Thomas Short, who learned his trade at Boston, became Connecticut's first printer when he went to New London to do the official printing for the Colony in 1709.

The Library of Congress owns two Thomas Short imprints dated 1710, and one of them is believed to be the first book printed in Connecticut: The Necessity of Judgment, and Righteousness in a Land. A Sermon, Preached at the General Court of Election, at Hartford in the Colony of Connecticut, on May 11th. 1710. By Eliphalet Adams, Pastor of the Church in New-London. Eliphalet Adams was an influential clergyman whose 43 years of service at New London had just begun in 1709. The work is an election sermon, of a type delivered annually at the opening of certain New England legislatures. Although not especially worthy of remembrance, it manages to suggest the ceremony of the occasion. Adams closes his sermon by addressing the Governor, Deputy Governor, and magistrates, next turning to the assembled clergy, and finally concluding:

The Library of Congress copy, in a 19th-century morocco binding, contains no evidence of provenance, but it was undoubtedly in the Library's possession by 1878, for the title is listed in the Library catalog published that year. Another copy sold at auction in 1920 for $1,775, which was the largest amount ever paid for a Connecticut imprint.[14]

The Library's other Connecticut imprint with a date of 1710 is entitled A Confession of Faith Owned and Consented to by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches in the Colony of Connecticut in New-England, Assembled by Delegation at Saybrook September 9th. 1708.... Herein is the historic Saybrook Platform, whereby individual congregations of the Colony submitted to the firmer control of synods. There exists documentary evidence that the printing of this book did not begin until late in 1710, and apparently it was not completed until 1711.[15] Elizabeth Short, the printer's widow, was paid £50 in 1714 for binding all 2,000 copies in calfskin and birchwood covers.[16] The Library's copy retains the original binding. Of further interest is the evidence supplied by the Library's bookplate that the volume formerly belonged to Peter Force, the American historian and archivist, whose notable collection was obtained through a special Congressional appropriation in 1867.