University of Virginia Library

Newburyport.

At the request of several gentlemen, particularly the
late Rev. Jonathan Parsons, a press was first established
in that town, in 1773, by Isaiah Thomas. He opened a
printing house in King street, Newburyport, opposite to
the Presbyterian church. The town was settled at an
early period. In point of magnitude it held the third
rank, and it was the fourth where the press was
established, in the colony. Thomas took as a partner
Henry Walter Tinges. The firm was Thomas & Tinges.
Thomas continued his business in Boston, and Tinges had
the principal management of the concerns at Newburyport.
They there printed a newspaper, and in that work the
press was principally employed. Before the close of a
year, Thomas sold the printing materials to Ezra Lunt, the
proprietor of a stage, who was unacquainted with printing;

but he took Tinges as a partner, and the firm of this company
was Lunt & Tinges. They continued their connection
until the country became involved in the revolutionary
war; soon after which Lunt transferred the press and his
concern in printing to John Mycall. Tinges now became
the partner of Mycall.

The partnership of Mycall & Tinges ended in six
months. The business was then conducted by Mycall,
who soon became so well acquainted with it, as to carry it
on, and continue it on a respectable footing, for about
twenty years; when he quitted printing, and retired to a
farm at Harvard, in the county of Worcester, from whence
he removed to Cambridgeport.[103]

Tinges was born in Boston, was of Dutch parentage,
and served part of his apprenticeship with Fleming, and
the residue with Thomas. He went from Newburyport
to Baltimore, and from thence to sea, but never returned.

Lunt joined the American army, and finally removed to
Marietta. He was a native of Newburyport.

Mycall was not brought up to printing, but he was a
man of great ingenuity. He was born at Worcester, in
England; and was a schoolmaster at Amesbury at the
time he purchased of Lunt. Some years after he began
printing his printing house and all his printing materials
were consumed by fire. Those materials were soon
replaced by a very valuable printing apparatus.