The Boston printer Daniel Fowle felt himself unjustly punished by the Massachusetts Assembly for supposedly printing an objectionable pamphlet in 1754. He consequently removed to Portsmouth in New Hampshire and started that Colony's first press in 1756.

The first New Hampshire book, preceded only by issues of The New-Hampshire Gazette, was printed by Fowle in the same year. It is Nathaniel Ames' An Astronomical Diary: or, An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord Christ, 1757. The Library of Congress owns one of four known copies of a singularly interesting later issue or state of the edition, featuring on its next-to-last page a historical note printed within an ornamental border: "The first Printing Press set up in Portsmouth New Hampshire, was on August 1756; the Gazette publish'd the 7th of October; and this Almanack November following."

Almanacs written by Nathaniel Ames of Dedham, Mass., were bestsellers in mid-18th century America. This almanack for the year 1757, evidently reprinted from the Boston edition, is a somber one reflecting recent set-backs in England's conflict with France. A verse on the title page strikes the keynote:

The rebound Library of Congress copy, which bears no marks of previous ownership, is listed in the Library catalog of 1878 and presumably was obtained not long before then.

At about the same time the Library acquired and similarly rebound two other Daniel Fowle imprints of undetermined provenance, both of which are dated 1756 but were published later than the almanac. There is some question whether one of them, Jonathan Parsons' Good News from a Far Country, was begun at Boston or at Portsmouth. In any event, Fowle placed the following notice in the November 4, 1756, issue of his Gazette: "Good News from a far country: in seven discourses by Rev. Jonathan Parsons is soon to be published. Five of the sermons have already been set up and lack of paper prevents completion until a supply of paper arrives from London which is probable at an early date." Not until April 1757 did Fowle advertise the book for sale.[25] The other imprint dated 1756 is Samuel Langdon's The Excellency of the Word of God, in the Mouth of a Faithful Minister,[26] a sermon delivered on November 3 and also delayed in printing for lack of suitable paper. Both books were probably completed in the early months of 1757 but dated old style. There is a noticeable difference between the paper on which they are printed and the crude paper of the almanac, such as Fowle used for his newspaper.