Pennsylvania

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Like William Nuthead, William Bradford introduced printing in more than one Colony, and he began his American career by establishing the first Pennsylvania press at Philadelphia in 1685. Here that same year he printed Good Order Established in Pennsilvania & New-Jersey in America, the earliest Pennsylvania imprint in the Library of Congress and the second known example of Bradford's press. The author, Thomas Budd, was a successful Quaker immigrant, who settled first at Burlington, N.J., and later at Philadelphia. He intended his description of the two Colonies to stimulate further immigration, and he printed this statement on the title page verso:

It is to be noted, that the Government of these Countries is so settled by Concessions, and such care taken by the establishment of certain fundamental Laws, by which every Man's Liberty and Property, both as Men and Christians, are preserved; so that none shall be hurt in his Person, Estate or Liberty for his Religious Perswasion or Practice in Worship towards God.

Because neither place nor printer is named in the book, it was long thought to have been printed at London, but typographical comparisons made during the latter part of the 19th century demonstrated conclusively that it issued from William Bradford's press.

The 19th-century bookseller Henry Stevens.
The 19th-century bookseller Henry Stevens.

The Library of Congress copy was bound at London by William Pratt for the bookseller Henry Stevens. F. J. Shepard traces this much of its later provenance in his introduction to a reprint issued in Cleveland in 1902:

A copy in full levant morocco, by Pratt, belonging to John A. Rice of Chicago, was sold in March, 1870, to Sabin & Sons for $155. The same copy fetched $150 at the sale of the library of William Menzies of New York (1875),[8] when it was described in Sabin's catalogue as "one of the rarest of books relating to Pennsylvania." It was again, presumably, the same copy which at the sale in New York of S. L. M. Barlow's books in 1889 brought $400, although it was still incorrectly described as printed in London. After passing through the hands of two dealers and one collector, it reached Dodd, Mead & Co., who advertised it in their November, 1900, catalogue for $700, and sold it at that price to a private collector whose name is not given.

The copy was among several Americana from the library of C. H. Chubbock, a Boston collector,[9] which were sold at auction by C. F. Libbie & Co. on February 23 and 24, 1904, the Library of Congress obtaining it for $600.

[8] Sabin's catalog is dated 1875, but the sale did not occur until November 1876.

[9] See American Book-Prices Current, vol. 10 (1904), p. vii.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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