Norwich.
This is the fourth town in Connecticut where a press
was established before the revolution. Two printing
houses were opened in the same year.
Green & Spooner. Timothy Green the third, printed in
New London. Judah Paddock Spooner was his brother-in-law,
and served his apprenticeship with him.
Green took Spooner into partnership and furnished press
and types; and they opened a printing house in Norwich
in 1773. Spooner, by agreement, managed the concerns
of the firm. Their business not answering their expectations,
after the trial of a few years, they removed their
press to Westminster in Vermont.[10]
Robertsons & Trumbull. Alexander and James Robertson
were sons of a respectable printer in Scotland. I have
mentioned them as at Albany, where they began printing
and remained for several years. John Trumbull was,
I believe, born in Charlestown, Massachusetts; he served
an apprenticeship with Samuel Kneeland in Boston.
Trumbull entered into partnership with the Robertsons,
and in 1773 they opened a second printing house in Norwich,
and soon after published a newspaper. This connection
was not dissolved until after the British troops took
possession of the city of New York in 1776. The Robertsons
were royalists; and, soon after that event, they left
Norwich, and went to New York.
Trumbull remained at Norwich, and continued printing.
He differed in his politics with his partners, one of whom,
James, had been in the political school of Mein & Fleming
of Boston, for whom he worked two or three years as a
journeyman; but, politics apart, James was a worthy man
and a very good printer. Of Alexander I had no knowledge;
but I have been informed that he was, unfortunately,
deprived of the use of his limbs, and incapacitated for
labor. He was, however, intelligent, well educated, and
possessed some abilities as a writer.
Trumbull was an honest, well meaning man, and attached
to his country. His printing was chiefly confined to his
newspaper, and small articles with which he supplied
country chapmen. He died in August, 1802, at the age of
fifty-two years.
Alexander and James Robertson remained in New York
till 1783, when the royal army and the refugees quitted the
city. The Robertsons went to Shelburne, in Nova Scotia,
where they published a newspaper. Alexander died in
Shelburne, in December, 1784. James returned to Scotland,
his native country, and began business as a printer
and bookseller in Edinburgh.[11]
