University of Virginia Library

B. Virginia Imprints

The bibliographer may be even more interested in Jefferson's Virginia imprints than in his Virginia subjects and authors. These imprints can be determined accurately only for his greatest library, that already catalogued by Miss Sowerby. But these alone reveal a great deal about printers and publishers in early Virginia. The many Richmond, Williamsburg, and Petersburg impressions indicate more or less sustained publishing activity in those places, and the smaller numbers for Abingdon, Alexandria, Charlottesville, Fincastle, Fredericksburg, Martinsburg (now West Virginia), Norfolk, Shepherd's-Town (now West Virginia), and Staunton are significant in various ways.[18]

Joshua Peel's Truth and Reason [1805], though written by a resident of Bedford County, was taken over to a printer named David Amen, of Fincastle, in neighboring Botetourt, for publication. Why Richard Watson, Bishop of Landaff's, Christian Panoply, a series of letters addressed to Thomas Paine, was published by P. Rootes & C. Blagrove of Shepherd's-Town for the Presbyterian Synod of Virginia in 1797 might not be too hard to guess or even to determine exactly. William Thomson, an Abingdon lawyer, got the Holston Intelligencer in his place of residence to print his Compendious View of the Trial of Aaron Burr . . . Together with Biographical Sketches of Several Eminent Characters (1807), a volume Jefferson professed to have read with great satisfaction. Martinsburg is represented by a Protestant Episcopal sermon, published by John Alberts. James Lyon, and later John McArthur, published the Political Mirror under a Staunton imprint. John Dunlap and James Hayes in Charlottesville published two official volumes of state Acts and Journals for 1781. Fredericksburg appears on the dateline of two newspapers, The Genius of Liberty, G. Carter and others 1798-1800, and The Virginia Herald and Fredericksburg & Falmouth Advertiser, Timothy Green 1795-1796. In Norfolk, besides newspapers like The American Gazette, William Davis 1795-1796, there had been printed William Tatham's View of the Proposed Grand Junction Canal (1808), presumably by the author; Daniel Bedinger's Letter . . . to Robert Smith (1808), A. C. Gordon & Co.; and Arrowsmith and Lewis' New and Elegant Atlas (1804), Bonsal, Conrad, and Co. (this last also published at a number of other places). Sir Robert Wilson's History of the British Expedition to Egypt (1803)

and Benjamin Rush's An Inquiry into the various Sources of the usual Forms of Summer & Autumnal Fever in the United States. . . . (1805) likewise have Norfolk imprints along with those of other cities. Alexandria, though a part of the District of Columbia rather than of Virginia during much of this period, may also be considered. This city's printing activity is evident in a number of pamphlets such as James Ogilvie's Cursory Reflexions on Government, Philosophy and Education (1802), J. & J. De Westcott; James Workman's Political Essays, Relative to the War of the French Revolution (1801), Cottom and Stewart; Richard Dinmore's A Long Talk, Delivered before the Tammany Society of Alexandria (1804), the Expositor Office; August B. Woodward's Consideration on the Government of the Territory of Columbia (1802), S. Snowden & Co., and G. W. P. Custis' Address to the People of the United States (1808), also Snowden.

Jefferson's thirty-five Williamsburg imprints, in several instances multi-volumed with different printers within the series, range in time from 1733 to 1781 and include a number of the official records of the colony and state. The first printer, William Parks, is represented in eleven items such as Journals of the House of Burgesses (1740-1748), A Collection of All the Acts of Assembly, Now in Force (1733, the first collection of Virginia laws published in Virginia), Biscoe's The Merchant's Magazine (1743), Stith's History (1747), Treaty Held with the Indians of the Six Nations at Lancaster (1744), Mercer's Abridgement (1737), Webb's Justice of the Peace (1736), The Virginia Gazette (1741-1750), and interesting English books on fencing and the small-sword (1734), a sermon on death (1744), and a treatise on the Lord's Supper (1740). William Hunter's press is represented in four imprints, including some of the official papers and The Virginia Gazette, 1751-1778. John Dixon and Alexander Purdie appear in combination twice, Dixon and Thomas Nicolson together four times, Purdie alone about ten times. William Rind's name on his Virginia Gazette and official papers appears alone at least three times, with Purdie and Dixon once. Rind also printed the rare edition of The Farmer's and Monitor's Letters (1769, referred to above). His widow, Clementina Rind, published Jefferson's Summary View in 1774; and John Pinkney, "for Clementina Rind's Children," printed Francis Hopkinson's A Pretty Story the same year.

Petersburg is represented by eight imprints, three of which, the Sir Thomas Wilson, Benjamin Rush, and Arrowsmith and Lewis (map) items referred to above, are also Norfolk imprints. But John Daly Burk, a resident of the little city, published there in 1804 and 1805

the three volumes of his History of Virginia, printed for the author by Dickson & Pescud, and in 1803 An Oration, T. Field. Here appeared Richard Mason's The Gentleman's Pocket Companion (1811), John Jackson; [James Monroe's] Some Observations on the Constitution (1788), Hunter and Prentis; and Debates and Other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia [1788, 1789], Hunter and Prentis, and Prentis.

Richmond is represented in more than sixty items, ranging in time from 1780/1, when the official printers Dixon and Nicolson moved to the new capital from Williamsburg, to items published in 1813. Again the largest single group is the official state publications, more than two dozen, works such as Acts Passed. . ., A Collection of Such Acts. . ., Debates and Journals of the Senate and House of Delegates, and Reports of the Supreme Court of Appeals. The official printers include Nicolson alone, Dixon and Nicolson, Dixon and Holt, Nicolson and Prentis, J. Dunlap and James Hayes, Augustine Davis, Pleasants and Pace, Pleasants alone, Meriwether Jones, and various combinations of these men. The same firms also printed semi-official and private books and newspapers. Pleasants published several newspapers, including The Virginia Gazette (1795), The Virginia Argus (1797) and its successors (Jefferson's copies 1797-1803, 1804-1808, 1809-1813, etc.), and The Richmond and Manchester Advertiser (1795-1796). He also printed the volumes of Hening's Statutes at Large (1809, 1810, 1812) and belletristic items such as Birch's The Virginian Orator (1808) and Lomax's The Notes of an American Lyre (1813). Thomas Ritchie printed the famous Richmond Enquirer and items like Sidney Smith's Letters on the Subject of the Catholics (1809), "from the Office of the Enquirer;" and his firm of Ritchie and Worsley published Wirt's Rainbow essays (1804). Thomas Nicolson printed a number of things other than the official records, agricultural pamphlets such as Ambler's Treatise on the Culture of Lucerne (1800?) and John Randolph's Treatise on Gardening (1793), and semi-official books like Hening's The New Virginia Justice (1795). Seaton Grantland's imprint appears on Sketches of the History of France . . . By an American (1806) and Barnaby Nixon's A Serious Address to the Rulers of America in General, and the State of Virginia in Particular. . . . (1806). John Dixon supplemented his official printing with two newspapers, The Virginia Gazette and Richmond Chronicle (1795) and Richmond Chronicle (1795-1796), apparently neither very successful. Jones and Dixon as a firm published another James Ogilvie essay, A Speech . . . in Essex County (1798) and Jones alone Richard Evers Lee's Letters (1800)

and James Monroe's Governor's Letter (1802, perhaps semi-official). Dixon and Holt printed St. George Tucker's Reflections on commerce (1795). Augustine Davis supplemented his official publishing with such works as Decius' Letters on the Opposition to the New Constitution in Virginia (1789). The National Magazine (1799-1800) was printed "by and for the Editor," James Lyon, who also lived and worked elsewhere. Other Richmond imprints bear the names of printer-publishers Manson and John O'Lynch. Jefferson's library alone would indicate that for the little more than a quarter of a century between the Revolution and the War of 1812 the new little village-town-capital of Richmond was a fairly busy publishing center.