamestown as the capital of Virginia in 1699. He was designated public
printer of Virginia, at an annual salary of £120 a year, eventually
increased to £280. Parks continued to print the acts of the Virginia
Assembly, which he had begun several years before in Maryland, and soon
advertised for subscriptions for a proposed _Virginia Miscellany_ “at
his House, near the Capitol, in Williamsburg.” Before the year was out
he had printed several works, at least five of which are known by title.
One of these is an ode to printing, _Typographia_, by one “J. Markland,”
which salutes Gooch for his encouragement of printing. In the high-flown
style of its day, the ode concludes:

“_A Ruler’s gentle Influence
Shall o’er his Land be shewn;
Saturnian Reigns shall be renew’d
Truth, Justice, Vertue, be pursu’d
Arts flourish, Peace shall crown the Plains,
Where GOOCH administers, AUGUSTUS reigns._”

Parks was Williamsburg’s most distinguished eighteenth-century printer
and probably its most successful. In the annals of his craft in America
he is ranked with Benjamin Franklin and William Bradford, the foremost
printers in Pennsylvania and New York. Parks, like all of his brethren,
depended for his bread and butter on printing blank forms (deeds,
mortgages, bills, and the like), government work (such as proclamations,
forms, and laws), almanacs, and other job work, but he helped establish
in the American colonies that dependence upon free and fair discussion
of issues in the newspapers which strengthened the concept of a free
press. He gave impetus to literature in a colony that had lacked the
local means for its encouragement. By his example, he was partly
responsible for the rash of journalistic enterprise in pre-Revolutionary
Williamsburg.

Parks’s most influential act was his founding of the _Virginia Gazette_,
the first newspaper to be published in Virginia and the second south of
Maryland. Begun in 1736, this weekly was the leader of a colorful
succession of similarly named sheets in Williamsburg and later in
Richmond, to which the Virginia government removed in 1780. And in these
_Gazettes_—in the 1770s published by as many as three competing printers
at a time—can be found a rich chronicle of the events in the colonies
leading to the American Revolution. Important foreign and domestic
occurrences were described in dispatches—perhaps taken in some cases
from private correspondence—and in excerpts from other newspapers. The
editor rarely reported local happenings beyond a brief mention of ship
arrivals, marriages, deaths, fires, and the like. He often printed legal
notices and entire acts of the Virginia Assembly, without comment.
Fulsomely phrased letters to the editor posed weighty questions of
government, science, or theology.

The modern reader will find the _Virginia Gazette_ of 1736 to 1750
undramatic in its lack of headlines, pictures, and display type. But the
ingredients of human interest are there, subtly in the note of
controversy which gradually built up to the Revolution, and emphatically
in the advertisements, which largely financed the _Gazette_. Many are
the notices of runaway slaves, strayed farm animals, husbands deserted
by wives, or blooded horses available for racing or breeding. From the
advertisements, also, the contemporary Virginia reader could learn of
the arrival of goods from London—articles of fashion that were highly
prized by Virginians as evidence of their Englishness. In an early issue
of the _Gazette_, Parks states:

“Advertisement, concerning Advertisements

“All Persons who have Occasion to buy or sell Houses, Lands, Goods, or
Cattle; or have Servants or Slaves Runaway; or have lost Horses,
Cattle, &c. or want to give any Publick Notice; may have it advertis’d
in all these _Gazettes_ printed in one Week, for Three Shillings, and
for Two Shillings _per_ Week for as many Weeks afterwards as they
shall order, by giving or sending their Directions to the _Printer_
hereof.

“And, as these Papers will circulate (as speedily as possible) not
only all over This, but also the Neighbouring Colonies, and will
probably be read by some Thousands of People, it is very likely they
may have the desir’d Effect; and it is certainly the cheapest and most
effectual Method that can be taken, for Publishing any Thing of this
Nature.”

_PRINTING IN AN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY_

William Parks’s significant achievements seem even greater if one
understands the difficulties of operating a business in the Williamsburg
of 1730-1750. Because Virginia’s colonial prosperity was based on a
one-crop economy—tobacco—little “ready money” was in circulation within
the colony. The weed itself became a sort of currency. The usual
practice was for the plantation owner or the small farmer to subsist on
his produce and his credit until the crop was harvested and shipped to
English merchants, who from the proceeds of its sale bought for the
planter such articles as he had directed. Because all American tobacco
was transported to Britain in British vessels, shipping space was
plentiful on the westward passage, and shipowners and British merchants
offered Virginia buyers cheap freight rates on finished goods. Thus such
English manufactures as cloth, furniture, pewter, silver, and ceramics
were sold to Virginia planters and merchants.

The two-way trade between Virginia planters and British merchants slowed
down the development of a large Virginia artisan group. Accordingly,
local industry was limited in eighteenth-century Virginia, even in an
urban center such as Williamsburg. Virginia craftsmen complained
bitterly of unpaid accounts, the necessity of accepting such “country
pay” as tobacco, corn, and beef, and the paucity of buyers who offered
ready money.

It is easy to understand why William Parks found relatively few
craftsmen in the Williamsburg of his day. Except for a few trades such
as cabinetmaking, blacksmithing, coopering, wigmaking, tailoring, and
shoemaking, the Virginia capital was largely a community of taverns,
townhouses, and governmental institutions, and the colony itself was
overwhelmingly rural. There is no doubt that Virginia’s reliance on
agriculture, a reliance approved by British mercantile theory, resulted
in an overdependence on the industry of the mother country. We can thank
the peculiarities of Parks’s situation—the inability of English printers
to satisfy Virginians’ desire for regional news, and the subsidy Parks
received as public printer—that his craft became firmly established in
the 1730s in Virginia. Indeed, it seems clear that the prospect of
becoming Virginia’s public printer was what lured Parks from Annapolis
to Williamsburg in the first place.

_PARKS’S SUCCESSORS IN WILLIAMSBURG_

Altogether, Williamsburg had at least twelve master printers and three
separate printing locations or offices during the colonial period. After
Parks died on a voyage to England, William Hunter, the man whom he had
left in charge, bought the business. Publication of the _Virginia
Gazette_ continued, and Hunter became public printer and postmaster. In
the latter capacity he worked in close association with an astute
Philadelphia printer, Benjamin Franklin, with whom he served jointly as
deputy postmaster-general for all the colonies. Hunter printed in 1754
the first published writing of George Washington, entitled _The Journal
of Major George Washington, sent by the Hon. Robert Dinwiddie, Esq; His
Majesty’s Lieutenant-Governor, and Commander in Chief of Virginia, to
the Commandant of the French Forces on Ohio...._

[Illustration: _Masthead of Purdie’s VIRGINIA GAZETTE before the
adoption of the Virginia Resolution for American Independence on May
15, 1776, by the Virginia Convention of Delegates meeting at the
Capitol in Williamsburg._]

May 10, 1776. NUMBER 67.
THE
VIRGINIA GAZETTE.
Always for LIBERTY, And the PUBLICK GOOD.
ALEXANDER PURDIE, Printer.

[Illustration: _Masthead of Purdie’s VIRGINIA GAZETTE, substituting
type ornaments for a coat of arms of the Royal Colony of Virginia,
the first issue after the adoption of the Virginia Resolution. There
had not been time to develop a new cut._]

MAY 17, 1776. NUMBER 68.
THE
VIRGINIA GAZETTE.
THIRTEEN
UNITED COLONIES.
_United, we stand—Divided, we fall._
Always for LIBERTY, And the PUBLICK GOOD.

[Illustration: _Masthead of Purdie’s VIRGINIA GAZETTE in a following
issue, showing the new cut that reflected the growing spirit of
independence._]

JUNE 7, 1776. NUMBER 71.
THE
VIRGINIA GAZETTE.
Always for LIBERTY, And the PUBLICK GOOD.
_High_ HEAVEN _to_ GRACIOUS ENDS _directs the_ STORM:

After Hunter’s death in 1761, the printing office had a succession of
owners and operators. As tension increased between Great Britain and her
American colonies, especially after the adoption of the Stamp Act in
1765, the relation of public printer to government became more
difficult. The printer faced the necessity of maintaining good relations
with both loyalist and patriot elements in the House of Burgesses. One
loyalist reader of the _Gazette_, the Reverend John Camm, complained in
the early 1760s that Hunter’s successor, Joseph Royle, refused to
publish Camm’s pamphlet arguing the cause of Church of England clergymen
because of its “Satyrical Touches upon the Late Assembly.” On the other
hand, certain patriot members criticized Royle in the columns of the
_Maryland Gazette_ for allegedly refusing to print their criticisms of
local government. The printer was caught between fires.

Criticism of the _Gazette_ continued after Royle died in January 1766,
and Alexander Purdie, a Scotsman, took over the business. In what is
thought to have been his first issue, Purdie announced that “the press
shall likewise be as free as any Gentleman can wish, or desire; and I
crave the countenance and favour of the publick no longer than my
conduct may appear to merit their approbation.” Later the same month,
Purdie wrote, “As I understand it is thought by some that I have
neglected, or refused, to publish the account of a late transaction at
Hobb’s Hole [Tappahannock], this is to assure the publick ... that I
never saw the same, nor was it ever offered to me to publish, otherwise
it would have seen the light before this time: For I do now, as I have
heretofore declared, that my press shall be as free as any Gentleman can
wish or desire; that is, as free as any publick press upon the
continent.” In 1775, after Purdie established another _Virginia
Gazette_, his paper bore the appealing motto “Always for Liberty, and
the Publick Good.”

_TOWARD A FREE PRESS_

In spite of Purdie’s efforts, the trend was toward a competitive press.
A rival _Virginia Gazette_ was set up in Williamsburg in 1766 by William
Rind, a Maryland printer who was more sympathetic to the protesting
colonists than Royle and Purdie were thought to be. The motto of his
paper cannily proclaimed “Open to all Parties but influenced by None.”
Governor Francis Fauquier at this time reported to the British Board of
Trade: “The late printer to the Colony [Royle] is dead, and as the press
was then thought to be too complaisant to me, some of the hot Burgesses
invited a printer [Rind] from Maryland. Upon which the foreman [Purdie]
to the late printer, who is also a candidate for the place, has taken up
the newspaper again in order to make interest with the Burgesses.”
Jefferson, who in 1766 was completing his study of law, and was a friend
and admirer of Fauquier’s, recalled later: “We had but one press, and
that having the whole business of the government, and no competitor for
public favor, nothing disagreeable to the governor could be got into it.
We procured Rind to come from Maryland to publish a free paper.”

The hot-spirited Rind was elected public printer by the House of
Burgesses. However, the job being too much for one printer alone, the
Assembly in 1769 authorized both _Gazette_ publishers, Rind and Purdie,
to print a large volume containing the Acts of Assembly then in force.
Rind continued in office until his death in 1773 when his widow,
Clementina Rind, took over the business as Virginia’s first woman
printer.

The number of weekly newspapers in Williamsburg increased again in 1775
when Purdie, who had taken John Dixon into his business nine years
before, withdrew in favor of William Hunter, Jr., the son of William
Parks’s successor, and established his own _Virginia Gazette_. When the
Revolution broke in 1776, Williamsburg thus had three newspapers, each
called the _Virginia Gazette_. Rind’s _Gazette_ expired by 1777, after a
succession of managers, and Purdie’s (which was continued after his
death in 1779 by Clarkson and Davis) ceased publication in 1780. Dixon
formed a new partnership with Thomas Nicolson in 1779 after William
Hunter, Jr., had joined the British forces. Their newspaper was called
the _Phoenix Gazette and Williamsburg Intelligencer_, but it expired the
following year when these printers followed the seat of government to
establish Richmond’s first press.

So pronounced was the decline in Williamsburg’s fortunes that from the
year of the government’s removal until forty-four years later, in 1824,
Williamsburg had no newspaper. Old copies of the three _Gazettes_ were
treasured reminders of the town’s past glory. The name, _Virginia
Gazette_, and some of the tradition of Parks’s skill were remembered,
but little was done to perpetuate them until the late Dr. W. A. R.
Goodwin in 1926 invited Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to restore
Williamsburg. As a by-product of that movement, the proud masthead of
William Parks’s original _Virginia Gazette_ was revived in 1930 by the
late Joseph A. Osborne and his family. Likewise, in the realm of paper
manufacture, typography, book production, and bookbinding, Colonial
Williamsburg has revived the workmanship of William Parks and his
confreres. In such publications as _The Williamsburg Art of Cookery, or,
Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion_, published in 1938, and _A Brief &
True Report concerning Williamsburg in Virginia_, first published in
1935, Colonial Williamsburg emulated type, paper, format, and binding of
similar volumes from Parks’s press. And at its Printing Office, it has
sought to recapture the manner and mood of a colonial printing shop as a
part of its program to teach twentieth-century Americans more about the
lives and ideas of their pre-Revolutionary ancestors.

_TECHNIQUES OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PRINTING_

In considering the craft of printing, it is important to remember that
the western world has enjoyed the invention of movable type only since
the middle of the fifteenth century. For several centuries thereafter,
the new development was regarded with suspicion by church and state,
which, as we have seen, feared the freedom of thought that would ensue
if reading matter were readily available. Even in the eighteenth
century, an era of enlightenment, printing was suspect.

An equally difficult obstacle facing the colonial printer was the cost
of his press, his type, his paper, and his equipment. Eighteenth-century
industry was largely home operated, based on the capital and ingenuity
of one family. Yet the cost of equipping even the modest one- or
two-press shops of eighteenth-century America was a burden for most
people of the working class. In his famous _Autobiography_, Benjamin
Franklin gives a vivid picture of the immense labor and thought that lay
between a printer’s apprenticeship and ownership. To reach the level of
success that Franklin and Parks achieved required not only skill but
unusual industry and shrewdness.

Eighteenth-century appraisals of several printing houses indicate an
average value of £100 to £125 currency. We may suppose that William
Parks set up shop in Williamsburg in 1730 on some such scale as this,
adding type and other equipment to the value of £359 Virginia currency
or £288 sterling at the time his equipment was sold to William Hunter in
1751. Undoubtedly Parks’s three presses and his type constituted his
chief equipment. The presses presumably were of the English common sort,
which had then been in standard use in the British Isles for nearly one
hundred years. The type was an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, the
letters having been cast in Holland or England, and probably was valued
at more than the rest of Parks’s facilities together. For the rest,
equipment consisted of such printers’ staples as poles for drying paper,
“shooting sticks,” quoins, planes, type cases, type racks, composing
sticks, lye troughs, wetting troughs, and other paraphernalia. For
bookbinding the printer needed other instruments, some of which could be
made in Williamsburg. The majority of the tools, however, were imported
from Great Britain or Holland.

[Illustration: _A paper mill. Here are shown the operations involved
in making a sheet of paper in the eighteenth century. (1) The vatman
dipping the deckle and screen into a vat of paper pulp. (2) The
coucher removing the deckle and pressing the freshly formed sheet of
paper on felt. (3) Preparing the new paper for pressing. (4) A rack
for stacking wet sheets of paper prior to their being pressed. (5)
Details of the paper press. (6) Details of the vat._ DIDEROT.]

As he received each font or size of type, the colonial printer would
distribute it in a set of four wooden trays, two for Roman type and two
for italic. These contained partitions for each “character,” or “sort,”
as the letters and numerals were called. Such partitions varied in size
depending on the frequency of use of each letter or numeral, and they
were so placed as to permit the printer to assemble type with a minimum
of movement. (Because capital letters are usually arranged in the upper
two cases and small letters in the lower two, printers traditionally
refer to them as “upper case” or “lower case,” respectively.)

In setting a page of printed matter the colonial printer rapidly plucked
the necessary characters, one by one, from their compartments in the
upper and lower cases. He placed them, with proper spacing, in a
“composing stick” set to the proper length of line. When the stick was
full he transferred the type to a shallow wooden tray called a “galley.”
Having assembled in the galley enough type to form a page, the printer
“tied it off,” i.e., bound a piece of string tightly around the whole
mass. Then he could slide the assembled page off the galley onto the
surface of the “imposing stone,” a flat marble working surface. Such
transfers of type—especially from composing stick to galley—were often
attended with accidents. One of the printer’s commoner frustrations was
to have a stick, a galley, or even a whole page form of type dropped and
“pied.”

On the imposing stone a rectangular wrought-iron frame or “chase” was
then placed around the type, and the finished page was locked into place
with wooden blocks and wedges called “furniture” and “quoins.” After
being locked, it could be picked up and moved to the printing press
without danger of the type falling out of place.

The eighteenth-century printer used paper made by hand from linen rags,
importing it from Great Britain in the earlier years while domestic
mills were gradually developing. Because such paper was uneven in
texture and poorly sized, it was dampened before being put on the press
to provide a more pliant working surface. For ink, Parks and his
contemporaries used a combination of lampblack and varnish, which remain
the chief constituents of printer’s ink today. Lampblack was obtained by
burning various materials and collecting the carbon in flues, while
varnish was made of pine resin boiled in linseed oil until a clear
liquid resulted. Most printers “rubbed” or mixed the lampblack and
varnish thoroughly. If the mixture was too thick, it could be thinned
with linseed oil or whale oil. If red ink was desired for two-color
printing, vermilion could be substituted for lampblack.

[Illustration: _A view of a typical eighteenth-century printer’s
composing room. Here type was set by hand to be printed on the
press. (1) Setting type in a composing stick. (2) Transferring a
stick of set type to a galley. (3) Planing a type form by beating
lightly on the type surface with a block of wood and a mallet._
DIDEROT.]

[Illustration: _A typical press room. The puller and beater are
shown in two stages of the operations. On the left, a sheet of paper
is placed on the tympan by the puller, and the type is inked by the
beater. On the right, the puller is printing an impression on the
paper, and the beater is distributing ink on his stocks while he
inspects the previous pull._ DIDEROT.]

Once the printer or his apprentices had set the type, pulled a proof,
“made up” the type into pages with the proper spacing and ornaments, and
then locked it into forms by means of furniture and quoins, he placed
his form on the press and adjusted it to get the most even impression.
Then he was ready to begin the actual process of printing. Whereas
printing is commonly done today by automatic presses, fed with paper
either mechanically or by hand, it had to be done one sheet at a time in
the eighteenth century. Two men usually worked the press, and the
printing of a single impression required approximately a dozen different
manual operations.

To ink his press, preparatory to printing, the “beater” spread the
necessary amount of ink on his mixing block and rubbed it to an even
consistency—that of stiff molasses—with a wooden brayer. With two
leather-covered balls attached to wooden handles, he then collected ink
from the stone, beat the “ink balls” together to distribute the sticky
fluid over their surfaces, and then with a rapid rocking and rolling
motion, transferred it onto the type. Then the “puller” placed his paper
on a skin-covered wooden frame called a tympan and folded over it
another light covered frame, called a frisket. These two frames in turn
folded down onto the bed of the press, where the type was locked in its
iron form or chase.

The actual impression was made by rolling the bed of the press, complete
with folded tympan and frisket, beneath the platen, which was suspended
from a large metal screw. By applying the force of the screw, the puller
pressed the paper firmly against the inked type. The size of the printed
matter might vary from a small bookplate or lottery ticket to a sheet
twelve by eighteen inches, which was roughly the page size of Purdie and
Dixon’s _Virginia Gazette_ of 1759. Whatever the dimension, the beater
had to ink his form and the puller had to close and open his press again
each time a surface was printed. Since the platen was so small, only
one-half of a two-page wide newspaper could be printed at a time on the
early press, and a repeat operation was required to complete one side of
the sheet. Thus the press was sometimes called a “two-pull” press.

Two experienced pressmen, working at full speed, could turn out a
“token” or 240 printed sheets (with two pulls and on one side only) per
hour. Such a speed could not long be maintained; the practical output
was closer to 200 sheets per hour. But wages were low, working hours
were long, and the printer could keep his force on the job until the
work was done.

_THE PRINTER AND HIS MEN_

Because of its close association with literature, the craft of printing
has generally attracted a more intellectual type of craftsman and
enjoyed a prestige greater than most others. Over the centuries, master
printers have jealously enforced the standards of their predecessors,
insisting today, as in the eighteenth century, on a long apprenticeship
for learners. Upon completion of the stipulated learning period and
achievement of the required proficiency, the apprentice then, as now,
became a journeyman. A mature and experienced worker at this stage, he
was qualified to take his leave of his master, if he desired, and to
practice his craft where he wished. When such a printer engaged in work
for himself and employed others, he became a master printer.

The apprentice system was in some respects a great boon to
eighteenth-century craftsmen, for it provided cheap labor in return only
for training and the necessities of life. Each master took into his
establishment a number of youngsters, hoping that some might prove of
“bright genius and good disposition.” To these he obligated himself to
provide food, shelter, and in most cases, clothing. The apprentice
thereupon became a member of the printer’s household, performing any
chores assigned to him in the home, shop, or printing office. But
although apprentice labor was cheap, it was unskilled and often inept.
Apprenticeships were frequently broken off, and only the relatively few
youths who were suited for the work and desirous of learning the “art
and mystery” of the craft kept at it until accepted as journeymen at the
age of twenty-one.

Many accounts have come down to us of the abuses as well as the uses of
the apprentice system. Runaways were frequent, as attested by
advertisements such as the one William Parks ran in the _Virginia
Gazette_ in 1745 for the return of a “smooth-tongued” apprentice “who
makes Locks, and is dexterous at picking them.” Sometimes mere children
were apprenticed by poorer families who were unable to support them.
Isaiah Thomas, a New England printer, was indentured at the age of six.
In return for his training and keep, he bound himself to avoid
drunkenness and carnal pursuits and to serve his master until he became
twenty-one. However, the majority of apprentices were indentured at
fourteen, to serve until they reached man’s estate.

The apprentice system largely supplied the printer’s need for unskilled
labor, but he could supplement it with slaves or with indentured
servants. The latter were usually young Englishmen of the lower classes
who had emigrated to America and who had bound themselves to a term of
labor in return for their voyage. Unlike apprentices, however, they were
not required to be taught to print.

Trained, or journeymen, printers were scarce in colonial times, and they
seem to have been often on the go. Even master printers moved about
frequently. William Parks had engaged in printing in three English towns
and in Annapolis before coming to Williamsburg in 1730. William Rind,
who established his paper in Williamsburg in 1766, came there from
Annapolis. Of Williamsburg’s other master printers and journeymen, some
were locally trained but others had been apprenticed in England.

_A NOTE ON THE PRINTING OFFICE_

Although the Printing Office of Colonial Williamsburg does not attempt
precisely to re-create any particular colonial printing shop, it does
represent the craft as it was practiced in the mid-1700s. Here the
twentieth-century American is invited to pause and look about him.
Perhaps, if he is in a receptive mood, he may sense the spirit of the
talented William Parks, keeping a watchful eye over apprentices and
journeymen while type is set, presses are inked, and impressions are
pulled from the press. Perhaps he can discern some Virginia planter
making his way to Parks’s bookshelf, to buy Allestree’s _The Whole Duty
of Man_ or Bayly’s _The Practice of Piety_ to take with him to his
plantation and read during winter evenings.

Entering the Printing Office, the visitor finds himself in a typical
Williamsburg structure of the eighteenth century. Fireplaces on each
floor of the shop warm the workers in cold weather and dry the printed
sheets of paper hung on overhead racks. Many-paned windows provide most
of the shop’s illumination during daylight hours, and also a place—in
the bays on Duke of Gloucester Street—for the printer to post signs and
samples of his work. At night and on dark days candelabra hanging from
the ceiling and tin sconces against the walls hold candles whose smoky
flames blacken the plaster as they help to light the working areas.

On the street floor are the post office, stationery, and bookselling
counter—one of the important areas of the normal colonial printing
office, since it combined three of the most important sidelines. Along
with the shelves of books for sale, some bound in leather and some in
temporary paper covers, there is a mail rack with slots for letters and
newspapers.

[Illustration: _A bookbindery. In this view, several important
binding operations can be seen. (a) Beating folded sections of a
book so that they will lie flat. (b) Stitching folded sections to
the heavy cords that hold the book together. (c) Trimming the edges
of a freshly sewn book on a ploughing press. (d) Pressing freshly
bound books in a large standing press. BELOW. (1-3) The blocks and
hammer used by the binder. (4) The sewing frame. (5-6) Twine. (7-12)
Parts of the sewing frame. (13-14) Wood or bone folders._ DIDEROT.]

On the same floor is the printer’s “counting room” or what would
nowadays be called his “accounting department.” Here he kept the
numerous business records called for by the cumbersome bookkeeping
systems of that day, penned business letters, and perhaps wrote out in
longhand the material he intended for publication in the _Virginia
Gazette_. Eighteenth-century printers often engaged in several other
businesses at the same time—importing goods of almost any kind, selling
farm products on commission, and trying anything that might turn a
penny.

Excavation of the Printing Office site and careful study of the
surviving eighteenth-century foundations and brick flooring gave
evidence—in the form of reinforced footings—as to where at least one
press may have stood. This was in the lower floor of the building, where
again today the shop’s printing operation is concentrated. There the
three presses mentioned earlier occupy the center of the room, all of
them in working order. Large racks for the storage of type line the
wall, surmounted by open, slanting cases of type in current use. The
cases contain a complete set of Caslon letters, from the diminutive
Nonpareil (6-point) to Six Line Pica (72-point), which is one inch tall.
Usually the printer employs the Pica (12-point) and English (14-point)
sizes, which were customarily used in colonial times. He and his
colleagues identified type sizes by name only; since the present point
system was not in use then.

Printer’s ink and its ingredients—varnish, lampblack or vermilion, and
linseed oil—are kept in saltglaze jugs. Other vessels contain drinking
water, and the wetting trough is filled, ready for dampening paper
before printing. On the floor, weighted boards atop stacks of wetted
paper keep the sheets from curling as the dampness permeates evenly
throughout the pile.

[Illustration: _Title page of AN INQUIRY ..., printed by Alexander
Purdie. Written in the midst of the Stamp Act controversy, this
influential pamphlet presented a reasoned view of the colonists’
position. It appeared before Purdie formed a partnership with John
Dixon._]

AN
INQUIRY
INTO THE
Rights of the BRITISH Colonies,

Intended as an Anſwer to

_The Regulations lately made concerning the Colonies, and the Taxes
impoſed upon them conſidered._

In a Letter addreſſed to the Author of that Pamphlet.

By _RICHARD BLAND_, of Virginia.

_Dedit omnibus Deus pro virili portione ſapientiam, ut et inaudita
inveﬅigare poſſent et audita perpendere._
Lactantius.

WILLIAMSBURG:
Printed by Alexander Purdie, & C^o.
MDCCLXVI.

Here the printer and his helpers set type, pull proofs and correct their
galleys, make up pages on the marble imposing stone, prepare paper and
ink, run off the job on one or more of the presses, and finally,
redistribute the type to the cases. The printed sheets, in the meantime,
may have to be hung on ceiling racks to allow both ink and paper to dry
out.

In the small back shop, a separate building, the similarly cluttered
bookbinding shop may be found. In it the bookbinder of today, working
with the tools and methods of his eighteenth-century predecessors, sews
together the printed and folded signatures that make a book, binds them
in boards, and covers the boards—perhaps in elegantly decorated leather
bindings. He may use marbled paper of his own making for end-papers or
on the outer covers of smaller books. For tooling and lettering the
cover he has a collection of brass dies, some of which are designed from
lettering stamps excavated in the vicinity of his—and William Parks’s
workshop.

_OUR PRINTING HERITAGE_

From the crude presses of Williamsburg came an ingredient essential to
the movement toward American self-government and independence—the
political pamphlet. In the world of the eighteenth century, devoid of
radio, television, or the bulky daily paper, the substance of political
debate came from such pamphlets. It was also an era which took its
political philosophy seriously, and the author of a pamphlet could count
on wide readership among the planter-aristocrats who controlled the
machinery of government. Williamsburg, as the colony’s capital and its
political and intellectual center, was the obvious city to lend its
imprint to the speculations of Virginia’s pamphleteers.

One of the most significant early tracts was Richard Bland’s _An Inquiry
into the Rights of the British Colonies_, printed by Alexander Purdie in
March 1766. Writing in the aftermath of the previous year’s fiery Stamp
Tax debates, Bland vigorously proclaimed his belief in Locke’s doctrines
of natural rights and natural law. Reprinted in London, Bland’s tract
was evidence of the mounting sentiment for self-rule in the colonies.
Bland’s _Inquiry_ was also a memorial to its author, a man who devoted
much of his life to public service. An aged delegate to Virginia’s first
state legislature in October 1776, Bland collapsed in the Williamsburg
streets on his way to a session, and died hours later in the home of his
friend, John Tazewell.

[Illustration: _Jefferson’s SUMMARY VIEW, from the press of
Williamsburg’s only woman printer. Of all of Jefferson’s writing
this has been described as the document second only to the
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE in influencing the colonies to break
from England. Printed by Clementina Rind, this is an example of the
type of document not readily accepted by some Williamsburg printers
and for which the Rinds were encouraged to establish themselves in
the eighteenth-century Virginia capital._]

A
SUMMARY VIEW
OF THE
RIGHTS
OF
BRITISH AMERICA.
SET FORTH IN SOME
RESOLUTIONS
INTENDED FOR THE
INSPECTION
OF THE PRESENT
DELEGATES
OF THE
PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA.
NOW IN
CONVENTION.

By a NATIVE, and MEMBER of the
HOUSE of BURGESSES.
_by Thomas Jefferson._

WILLIAMSBURG:
Printed BY CLEMENTINA RIND.

The most important pamphlet printed in Williamsburg was _A Summary View
of the Rights of British America_, from the pen of Thomas Jefferson.
Lying ill up-country in August of 1774, when Virginia’s legislators were
convened in Williamsburg to send off delegates for the First Continental
Congress, Jefferson wrote his tract to suggest instructions that might
guide these delegates at Philadelphia.

The _Summary View_ was read aloud by Peyton Randolph in his home on
Market Square to a room filled with Virginia patriots. It was too
radical for some, but moving to all. It was at once set in type by
Clementina Rind, Williamsburg’s only woman printer. Among the first to
purchase a copy was George Washington, who noted in his diary that it
cost him three shillings ninepence. The pamphlet was reprinted in
Philadelphia and London and has been described as second only to the
Declaration of Independence in charting the American course toward
independence. John Adams of Massachusetts testified that the _Summary
View_ gave Jefferson “the reputation of a masterly pen” among Congress
delegates in 1776 and won for the Virginian his assignment to draft the
Declaration.

To the Williamsburg printer we owe a word of thanks for the important
part that he has played in the affairs of this early Virginia
capital—affairs that had notable influence on the course of American
history. Since civilization began, the communication of ideas has
largely depended upon the written word. The eighteenth-century printers
of Williamsburg—and all America—served that need at a time of great
moment, when the destiny of the emerging ideals of political democracy,
free speech, a free press, and freedom of conscience was uncertain. They
had the privilege of enlisting their craftsmanship in the service of
freedom, peace, and plenty, goals that continue to beckon mankind.

To the printer’s art, then, we wholeheartedly render the tribute which
J. Markland pronounced in _Typographia_, in 1730, as he saluted Governor
Gooch and Printer Parks for giving Virginia its first press:

“_Happy the Art, by which we learn
Gloss of Errors to detect,
The Vice of Habits to correct,
And sacred Truths, from Falsehood to discern!
By which we take a far-stretch’d View,
And learn our Fathers Vertues to pursue,
Their Follies to eschew._”
_1730-1780_

[Illustration: Decorative footer.]

[Illustration: Decorative header.]

_The Master Printers of_ Williamsburg
_1730-1780_

1730-1750 _William Parks._ Printer and publisher in three English towns
and in Annapolis before he opened the first printing office in
Williamsburg in 1730; founded the _Virginia Gazette_ in 1736; died
in 1750.

1751-1761 _William Hunter._ Probably learned printing as an apprentice
to Parks, whose foreman he became; bought the printing office from
Parks’s estate in 1751; was jointly with Franklin deputy
postmaster-general for the colonies from 1753 until his death in
1761.

1761-1766 _Joseph Royle._ Born in England; became Hunter’s foreman about
1758 and married Hunter’s sister; co-legatee, with Hunter’s minor
son, of the printing business; died in 1766.

1766-1773 _William Rind._ Came from Maryland to Williamsburg in 1766 on
the invitation of Jefferson and other “hot Burgesses” who thought
Royle too submissive to the governor; established a rival
_Virginia Gazette_ and continued it until he died in 1773.

1766-1779 _Alexander Purdie._ Born and trained in Scotland; was foreman
to Royle, whose will bequeathed him an interest in the business
along with Royle’s minor son and William Hunter, Jr.; took John
Dixon as partner, and himself stepped out when young Hunter came
of age in 1774; established a new printing office and issued a
third _Virginia Gazette_ until his death in 1779.

1766-1780 _John Dixon._ Had been Royle’s business manager before the
latter’s death, and thereafter married his widow; partner in turn
of Purdie, William Hunter, Jr., and Thomas Nicolson; moved to
Richmond in 1780.

1773-1774 _Clementina Rind._ Widow of William Rind; continued his
printing business for one year—from his death in 1773 until her
own in 1774.

1774-1777 _John Pinkney._ Continued the Rind printing business and
_Gazette_ on behalf of the Rind children from Clementina’s death
until some time in 1777.

1775-1777 _William Hunter Jr._ Natural son of William Sr., who
bequeathed him the printing shop, lot, and half-interest in the
business; on coming of age became active partner of Dixon;
partnership dissolved in 1777; Hunter, a loyalist, followed
Cornwallis to Yorktown in 1781 and thence to exile.

1779-1780 _Thomas Nicolson._ Succeeded William Hunter, Jr., as Dixon’s
partner in 1779; the firm moved to Richmond the following year.

1779-1780 _John Clarkson._ Nephew of Alexander Purdie; continued
Purdie’s _Gazette_ and printing business for about a year in
partnership with Augustine Davis.

1779-1780 _Augustine Davis._ Had been one of Purdie’s printers; with
Clarkson continued as successor to Purdie until 1780.

_Henry Bowcock_, _William Stark_, and _Robert Miller_ were connected
with printing in Williamsburg during the years 1730-1780, but it is
not known in what capacity.

[Illustration: Decorative header.]

_Suggestions for Further Reading_

Bernard Bailyn, ed., _Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750-1776_.
Vol. I: _1750-1765_. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1965.

Susan Stromei Berg, comp., _Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg Imprints_.
New York: Clearwater Publishing Co., 1986.

Charles E. Clark and Charles Wetherell, “The Measure of Maturity: The
_Pennsylvania Gazette_, 1728-1765.” _William and Mary Quarterly_,
3rd Ser., XLVI (April 1989), pp. 279-303.

Richard Beale Davis, _A Colonial Southern Bookshelf: Reading in the
Eighteenth Century_. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979.

Hannah Dustin French, “Early American Bookbinding by Hand,” in Helmut
Lehman-Haupt, ed., _Bookbinding in America: Three Essays_.
Portland, Me.: Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1941.

Rutherfoord Goodwin, “The Williamsburg Paper Mill of William Parks, the
Printer.” _Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America_, XXXI
(1931), pt. 1.

Dard Hunter, _Papermaking in Pioneer America_. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1952.

John Edgar Molnar, _Publication and Retail Book Advertisements in the
“Virginia Gazette,” 1736-1780_. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms
International, 1978.

C. Clement Samford and John M. Hemphill II, _Bookbinding in Colonial
Virginia_. Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg, 1966.

Cynthia Z. Stiverson and Gregory A. Stiverson, “The Colonial Retail Book
Trade: Availability and Affordability of Reading Material in
Mid-Eighteenth-Century Virginia,” in William L. Joyce, David D.
Hall, Richard D. Brown, and John B. Hench, eds., _Printing and
Society in Early America_. Worcester: American Antiquarian
Society, 1983.

Isaiah Thomas, _The History of Printing in America, with a Biography of
Printers, and an Account of Newspapers_. 2nd ed. Albany: American
Antiquarian Society, 1874.

Lawrence C. Wroth, _The Colonial Printer_. Portland, Me.:
Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1938.

——, _William Parks: Printer and Journalist of England and Colonial
America_. Richmond: William Parks Club, 1926.

_The Printer in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg_ was first published in
1955, inaugurating this series of craft pamphlets. Written originally by
Parke Rouse, Jr., then director of publications at Colonial
Williamsburg, it was revised in 1958 by the late Thomas K. Ford, editor,
and has been reprinted in 1964, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1985, 1987, 1990,
1993, 1995, 1997, and 1999.

Transcriber’s Notes

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.

—Silently corrected a few palpable typos.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.

—Transcribed the text of specimen pages.

—Where possible on specimen pages, retained long-ſ and ligatures (but
not typefaces) in the UTF and HTML versions.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Printer in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg - An Account of his Life & Times, & of his Craft" ***

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