ON an April day in Boston in 1798, a boy celebrated his
fourteenth birthday by deciding that the time had come to
escape from his unendurable lot in life. After his
father's death, his mother had placed him with his uncle,
and the youngster at this time was working in his uncle's
Boston paint shop. Little Samuel T. Armstrong, waiting on
trade, grinding paints, lugging the family groceries,
blacking boots in the cold winter nights, bitterly
determined to win independence. Chancing to see an
advertisement
for a printer's
apprentice, the boy called, one evening after work, at the
office of Manning & Loring on Spring Lane. He
explained his plans to James Loring, offering to make his
own agreement, and showed so much ambition and promise
that, in spite of the novelty of the arrangement, he was
promptly signed on as an apprentice.
[1] In February, 1800, when Joseph T.
Buckingham arrived at Manning & Loring as journeyman
printer, he found Armstrong still the youngest apprentice:
"His duty (like that of all youngest apprentices) was to
kindle the fires, sweep the floor, pick up the scattered
types, distribute
pi, and
tread the pelts,--an operation
exceedingly filthy and disgusting."
[2] And, as Buckingham recollects, he
"passed through this state of tribulation," finishing his
time of service in April, 1805.
He remained at Manning & Loring as journeyman for
approximately six months, but the job did not satisfy him.
Nor did being a journeyman printer satisfy his friend
Joshua Belcher, twenty-one years old, who had just served
his time on the Independent
Chronicle. Belcher and Armstrong, therefore,
decided to enter into partnership as book and job
printers. They bought the Boston
Magazine from Gilbert & Dean and in
October, 1805, opened their printing office on the second
floor of an old building at 70 State Street.[3]
The expenses incurred in the establishment of this office are
itemized in the final pages of Armstrong's journal. The
list contains needed information about the economy of
nineteenth-century American printing, and it is presented
in the hope of stimulating the publication of similar
material. The text is printed in full, but deletions and
insertions are not noted and punctuation has been changed
for purposes of clarification:
Page [1]:
Belcher & Armstrong, began
Oct. 21, 1805
The expense of their office is
annexed, according to the bills --- --- ---
- 1 Press of Adam
Ramage...............................$
136.00
- 322wt Brevier, a
73......................................
235.06
- 330 Long Primer a
53.................................. 174.90
- 335 Pica a
41.........................................
137.35
- 68 Great Primer a 38..................................
25.84
- 74 Double Pica a
38....................................
28.12
- 6 English Flowers a
38.................................. 2.28
- 2..14 Brevier two lines letters 38
1.09
- 3.. 8 Long Prim do do 1.33
- 5.. Pica do do 1.97
- 6 L. Prim flowers a 53 ......... 3.18
- 5 Brevier do
73.........................................
3.65
- Boxes
.......................................
3.80
2d Importation of imperfections
&c.
- 17..10 Long Primer a 53
................................ 9.33
- 4..13 Pica 41
..........................................
1.97
- 47.. French Coennon 38
................................ 17.86
- 26..6 Quotations 36
.................................... 9.49
- 30.. Scabbards "
......................................
10.80
Page [2]:
- 2d Press of A. Ramage
..............................$
135.00
- 41 Cases & 2
gallies...............................
43.00
- Stands and other gallies as bills
.................... 44.50
- Cotton & Marston's bill[4]...... 24.00
- 1 Stand
................................................
5.00
- Sticks &c.
...........................................
6.00
- trough
................................................
7.00
- Stove, shovel &
tongs.............................. 7.00
- Chases
5..............................................
28.00
- Sundries
.............................................
25.00
- ----
- 1,137.00[5]
- a bank
................................................
5.50
- 2 sticks & 1 royal
chase............................ 12.00
- Brev. open 2 line letters & flowers
and english letters, rules, &c.
.................. 14.00
- Font of Script &
Cases............................ 42.80
- Double rule & single do for Alk. and
other purposes.. 15.00
- do
..................................................
5.00
- Lamps & Cord
...................................... 1.25
Page [3]:
Expences of their Office (continued)
- Imposing stone ..............D10.00
- Duodecimo leads ............. 15.00
- Flowered Rules .............. 1.00
- Lothian's bills for large flowers for open
letter
& several other kinds[6]............ 12.00
- Russell & Cutler for 3 fonts Black Type
viz. D.P. G.P. & L. Primer & 3 pairs
Cases[7] ..............
30.50
- Charles Spear for 2 pairs old Cases[8] .............. 3.00
- 2 Crown Chases .............. 3.50
- Oliver & Monroe for royal chase[9] .............. 5.00
- Gilbert & Dean for Pigeon Holes[10] .............. 10.00
- Thos Foster jun for paper poles
....................... 9.50
- To Abner Wood for bill Exchange on
Peter
Wynne & Son for types &c &c
................... 444.44
- 18 mo leads. wt a 56
cents...... 12.60
- Small Chase ................. 2.33
Page [4]:
Expenses of the
Office-continued
- English importation from Mess. Peter &
W. Wynne amounted to
......................$ 623.69
- Duties on the same to 88.00
- Bond $1--Truckage
$1.............. 2.00
- pair Cases &c.mmat; 2$
- Shelves for Books, &c
- Oct. 8, 1807
- 566wt Long Primer
a
- Ten lines Pica a
- 5 lines Do a
- Whole amt of types of Wynne & Co.
- $602.11
- June 2, 1808 Phineas Harding came
to be
apprenticed to B & A
16 years old Nov. 9
1807[11]
- Joseph Ballister
15 years old July 27,
1808
This text discloses that the establishment of a modest
printing office even for two journeymen required a
considerable amount of capital investment.
Furthermore, it must be noted that, in addition to the
British importation mentioned here, some type was
purchased from Binny & Ronaldson, for soon after the
opening of business Belcher & Armstrong advertised an
"elegant" assortment of type from the "American
Foundery."
[12] And they also announced
that the
Boston Magazine was
printed with type manufactured in this country.
[13] The
Boston
Magazine was succeeded by the
Emerald, another literary
magazine which was published from May, 1806, to October,
1807, when it was sold to Oliver C. Greenleaf.
The major work of the office seems to have been devoted to
books, job work, and pamphlets. In 1807, the firm joined
with Oliver & Munroe to issue the first Boston edition
of Shakespeare's Poems.
Independently, they issued James Montgomery's Wanderer of Switzerland [1807?],
William H. Brown's Ira and Isabella
(1807), G. W. Fitzwilliam's Pleasures of
Love (1808), and other books. For one
pamphlet, the Trial of Thomas O.
Selfridge [1807], the partners showed their
resourcefulness by obtaining professional reporters from
New York or Philadelphia since there were none in Boston.
[14] Despite such enterprise, the
printing business continued to be a financial struggle. In
April, 1808, they formed a publishing association with W.
P. Farrand, D. Mallory, and J. Morse, and moved the
Belcher & Armstrong print shop to the floor above the
bookstore of Farrand, Mallory & Co.[15] There they published the Panoplist, a religious and
missionary magazine, but business was unprofitable, and in
December, 1808, the firm of Belcher & Armstrong was
dissolved. Though there was much pamphlet and job work,
Armstrong declared in his journal, it enabled him to clear
nothing—"probably not so much as journeyman's wages
for 3 yrs. & 3 mos."
Joshua Belcher lived in Boston as a printer until he died in
New York on September 4, 1816, at the age of 32.[16] Armstrong set up a printing office
in Charlestown, eventually opening a bookstore at 50
Cornhill, Boston, about 1811. There he acquired the wealth
and public esteem he desired. Not only did he retire a
rich and independent man, but he served the community as
Representative to the General Court, State Senator,
Lieutenant Governor, and Mayor of Boston. Armstrong died
in 1850, a prototype of the Horatio Alger hero who raised
himself from rags to riches by the correct combination of
business acumen and virtue.[17]
