University of Virginia Library

ENGLISH AMERICA:
NOW
THE UNITED STATES.

Introduction of the Art.

The early part of the history of the United States, is
not, like that of most other nations, blended with fable.
Many of the first European settlers of this country were
men of letters; they made records of events as they passed,
and they, from the first, adopted effectual methods to
transmit the knowledge of them to their posterity. The
rise and progress of English America, therefore, from its
colonization to the period at which it took a name and
place among sovereign and independent nations, may be
traced with the clearness and certainty of authentic history.

That art which is the preserver of all arts, is worthy of
the attention of the learned and the curious. An account
of the first printing executed in the English colonies of
America, combines many of the important transactions of
the settlement, as well as many incidents interesting in the
revolutions of nations; and exhibits the pious and charitable
efforts of our ancestors in New England, to translate the
sacred books into a language which, at this short distance
of time is, probably, not spoken by an individual of the
human race, and for the use of a nation [1] which is now
virtually extinct. Such is the fluctuation of human affairs!

The particulars respecting the printing and printers of
this country, it is presumed, will gratify professional men;
and a general history of this nature will certainly preserve
many important facts which, in a few years, would be
irrecoverably lost.

Among the first settlers of New England were not
only pious but educated men. They emigrated from
a country where the press had more license than in
other parts of Europe, and they were acquainted with the
usefulness of it. As soon as they had made those provisions
that were necessary for their existence in this land,
which was then a rude wilderness, their next objects were,
the establishment of schools, and a printing press; the
latter of which was not tolerated, till many years afterward,
by the elder colony of Virginia.

The founders of the colony of Massachusetts[2] consisted
of but a small number of persons, who arrived at Salem in
1628.[3] A few more joined them in 1629; and Governor
Winthrop, with the addition of his company of settlers,
arrived in 1630. These last landed at the place since
called Charlestown, opposite to Boston, where they pitched
their tents and built a few huts for shelter. In 1631, they
began to settle Cambridge, four miles from the place
where they landed. They also began a settlement on the
identical spot where Boston now stands. In 1638, they
built an academy at Cambridge, which in process of time
was increased to a college: and they also established
a printing house in that place. In January, 1639, printing
was first performed in that part of North America

which extends from the gulf of Mexico to the Frozen
ocean.

For this press our country is chiefly indebted to the Rev.
Mr. Glover, a nonconformist minister, who possessed a
considerable estate, and had left his native country with a
determination to settle among his friends, who had emigrated
to Massachusetts; because in this wilderness, he
could freely enjoy, with them, those opinions which were
not countenanced by the government and a majority of the
people in England.

Another press, with types, and another printer, were,
in 1660, sent over from England by the corporation for
propagating the gospel among the Indians in New England.
This press, &c., was designed solely for the purpose
of printing the Bible, and other books, in the Indian
language. On their arrival they were carried to Cambridge,
and employed in the printing house already established in
that place.

Notwithstanding printing continued to be performed in
Cambridge, from a variety of causes it happened, that many
original works were sent from New England, Massachusetts
in particular, to London, to be printed. Among these
causes the principal were—first, the press at Cambridge
had, generally, full employment; secondly, the printing
done there was executed in an inferior style; and, thirdly,
many works on controverted points of religion, were not
allowed to be printed in this country. Hence it happened
that for more than eighty years after printing was first
practiced in the colony, manuscripts were occasionally sent
to England for publication.

The fathers of Massachusetts kept a watchful eye on the
press; and in neither a religious nor civil point of view,
were they disposed to give it much liberty. Both the civil
and ecclesiastical rulers were fearful that if it was not under
wholesome restraints, contentions and heresies would arise

among the people. In 1662, the government of Massachusetts
appointed licensers of the press;[4] and afterward,
in 1664, passed a law that "no printing should be allowed
in any town within the jurisdiction, except in Cambridge;"
nor should any thing be printed there but what the government
permitted through the agency of those persons who
were empowered for the purpose. Offenders against this
regulation were to forfeit their presses to the country, and
to be disfranchised of the privilege of printing thereafter.[5]
In a short time, this law was so far repealed as to permit
the use of a press at Boston, and a person was authorized
to conduct it; subject, however, to the licensers who were
appointed for the purpose of inspecting it.

It does not appear that the press, in Massachusetts, was
free from legal restraints till about the year 1755. Holyoke's
Almanack, for 1715, has, in the title page, "Imprimatur,
J. Dudley." A pamphlet, printed in Boston, on the
subject of building market houses in that town, has the
addition of, "Imprimatur, Samuel Shute, Boston, Feb. 19,
1719." James Franklin, in 1723, was ordered by the
government not to publish The New England Courant,
without previously submitting its contents to the secretary
of the province; and Daniel Fowle was imprisoned by
the house of representatives, in 1754, barely on suspicion of
his having printed a pamphlet said to contain reflections
on some members of the general court.[6]

For several years preceding the year 1730, the government
of Massachusetts had been less rigid than formerly; and,
after that period, I do not find that any officer is mentioned
as having a particular control over the press. For a long

time, however, the press appeared to be under greater restrictions
here than in England; that is, till toward the close of
the seventeenth century.

In the course of this work it will appear, that the presses
established in other colonies were not entirely free from
restraint.

The rulers in the colony of Virginia in the seventeenth,
century, judged it best not to permit public schools, nor
to allow the use of the press.[7] And thus, by keeping the
people in ignorance, they thought to render them more
obedient to the laws, to prevent them from libelling the
government, and to impede the growth of heresy, &c.

The press had become free some years previous to the
commencement of the revolution; but it continued for a
long time duly to discriminate between liberty and licentiousness.

Except in Massachusetts, no presses were set up in the
colonies till near the close of the seventeenth century.
Printing then was performed in Pennsylvania, "near
Philadelphia," and afterward in that city, by the same
press, which, in a few years subsequent, was removed to
New York. The use of types commenced in Virginia
about 1681; in 1682 the press was prohibited. In 1709, a
press was established at New London, in Connecticut;
and, from this period, it was gradually introduced into the
other colonies; as well as into several of the West India
islands, belonging to Great Britain.

In 1775 the whole number of printing houses in the
British colonies, now comprising the United States, was
fifty.

Till the year 1760, it, appears that more books were
printed in Massachusetts, annually, than in any of the
other colonies; and, before 1740, more printing was done

there than in all the other colonies. After 1760, the
quantum of printing done in Boston and Philadelphia was
nearly equal, till the commencement of the war. New
York produced some octavo and duodecimo volumes.
The presses of Connecticut were not idle; they furnished
many pamphlets on various subjects, and some small
volumes. Some books were handsomely printed in Virginia
and Maryland; and folio volumes of laws, and a few
octavos and duodecimos, on religion, history and politics,
issued from the presses of Carolina, Rhode Island, New
Hampshire, &c.

Before 1775, printing was confined to the capitals of the
colonies; but the war occasioned the dispersion of presses,
and many were set up in other towns. After the establishment
of our independence, by the peace of 1783, presses
multiplied very fast, not only in seaports, but in all the
principal inland towns and villages.

Paper-making.

The ancient Mexicans made great use of paper. They
manufactured it from the leaves of a genus of the aloe, or
the palm icxotl, and from the thin bark of other trees, by a
process not now known. They formed it into sheets of
various dimensions and thicknesses, so as to answer sundry
purposes; some of the sheets were similar, in thickness,
to the thin pasteboard, and press paper for clothiers,
manufactured in Europe; and some were thinner, but
softer, smoother, and easy to write on. The sheets were
generally made very long, and were polished suitably for
the use to which they were intended to be applied. For
preservation they were made up into rolls, or folded in the
manner of bed screens, and thus formed into books.[8]

Clavigero, who saw and handled specimens which were
preserved in Mexico, informs us, that on this kind of paper
the ancient Mexicans painted, in beautiful and permanent
colors, the representations of their gods, their kings, their
heroes, their animals, their plants, and whatever objects
their fancy dictated, or circumstances might require.
On paper they delineated, in hieroglyphics, painted with
colors which were appropriated to the subject, "the symbols
of their religion, accounts of remarkable events, their
laws, their rites, their customs, their taxes or tributes.
Some of these paintings on paper were chronological,
astronomical, or astrological, in which were represented
their calendar, the positions of the stars, eclipses, changes
of the moon, prognostications of the variations of the
weather; this kind of painting was called, by them, tonalamatl.
Other paintings were topographical, or chorographical,
which served not only to show the extent and
boundaries of possessions, but, likewise, the situation
of places, the direction of the coasts, and courses of the
rivers. The Mexican empire abounded with all these
kinds of paintings on paper; for their painters were innumerable,
and there was hardly anything left unpainted.
If these had been preserved, there would have been nothing
wanting to explain the history of Mexico; but, after the
conquest of the country by the Spaniards, the first
preachers of the gospel, suspicious that superstition was
mixed with all these paintings, made a furious destruction
of them."[9]

Humboldt mentions that "the paper made by the
ancient Mexicans, on which they painted their hieroglyphical
figures, was made of the fibres of agave leaves,
macerated in water, and disposed in layers like the fibres
of the Egyptian cyperus, and the mulberry of the South

Sea islands."[10] He mentions that he had in his possession
"some fragments of the ritual books composed by
the Indians in hieroglyphics at the beginning of the conquest,
written on maguey paper, of a thickness so different
that some of them resembled pasteboard, while others
resembled Chinese paper."[11]

Paper similar to that of Mexico, it is said, was made in
Peru.

Clavigero says "the invention of paper is certainly
more ancient in America than in Egypt, from whence it
was communicated to Europe. It is true that the paper
of the Mexicans is not comparable with paper of the
Egyptians, but it ought to be observed that the former did
not make theirs for writing but painting."

In an account of Pennsylvania by Gabriel Thomas,
published in 1698, he mentions" all sorts of very good
paper are made in the German Town." The mill at which
this paper was made, was the first paper mill erected in the
British colonies. What was then called the German Town,[12]
was afterwards, and is now, known by the name of Germantown,
five miles distant from Philadelphia.[13] The mill
was constructed with logs. The building covered a water
wheel set over a small branch of the Wissahickon. For
this mill there was neither dam nor race. It was built by
Nicholas (or as he was then called Claus) Rittenhouse,[14]

about the year 1689, with the assistance of William Bradford,
then the only printer in the colonies southward or
westward of New England, who procured the tract of
land, then considered of little, if any value, on which the
log mill and a log house for Claus were placed. Bradford
also procured molds and other furniture for the mill.
Claus was from Holland,[15] and a paper-maker by trade.
He was only twenty-one years of age when he arrived in
America. He was something of a carpenter, and did the
chief of the work of these buildings himself. This small
mill was carried away by a freshet.[16] Another mill built
of stone wag erected near to the spot where the first mill
stood. At length this mill was found to be too small for
the increased business of its owner. He built another of
stone, which was larger than the one already erected.
This mill spot was occupied, and the paper-making business
carried on, by the first Claus, or Nicholas, and his
descendants, from 1689 to 1798,[17] one hundred and nine
years, who from time to time made many valuable improvements
in the mills, and in the art of paper-making.
Appendix B.

From Claus, or Nicholas Rittenhouse,[18] and his brother,
(Garrett) who came with him from Holland to America in
1687, or 1688, are descended all of that name now in
Pennsylvania or New Jersey. The late David Rittenhouse,
the philosopher of Pennsylvania, was the grandson
of Claus, the first manufacturer of paper in British
America.

The second establishment of a paper mill erected in
Pennsylvania, or in British America, was built with brick
on the west branch of Chester creek, Delaware county,
twenty miles distant from Philadelphia, by Thomas Wilcox,
who was born in England, and there brought up to papermaking.[19]
Wilcox came to America about the year 1712,
and applied to Rittenhouse for employment, but could not
obtain it, as but little business was then done at the mill.
For fourteen years Wilcox followed other business, and by
his industry and economy he acquired and laid up a small
sum of money, when in 1726, he erected a small paper mill,
and began to make fuller's boards. He continued this
business fourteen years without manufacturing either writing
or printing paper. He gave up his mill to his son
Mark in 1767. Wilcox the father died November 11,
1779, aged ninety.[20]

The paper-making business was carried on in 1815,
by the sons of Mark, who was then-living aged seventy.
He made the paper for the bills issued by congress during
the revolutionary war; for the bills of the first bank
established in Philadelphia; for many other banks and

public offices. He was undoubtedly the first who made
good paper in the United States. In 1770 he was appointed
associate judge for Delaware county.

The third paper mill establishment in Pennsylvania was
erected by William De Wees and John Gorgas, who had
been the apprentices of Rittenhouse. Their mill was on
the Wissahickon creek, eleven miles from Philadelphia,
and built in 1728. They manufactured an imitation of
asses skin paper for memorandum books, which was well
executed.[21]

The fourth mill was also on the Wissahickon, nine
miles from Philadelphia, built by William De Wees, Jr.,
about 1736.

The fifth was erected by Christopher Sower, the first of
the name, about the year 1744, on a branch of Frankford
creek. This was on the lower end of his land.

The improvements in paper-making at Wilcox's and
other mills in Pennsylvania, were principally owing to an
Englishman by the name of John Readen. He was a man
of great professional ingenuity, and a first rate workman.
He had indented himself to the master of the vessel who
brought him from Europe. Wilcox redeemed him, and
employed him several years. He died in 1806, aged sixty.

Engines were not used in the American paper mills before
1756; until then, rags for making paper were pounded.

There were several paper mills in New England, and
two or three in New York, before the revolution.

About the year 1730, an enterprising bookseller in
Boston, having petitioned for, and received some aid
from the legislature of Massachusetts,[22] erected a paper mill,
which was the first set up in that colony. After 1775,
paper mills increased rapidly, in all parts of the Union.

Paper Mills.

My endeavors to obtain an accurate account of the
paper mills in the United States, have not succeeded
agreeably to my wishes, as I am not enabled to procure a
complete list of the mills, and the quantity of paper
manufactured in all the states. I have not received any
particulars that can be relied on from some of the states;
but I believe the following statement will come near the
truth. From the information I have collected it appears
that the mills for manufacturing paper, are in number
about one hundred and eighty-five, viz: in New Hampshire,
7; Massachusetts, 40; Rhode Island, 4; Connecticut,
17; Vermont, 9; New York, 12; Delaware, 10;
Maryland, 3; Virginia, 4; South Carolina, 1; Kentucky,
6; Tennessee, 4; Pennsylvania, about 60; in all the
other states and territories, say 18. Total 195, in the year
1810.

At these mills it may be estimated that there are manufactured
annually 50,000 reams of paper which is consumed
in the publication of 22,500,000 newspapers. This kind
of paper is at various prices according to the quality and
size, and will average three dollars per ream; at which,
this quantity will amount to 150,000 dollars. The weight
of the paper will be about 500 tons.

The paper manufactured, and used, for book printing,
may he calculated at about 70,000 reams per annum, a
considerable part of which is used for spelling, and other
small school books. This paper is also of various qualities
and prices, of which the average may be three dollars and
a half per ream, and at that price it will amount to 245,000
dollars, and may weigh about 630 tons.

Of writing paper, supposing each mill should make 600
reams per annum, it will amount to 111,000 reams; which
at the average price of three dollars per ream, will be
equal, in value to 333,000 dollars, and the weight of it
will be about 650 tons.[23]

Of wrapping paper the quantity made may be computed
at least at 100,000 reams, which will amount to about
83,000 dollars.

Beside the preceding articles, of paper for hangings,
for clothiers, for cards, bonnets, cartridge paper, pasteboards,
&c., a sufficient quantity is made for home consumption.

Most of the mills in Now England have two vats each.
Some in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland,
have three or more—those with two vats can make,
of various descriptions of paper, from 2,000 to 3,000 reams
per annum. A mill with two vats requires a capital of
about 10,000 dollars, and employs twelve or more persons,
consisting of men, boys and girls. Collecting rags, making
paper, &c., may be said to give employment to not less
than 2,500 persons in the United States.

Type Founderies.

An attempt was made to establish a foundery for casting
types in Boston about 1768, by a Mr. Mitchelson from
Scotland, but he did not succeed.

In 1769, Abel Buel of Killingworth in Connecticut, who
was a skillfuljeweller and goldsmith, began a type foundery,
without any other aid than his own ingenuity, and perhaps
some assistance he derived from books. In the course of
a few years he completed several fonts of long primer,
which were tolerably well executed, and some persons in
the trade made use of them.

The first regular foundery was established at Germantown,
Pennsylvania, in 1772, by Christopher Sower, the
second of that name. All the implements for this foundery
were imported from Germany, and intended solely for
casting German types. It is somewhat remarkable that
the first establishments for paper making and type founding
in the English colonies, should be in this place. The
interval between the two establishments was eighty-four
years. Sower's first object in setting up the foundery was
to cast pica types for a quarto edition of the German Bible.
His father had, many years before, printed an edition on
long primer, and the son had printed another on pica.
This was for a third edition, and it was his intention to cast
a sufficiency of types to keep the whole work standing.

When the materials for this foundery arrived from
Germany, they were placed by Sower in a house opposite
to his printing house, and committed to the care and
management of one of his workmen, who, although not a
type founder, was very ingenious. This workman was
named Justus Fox, born in 1736, at Manheim, Germany,
where he received a good education. After his arrival
in America he served as an apprentice with Sower, and was

by him employed in various occupations. Fox is said to
have been a farrier, an apothecary, a bleeder and cupper, a
dentist, an engraver, a cutler, a tanner, a lamp-black maker,
a physician, a maker of printing ink, and a type founder.
At most of these pursuits he was a proficient.

The molds of this foundery, and some other implements,
were found to be very imperfect; but Fox set himself at
work, cut a number of new punches, supplied all deficiencies,
and put the whole in order for casting. The first
font that was east was a German pica for the Bible. Afterwards
Fox cut the punches for roman and italics of several
sizes, for English works. Fox acquired the art of mixing
metal. His types were very durable.

As the materials which composed this foundery remained
in the possession of Fox they were thought to be his property,
and therefore escaped seizure when all the other
property of Sower was confiscated. Afterwards, in 1784,
Fox purchased them, and continued the business somewhat
extensively in partnership with his son for nine years;
after which Fox conducted the business till he died, which
was on the twenty-sixth of January, 1805, aged seventy
years.

Fox was a man of pleasing manners, and his character
was in conformity with his name, Justus. He was of
the sect of Tunkers; humorous, also very pious, exemplary,
humane and charitable. He acquired a handsome
property. He had but one child whom he named
Emanuel.

The year after Fox died, his son sold the foundery
to Samuel Sower, a sou of the unfortunate Christopher,
junior (or second), the first owner. Samuel Sower had
previously begun a foundery in Baltimore, and in 1815,
continued the business in that city.

The second type foundery was also established in Germantown,
by Jacob Bay, a man of great ingenuity, born

near Basil, in Switzerland. He was brought up to silk
weaving. He came to Philadelphia in 1771. In this
place he worked for a short time at calico printing, and
then was engaged by Sower to work in his foundery in
Germantown as an assistant to Fox. After being two
years in this foundery, he began business for himself in
a small house not far from Sower. He made all the
apparatus for his foundery himself. The punches which
he cut were for roman and italic types of the sizes of pica,
long primer, and bourgeois. He cast for Sower a font
of German faced bourgeois for the whole of the German
Hymn Book of four hundred octavo pages, which Sower
kept standing.

He bought a house and removed to it, and continued
the business of type-making in Germantown, till 1789.
During the time he removed his foundery to other parts of
the town. At length he sold all his material to Francis
Bailey, a printer, who made use of it chiefly for a supply
of types for himself. Bay then commenced diaper weaving,
removed to Frankford, and then to Philadelphia. Bay's
ingenuity has been exceeded by very few. He was at any
time able, without a model before him, to construct, by
the aid of his memory, any machine he had ever seen,
however complicated. Among his weaving machines was
a loom with six shackles. A patent for one of the same
kind has since been obtained as a new invention, and the
right to use it sold in several places, at a high price. But
he was poor, the fate of many ingenious men. He engaged
at the mint as an engraver, and about six months after
fell a victim to the yellow fever which prevailed in Philadelphia
in 1793, aged 54.

Dr. Franklin was desirous of establishing in Philadelphia
a more extensive type foundery than either of
those just mentioned. For this purpose, he purchased in
Paris, of P. S. Fournier, the materials of an old foundery.

Fournier was a type founder, and B. F. Bache, Franklin's
grandson, resided sometime with him for instruction in
this art, and that he might otherwise be qualified for
managing the foundery in Philadephia. Franklin and
his grandson arrived in Philadelphia in 1775, soon after
the revolutionary war commenced, and Bache set up his
foundery in Franklin court, Market street, where his
grandfather resided. Although the materials of this
foundery enabled the proprietor to make Greek, Hebrew,
Roman, and all other kinds of types in use in Europe or
America, the foundery was but little employed. The
implements for making roman and italic types, especially,
would not produce handsome specimens. This difficulty
was in some sort removed by means of a German artist,
named Frederick Geiger. This person was a mathematical
instrument maker. He came from Germany to Philadelphia,
like thousands of others who were called Redemptioners.
Franklin paid for his passage, and placed him in
his foundery. He cut a number of punches, and made
great proficiency as a type maker, and in the improvement
of the foundery. Geiger, after serving the time
stipulated for his redemption, was, in 1794, employed in
the mint; but quitting the mint, he plodded a long time on
perpetual motion. He appeared confident of success, and
anticipated receiving the promised reward for this discovery.
Disappointed in this, he next applied himself to
finding out the longitude by lunar observations. He was
allured to this study by the great bounty which he who
should be successful was to receive from the British
government. But, unfortunately, perpetual motion caused
an irregular motion of his brains, and his observations of
the moon caused lunacy. He was eventually confined in
the cells of the Philadelphia almshouse.

The foundery was neglected, and Bache turned his
attention to printing.

The fourth establishment of this kind was that belonging
to the Messrs. Baine, the grandfather and grandson,
from Scotland. They settled in Philadelphia by advice
of Young & McCullock, printers in that city, about the
year 1785. Bayne, the senior, possessed a great mechanical
genius. His knowledge in type founding was the effect
of his own industry, for he was self-taught. He, it is said,
communicated to the celebrated Wilson of Glasgow the
first insight into the business, and they together set up a
foundery in Glasgow. They soon after separated, and
Baine went to Dublin, where he established a foundery.
He removed thence to Edinburgh, and commenced a type
foundery in that city. Thence with his grandson he came
with all his materials to America. They were good workmen,
and had full employment. The types for the Encyclopedia,
which was completed some years ago from the
press of Dobson in Philadelphia, were made by them.
The elder Baine died in August, 1790, aged seventy-seven.
He was seventy-two years of age when he arrived in
America. His grandson relinquished the business soon
after the death of his grandfather. He removed from
Philadelphia, and died at Augusta in Georgia, about the
year 1799.

At the commencement of the troubles occasioned by the
Prussians, under the Duke of Brunswick, entering Holland
for the purpose of reforming the stadtholdership,
an ingenious type founder, Adam G. Mapper, left that
country, and took with him the whole apparatus of his
foundery, and came to New York, where he began busi
ness.[24] His foundery was designed principally for making
Dutch and German types, the casts of which were handsome.
Those for roman were but ordinary. He soon left

type making for other employment, and was concerned in
the Holland Land Company.

There were, in 1830, eight or more type founderies in
the United States. One was established in Philadelphia,
by Binney & Ronaldson, in 1796. They were from Scotland.
They had to encounter many difficulties before
they could succeed in obtaining a permanency to their
establishment, but by perseverance and industry overcame
them, and made valuable improvements in their art.
Their foundery produced types equal in beauty to those of
any foundery in Europe, and was said to excel them all
in the economy of operation.

Samuel Sower and Co., of Baltimore, had a somewhat
extensive foundery. Sower cut the punches, and cast both
roman and italics for a font of diamond types, on which
has been printed, in that city, an edition of the Bible. An
italic to this smallest of types has not been, until very
recently, attempted in Europe.

Stereotype Printing.

About the year 1775, an attempt at stereotype printing
was made by Benjamin Mecom, printer, nephew of Dr.
Franklin.[25] He cast the plates for a number of pages of the
New Testament; but never completed them. I shall have
occasion to mention Mecom, in the course of this work,
several times. He was skillful, but not successful. Stereotyping
is now very common in the United States, and is
well executed.

The ingenious Jacob Perkins, of Newburyport, Massachusetts,
invented a new kind of stereotype, for impressing

copper and other plates. From plates so impressed most
of the bank bills of Massachusetts and New Hampshire
were printed at rolling presses, and were called stereotyped
bills.

Engraving.

Man in his primeval state discovered a propensity to
represent, by figures, on various substances, the animated
works of his Creator. From sketching, painting, or engraving
these images, or representations, on the surface of
those substances, he proceeded to the business of the
sculptor or statuary, and produced all the features and
proportions of men, and the other various descriptions of
the animal creation, in wood and stone.

The invention of hieroglyphics has been generally attributed
to the priests of ancient Egypt, who made use of
them to convey the knowledge they possessed of the
mysteries of nature, and the secrets of their morality and
history, to their successors in the priesthood, without discovering
them to the vulgar; but Dr. Warburton, who
appears to have been well acquainted with the subject
of hieroglyphic engravings, although his knowledge of
coins and medals was questioned by Pinkerton, has, with
great ingenuity, shown, that hieroglyphics were not the
invention of Egyptian priests.[26] He remarks, that "the
general concurrence of different nations in this method of
recording their thoughts, can never be supposed to be the
effect of imitation, sinister views, or chance; but must be
considered as the uniform voice of nature, speaking to the
rude conceptions of mankind; for, not only the Chinese of
the east, the Americans of the west, the Egyptians of the
south, but the Seythians, likewise, of the north, and the
intermediate inhabitants of the earth, viz: the Phœnicians,

the Ethiopians, the natives of India, etc., used the same
methods of hieroglyphic and picture."

The American continent is not destitute of vestiges of
ancient engraving. Long before the discovery of America
by Columbus, we are told, the Mexicans made money
of tin and copper, which was stamped by the authority
of their sovereigns and feudal lords.[27] They were acquainted
with the arts of sculpture and engraving; and,
François Coreal says, that the ornaments of the doors
of the temple of the sun, in Peru, were formed of jasper
and granite, and were sculptured in birds, quadrupeds,
and animals of imaginary being, such as the sphinx, etc.,
and in the most exquisite manner. Don Ulloa gives an
account of vases dug up in South America, which have
figures designed upon them, completely in the Etruscan
taste, formed of earth, or composition, which, like the old
Etruscan, is now nowhere to be found. They were red,
black, and extremely light, and sometimes had the figures
in relief. What is very remarkable is, that, like the
Etruscan vases, they have been discovered in no other
places than sepulchres.

The Mexicans had learned to express in their statues
"all the attitudes and postures of which the human body is
capable; they observed the proportions exactly, and could,
when necessary, execute the most delicate and minute
strokes" with their chisels of flint, or of hardened copper.[27]
They excelled in the art of founding and casting, with the
precious metals, the most perfect images of natural bodies.
They were expert lapidaries, and knew how to form gems
into such shapes and figures as fancy dictated; and to
finish them with an exquisite polish. Among their precious
stones were the emerald, amethyst, cornelian, turquoise,
and some which were unknown in Europe. They

set these stones in gold, and in silver, wrought in a very
skilful manner, and rendered of great value. Condamine
and Clavigero were both astonished at the industry and
patience with which they must have worked in marble.
They were workmen in linen and cloth of various descriptions,
as well as painters and engravers. The specimens of
their art, which were carried to Europe by Cortes, and
others who visited the country, were found to be nearly
inimitable by the most expert artists of the old world.
Their copper instruments and weapons they hardened to a
temper which was equal to that of steel; an art which
the Greeks and Romans possessed to the time of the taking
of Constantinople, by Mahomet II.[28]

The United States also contain several vestiges of engraving,
by the rude hands of the aborigines. Thus we
find that there is hardly any inhabited part of the world,
which did not, before it became civilized, produce some
specimens of engraving.

The modern European art of engraving was not greatly
encouraged in America before the revolution, and the
artists did not appear to possess first rate abilities.

Printing Presses.

The printing presses made use of in the English colonies,
before the revolution, were, generally, imported from
England, but some were manufactured in the country.
Christopher Sower, Jr., had his printing presses made
under his own inspection, in Germantown, as early as
1750.

After 1775, good presses were made in many of the
capital towns in the United States, particularly in Philadelphia,
and in Hartford, Connecticut. Some of these
presses underwent several partial alterations in their

machinery, but no essential change in the construction
was made from the common English printing press.[29] A
few were contrived to perform the operation of printing in
a different manner from that press, but these were not
found to be useful.

Some years since, Dr. Kinsley, of Connecticut, who possessed
great mechanical ingenuity, produced, among other
inventions, a model of a cylindrical letter press. It was a
subject of much conversation among printers, but was never
brought into use. The invention, however, did not originate
with Kinsley.[30] Cylindrical letter presses were invented
in 1789, by William Nicholson, of London, who
obtained a patent for them in 1790. Kinsley's model
was from Nicholson's plan, with some variation. Nicholson

placed his forms of types horizontally; Kinsley placed his
perpendicularly; his method was not calculated for neat
printing. Nicholson's presses were used, and, it is said,
made excellent work.[31]

Rolling Presses.

The rolling press, as it is called, by copperplate printers,
was not used in England till the reign of King James
I. It was carried from Antwerp to England, by one
Speed. I cannot determine when it was first brought into
English America, but I believe about the beginning of
the eighteenth century.