William E. Woodruff, the first Arkansas printer, was a Long Islander who served his apprenticeship at Sag Harbor with Alden Spooner, nephew of the early Vermont printer of that name. Woodruff transported printing equipment purchased at Franklin, Tenn., to the Post of Arkansas, and there, on November 20, 1819, he began to publish The Arkansas Gazette. He later moved his press to Little Rock, where the newspaper has continued to the present day.[76]

In his History and Bibliography of American Newspapers 1690-1820 (Worcester, Mass., 1947) Clarence S. Brigham locates the only complete file of early issues of the Gazette at the Library of Congress. It must be reported here, regretfully, that the Library released these along with later issues for exchange in July 1953 as part of a space-saving operation, after making microfilm copies for retention. Subsequently the same file, extending from 1819 to 1875, was described at length under item 649 in Edward Eberstadt and Sons' Catalog 134 (Americana) issued in 1954.

Two copies of the first book published in Arkansas, printed by Woodruff at the Post of Arkansas and dated 1821, now share the distinction of being the earliest specimens of Arkansas printing in the Library. The fact that Arkansas officially separated from the Missouri Territory in July 1819 helps to explain the title of this book: Laws of the Territory of Arkansas: Comprising the Organic Laws of the Territories of Missouri and Arkansas, with the Amendments and Supplements Annexed; All Laws of a General Nature Passed by the General Assembly of the Territory of Missouri, at the Session Held in 1818; Together with the Laws Passed by the General Assembly of the Territory of Arkansas, at the Sessions in 1819 and 1820.

In the initial issue of the Gazette Woodruff claimed to have established his press entirely at his own expense. His imprint on these Laws discloses his eventual employment as official "printer to the Territory," and among the resolutions of the new general assembly to be found in this volume is that of April 1, 1820, appointing Woodruff to the position. A resolution of the assembly, approved October 25, 1820, directs how official documents printed by him were to be distributed:

The two copies in possession of the Library of Congress carry no marks of previous ownership. One was recorded in the Catalogue of Additions to the Library of Congress Since December, 1833, dated December 1, 1834.[78] Whether this was the copy which retains a late 19th-century bookplate or the copy which the Library had rebound in 1914 is uncertain.