The several Williamsburg printers who followed Royle left no daybooks or other records that have yet come to light. What little we know of their bookbinding activities comes from their advertisements in the various Virginia Gazettes. (At one time three separate weekly papers were issued in Williamsburg by rival printers, all called the Virginia Gazette!) Here are some typical samples:

GENTLEMEN may now be supplied, on short notice, at the Printing Office, Williamsburg, with BLANK BOOKS of all sizes, ruled or unruled, and bound either in Calf or Vellum. OLD BOOKS also new bound, and any thing in the BOOK BINDING business executed in the cheapest and best manner.

Virginia Gazette Alexander Purdie and John Dixon, Printers March 14, 1766

BLANK Bills of Exchange, Bonds, Bills of Lading, and all other Blanks, may be had of William Rind, at the New Printing-Office, near the CAPITOL. Gentlemen may also be supplied with all Sorts of Blank Books; and old Books are neatly and expeditiously Bound, at a reasonable Rate.

Virginia Gazette William Rind, Printer May 30, 1766

A COMPLETE ASSORTMENT OF
All Kinds of STATIONARY,

At Dixon & Hunter’s Printing Office:

BEST Writing Paper, Imperial, Royal, Medium, Demy, Thick and Thin Post, Propatria and Pot, by the Ream, or smaller quantity; Gilt, Plain, and Black Edge Paper for Letters; Parchment; Inkpowder; best large Dutch Quills and Pens; red and black Sealing-Wax and Wafers; Memorandum Books; Red Ink, in small Vials; Red Inkpowder; Pounce and Pounce-Boxes; Black Lead Pencils; all Sizes of neat Morocco Pocket Books; all Sorts and Sizes of Pewter Inkstands; best Edinburgh Inkpots, for the Pocket; best Playing Cards. —— Legers, Journals, Day-Books, and all Sorts and Sizes of Blank Books for Merchants Accounts or Records. Blanks of all Kinds for Merchants, County Court Clerks, &c. &c. &c.

? Old BOOKS new BOUND, and all Kinds of BOOK-BINDING done at this Office, either in the NEATEST or CHEAPEST Manner, according to Directions; and where any Thing in the PRINTING BUSINESS is expeditiously performed, on moderate Terms.

Virginia Gazette John Dixon and William Hunter Jr., Printers March 18, 1775

THOMAS BREND,
BOOKBINDER and STATIONER,

HAS for SALE, at his shop at the corner of Dr. Carter’s large brick house, Testaments Spelling Books, Primers, Ruddiman’s Rudiments of the Latin Tongue, Watts’s Psalms, Blank Books, Quills Sealing-Wax, Pocket-Books, and many other articles in the Stationery way. Old books rebound; and any Gentlemen who have paper by them and want it made into Account Books, may have it done on the shortest notice.

Virginia Gazette John Clarkson and Augustine Davis, Printers August 19, 1780

Alexander Purdie and John Dixon, who placed the first of these advertisements, were the successors of Joseph Royle in the shop on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg that had passed down from William Parks to William Hunter to Royle to Purdie. Their Virginia Gazette was the direct continuation of the paper founded by Parks in 1736. We are not too surprised, therefore, to find the egg roll reappearing once more on the covers of several copies of a book printed by Purdie and Dixon in 1774.

The name of Thomas Brend brings to a conclusion the known list of bookbinders who worked in Williamsburg before the Revolution. Brend emigrated from England to Annapolis in 1764 and set up in trade there. It seems probable that he moved to Williamsburg with William Rind in 1766 or arrived shortly afterward. Rind was the Annapolis printer whom Jefferson and some other patriots had induced to come to Virginia. They hoped Rind’s press would offset the impact of Joseph Royle’s, which they thought was too much in the governor’s pocket.

Jefferson was among the men for whom Brend bound books, as were St. George Tucker of Williamsburg and other persons less known to history. This work, however, he did in Richmond, where he moved after the capital of Virginia had been changed to that city in 1780. There he did most of his work, including the covers of many books of public records, as an independent binder.

On an account book of the state auditor for 1785 appears the familiar egg roll. How it got into Brend’s possession no one can say, since he was presumably not in the direct line of succession from Parks through Hunter and Royle. Somehow he did acquire tools from the succession, for the trail of detection comes full circle in 1799. In that year in Richmond Thomas Brend rebound Jefferson’s collection of the laws of Virginia, using to decorate the board edges the same Mousetrap roll that William Parks had used in Annapolis in 1728.