University of Virginia Library

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.