  Late in 1790 Nathaniel Willis, grandfather of the writer Nathaniel Parker Willis, established at Shepherdstown the first press within the present boundaries of West Virginia. For some years he had published The Independent Chronicle at Boston, and earlier in 1790 he had been printing at Winchester, Va. At Shepherdstown Willis published The Potowmac Guardian, and Berkeley Advertiser from November 1790 at least through December 1791. The earliest example of West Virginia printing in the Library of Congress is a broadside printed at Martinsburg in 1792. Entitled Charter of the Town of Woodstock [Pa.], it consists of the printed text of a legal document in the name of one John Hopwood and dated November 8, 1791. The preamble of the document reveals its nature: Whereas I John Hopwood, of Fayette-County, and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, have surveyed and laid out into convenient lots or parcels, for the purpose of erecting a Town thereon, the quantity of two hundred acres of land, being part of the tract of land on which I now live, situate in Union Township, and County aforesaid, on the great road leading from the Town of Union to Fort Cumberland, on the River Potowmack; and for the purpose of encouraging the settlement, growth, and prosperity of the said Town, as laid out agreeable to a plan and survey thereof, hereunto annexed and recorded, together with this instrument of writing, have determined to grant and confirm to all persons, who shall purchase or become proprietors of any lot or lots in the said Town, and to their heirs and assigns, certain privileges, benefits, and advantages herein after expressed and specified.... Access of the proposed town to the Potomac River is the clue to why this broadside relating to an otherwise remote location in Pennsylvania should have been printed in this part of West Virginia. The Charter is the third recorded West Virginia imprint apart from newspaper issues, and the Library of Congress has the only known copy. Written on the verso is: Col. Morr[——] And other early hands have written there, "Hopwoods deeds" and "no body will have his Lotts." At the Anderson Galleries sale of Americana held at New York on November 9, 1927, the presumed same copy of the Charter was sold from the library of Arthur DeLisle, M.D. (1851-1925), librarian of the Advocates' Library in Montreal. Charter of the Town of Woodstock. (Charter of the Town of Woodstock.) [Click on image for larger view.] |
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