Part II

, of this early religious magazine tells us that it was printed by Christopher Sower at Germantown in the year 1770, and the undated colophon of No. XII of the series contains information of singular interest in the words, "Gedruckt mit der ersten Schrift die jemals in America gegossen worden." The probability is that this issue of _Ein Geistliches Magazien_ was published late in 1771 or early in the ensuing year. Upon the basis of this quoted statement and in view of the knowledge that when his estate was sold in 1778 there were disposed of to Jacob Bay and others certain lots of letter moulds, crucibles and a large quantity of antimony[10] it becomes clear that Sower's interest in type making developed well beyond the stage of thinking it would be a nice thing to do.

The initiatory efforts of Sower have a particular significance in the story of American type founding; for the tradition is that while engaged in the casting process of type making in the Germantown foundry, Justus Fox and Jacob Bay learned the more difficult mysteries of an art in which later they attained proficiency. Because of the link of continuous effort thus formed between Sower's initiation of the business in 1770 and the later cutting and casting of Roman letter by these artisans, there must be conceded to him the distinction of having begun in English America the industry of type manufacturing, regardless of whether or not his casting of German letter from imported matrices was as extensive as has been supposed.

Our knowledge of Fox and of Bay is derived largely from the _Additions to Thomas's History of Printing_, a body of tradition of uneven reliability transmitted to Isaiah Thomas by William McCulloch, a Philadelphia printer active in the early years of the century. Selections from the six communications of the period 1812-1814 in which this information was transmitted were incorporated by Thomas in the revision of his book upon which was based the second edition brought out by the American Antiquarian Society in 1874. Long afterward the series of letters was published as a whole in the _Proceedings_ of the Society for April 1921 under the title, _William McCulloch's Additions to Thomas's History of Printing_.

In these letters to Isaiah Thomas, McCulloch was recording his own memories and the accepted Philadelphia tradition. Because he was well advanced in years at the time of writing, one is not surprised to find that now and then he trips over the barrier that separates documented fact from hearsay and personal recollection. It is much to our comfort in the present instance, however, to learn that he possessed and made use of unusual opportunities to obtain correct information as to the craftsmen who are the subject of our interest. These facts which he records of Justus Fox, for example, he obtained from Emmanuel, the son and partner in type founding of that artisan, and in _Justus Fox, a German Printer of the Eighteenth Century_, Dr. Charles L. Nichols accepts his testimony as of general reliability. He was indebted to various relatives of Bay, among them a sister, "a plump lady of 68," for the account of him which is found in the pages of the _Additions_. It is possible to compare various items in McCulloch's sketches of these men with records unknown to him, but available to us, with results so little at variance that one is inclined to accord a high degree of credence to all that he wrote concerning their activities.

At the time of Sower's importation of German equipment, McCulloch informed Isaiah Thomas, he had among his journeymen an ingenious general mechanic, Justus Fox, whom he charged with the responsibility for casting the letters to be used in the great Bible. In April 1772 he employed a newly arrived Swiss silk weaver, Jacob Bay,[11] to assist Fox. Two years later Bay left Sower's service and set up a foundry on his own account in a near-by house in Germantown. Fox remained in Sower's establishment, presumably engaged in casting the large quantity of type required to keep standing an edition of the Bible. In addition to this routine work he is said to have cut and cast an unspecified amount of Roman letter before 1774, the year of Bay's separation from the Sower establishment. Working in his separate foundry, it is recorded by our volunteer historian, Bay "cast a number of fonts, cutting all the punches, and making all the apparatus pertaining thereto, himself, for Roman Bourgeois, Long Primer, etc."

That this reported activity in type casting in Germantown about the year 1774 was not a play of the imagination on the part of its historian is made certain by the definite statement that occurs in one of the non-importation resolutions of the Pennsylvania Convention. On 23 January 1775 the Convention "Resolved unanimously, That as printing types are now made to a considerable degree of perfection by an ingenious artist in Germantown; it is recommended to the printers to use such types in preference to any which may be hereafter imported."[12] Referring somewhat vaguely to this resolution, both as to content and as to origin, McCulloch tells us that even at the time of its passage Fox and Bay each claimed the honor implied in its terms. To this day the identity of the "ingenious artist" remains uncertain.

It is not clear by what evidence it was known to the Convention that "a considerable degree of perfection" had been attained in the making of type in Germantown. The only known specimen of printing type cast at that place before the meeting of the Convention in January 1775 is the German letter employed in Sower's periodical, _Ein Geistliches Magazien_, and it is not likely that this or any other specimen of German type would have led the Convention to a recommendation as sweeping as that which has been quoted from its journal. It could only have been a Roman letter that the delegates had in mind for a usage so general as was indicated in their resolution, and we must remain in doubt as to what specimen or specimens they had seen of locally cast type in this character. It is certain, however, that at the time of their action a font of Roman letter had been completed, or at any rate, that it was then in the process of casting. It is quite possible that a trial specimen of this font had been submitted to the Convention for its examination and approval.

It is a satisfaction to be able to introduce the new font through the medium of a contemporary reference to its use. We are indebted to the correspondence and to the diary of the Rev. Ezra Stiles of Newport, later President of Yale College, for some important information on early American type founding. Excited by Buell's efforts to make type in the year 1769, his interest in the manufacture seems to have remained in being, for on 9 May 1775 he appended the following comment to an entry in his Diary: "Extracted from the Pennsylv^a Mercury, whose first N^o was pub. the 7th of April last: printed with types of American Manufacture. The first Work with Amer. Types: tho' Types were made at N. Haven years ago."[13] The fact that Ezra Stiles was one of the earliest patrons of Abel Buell's venture in letter casting, supported as this fact is by his interest in American manufactures generally, lends a certain amount of weight to any observation that he might make on the subject of American type founding, although it is probable that he was ignorant of Sower's partial achievement of the art, just as Sower some years earlier in his claim to priority had seemed to be unaware of Buell's technically successful effort. If we may interpret Dr. Stiles's words as meaning that Story & Humphreys's _Pennsylvania Mercury_[14] of 7 April 1775, Vol. I, No. I, was the first published work printed in Roman letter which had been cut and cast in English America, we may unhesitatingly repeat his description of it as "The first Work with Amer. Types."

The Philadelphia newspaper which has been referred to is one of the rarest of American journals of the period. Complete files, comprising issues from 7 April to 27 December 1775, are found only in the Library of Congress and in the Harvard College Library. From the first page of its first issue, the publisher's announcement is here reproduced.

A glance at the pages of the newspaper in which the new Roman letter was first used makes us feel that in his commendable willingness to admit imperfection the publisher paid small tribute to the skill of his "ingenious artist." The letters of "rustic manufacture" were far from perfect, it is true, and in later issues of the newspaper it is observable that they had not worn especially well, but nonetheless they composed agreeably and they were sufficiently well executed to entitle them to something more than the half apology with which they were offered to the public. Their interest, however, as the first American-made Roman type to be used in a publication intended for circulation transcends considerations of worth and appearance.

[Illustration: _Extract from The Pennsylvania Mercury of 7 April 1775. Courtesy of the Harvard College Library._]

Rejoicing in their encouragement of native manufactures, the practical support they were giving to the Pennsylvania non-importation resolutions of six months earlier, the publishers of the _Mercury_ advertised on 23 June 1775 _The Impenetrable Secret_ as a work "Just Published and Printed with Types, Paper and Ink, Manufactured in this Province." If they had added, as possibly they might have done with truth, "on a press of Philadelphia make," we could regard this statement as the declaration of independence of the American printer from the English manufacturer.[15]

Isaiah Thomas says that the _Pennsylvania Mercury_ was established with the backing of Joseph Galloway as a substitute for the _Pennsylvania Chronicle_, that disastrous earlier venture in journalism in which the Quaker politician had engaged with William Goddard. If this was the case, certain features of the new publication must have been displeasing to the silent partner, for Galloway the Tory could hardly have rejoiced with the publishers in their virtuous encouragement of native type founding, with all its patriotic implications. Furthermore, from an advertisement of John Willis and Henry Vogt in the first issue of the paper one learns that the publishers were making use of other articles of printing equipment made by these general craftsmen, who here announced their ability to make presses and any and all of the mechanical appurtenances required in a printing shop. This well-advertised Americanism of the publishers, however, seems not to have availed them in the attainment of success, and after their establishment had been destroyed by fire in the closing days of the year the business was never resumed.

It is not certainly known who was the maker of the significant _Mercury_ types. Assuming that Sower's foundry was in full operation in the early months of 1775, we must assume also, in the absence of knowledge to the contrary, that its principal activity was in the manufacture of German letters for the great Bible, first published in 1776, and that Sower would not have been likely to engage in the making of Roman type on a large scale until this work had been completed. Because of our ignorance of other possibilities there remain to be considered only the two craftsmen, Fox and Bay, as the probable makers of this first successful American letter. According to McCulloch, Fox had cut and cast Roman letter at some period before the year 1774 while still working for Sower. This statement contains all that is known of his efforts at making Roman type during the years that he remained with Sower, but there is the chance to be taken into account that the _Mercury_ font was the result of his experimentation during this period in an art which later he pursued with no small degree of local success. On the same authority it is said, it will be remembered, that Jacob Bay had left Sower in 1774, and in a near-by house in Germantown had set up a type foundry on his own account. In this separate establishment, it is likely that he was able to devote to the business such time and energy as would be required in making a font of sufficient size to accommodate the needs of such a newspaper as the _Pennsylvania Mercury_. The fact of his separate foundry having been established sometime in 1774, the reference in the Convention resolution of January 1775 to the "ingenious artist" at Germantown and the appearance in April 1775 of the new font of type acclaimed by the publishers as "an attempt to introduce so valuable an art into these colonies" are considerations which, taken in their order, seem to give ground for an assumption that it was Jacob Bay who cut and cast the letters for "The first Work with Amer. Types." Until proof is forthcoming, however, this must remain an assumption and nothing more.

It is certain that both Fox and Bay maintained their interest in letter casting for many years. At the sale of Sower's confiscated property in the year 1778 both of these artisans were present as purchasers of type-making tools and material.[16] Bay especially seems to have taken advantage of the opportunity to secure equipment at this dispersal of his old master's goods. Among other purchases which he made at the sale of what was probably at the time the largest typographical establishment in the country were "a lot of letter moles" at three pounds, "a Box with 9 Crusibles" at £5 15_s._, a quantity of worn type at 8_d._ a pound and antimony worth £8 18_s._ 3_d._ He was living at the time in a house rented from Sower,[17] and at the sale of the printer's real property in September 1779 he purchased another house belonging to the estate for £4200, a sum which he paid in two installments before 28 October 1779.[18] In recording from tradition the fact that Bay secured at this time one of the Sower houses, McCulloch asserts that he purchased it from John Dunlap, the printer, whom he paid in type of his own making. It is possible that he borrowed the purchase price from Dunlap on this or a similar basis of repayment, a transaction that would explain McCulloch's version of the story. It is said that he conducted his foundry until the year 1789, and that between this year and 1792 he sold the business to Francis Bailey. Fox continued the making of type until his death in the year 1805, when his son and partner Emmanuel Fox sold the equipment to Samuel Sower of Baltimore, the son of Christopher Sower, the Second, of Germantown, whose enterprise had been the determining cause of its existence.

McCulloch was emphatic in his praise of the sturdiness of Fox's types, but when he remarked to Archibald Binny upon the excellent wearing quality of a set of figures and capitals cast by the Germantown founder, which he and his father before him had been using for many years, that gentleman replied with scorn that they were "at first so devilish ugly ... the longest using cannot mar their deformity."

The type-founding operations of Fox and of Bay have greater importance in the history of the art in America than is usually conceded them. When they are referred to at all by general writers, their activities are mentioned briefly or in such a manner as to give one the impression that their efforts were sporadic or tentative. It is with the work of the Scotch founder Baine, using imported equipment, that the story of American type founding is usually begun, but with the _Mercury_ font before us, cut and cast thirteen years before Baine's first operations, and with assurances by McCulloch that Fox cut and cast the letters used in the McKean edition of the _Acts of the Pennsylvania Assembly_, printed by Francis Bailey in 1782,[19] and with references by McCulloch to fonts produced by Bay, it seems certain that there exists material which will require a revision of the story of American type-founding origins. Beginning with the incontestable fact of the successful _Mercury_ font of 1775 and accepting McCulloch's relation of later events as a working hypothesis, there is seen to exist a field for research which should prove productive of discoveries, inasmuch as the fact and the tradition indicate a continuous activity on the part of one or the other of these early Pennsylvania founders, Fox and Bay, from 1775 to 1805. In the course of these years other founders, better known to us, began their work, and between the years 1796 and 1801, more than one hundred American printers, from Massachusetts to Georgia, purchased type from the foundry of Binny & Ronaldson of Philadelphia.[20]

The identification of the various fonts of locally made type used in Pennsylvania in the quarter century following "The first Work with Amer. Types" would form an interesting chapter in the story of early American type founding.

COMPOSED IN MONTICELLO TYPES

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Editor's Note: _Pennsylvania Archives_, 6th Series, 12:887-919. In _Typographic Heritage_, the second printing of this essay, Sower's type founding venture is more extensively treated, and the rare existing issues of