Ohio History Journal

PRINTING IN GAMBIER, OHIO, 1829-1884

 

by WYMAN W. PARKER

University Librarian, University of Cincinnati

Printing in Gambier, Ohio, extended for a little more than fifty

years during the mid-nineteenth century. Its history forms a neat

and fairly typical illustration of the work of the ecclesiastical press

of that century. Projected as early as 1823 by Philander Chase, first

Protestant Episcopal bishop of Ohio, the press began in 1830 to

issue the first Episcopal newspaper west of the Alleghenies.

The new West was well accustomed to locally printed materials

by this time. As early as 1824 Ohio produced 48 of the 598 news-

papers published in the United States. The first issue of an Ohio

newspaper, the Centinel of the North-Western Territory, had been

printed in Cincinnati by William Maxwell on November 9, 1793.

Two paper mills began operations in 1811 on the Little Miami

River near Cincinnati. With the opening of John Foote's type

foundry in 1820, Cincinnati began its role as the western pub-

lishing center. By 1858 nearly three million books, chiefly for the

schools west of the Alleghenies, were being published yearly in

Cincinnati.

Bishop Chase went to England in 1824 to solicit funds to found

the theological seminary subsequently called Kenyon College.

Always aware of channels of communication, the bishop was not

one to forget the value of the printed word as a means of furthering

his mission. In the Appeal in Behalf of the Diocese of Ohio in the

Western Territory of the United States (London, 1824) which was

most industriously circulated all over England, a scheme is care-

fully spelled out for a press (p. 6): "To accustom our Youth, the

future servants of a beneficent Redeemer, to acts of substantial

charity, and as a means of disseminating the principles of our

Holy Religion throughout our barren region and especially among

the poor and ignorant, a Printing Press and Types will be solicited;

and the Young Men, or some proper proportion of them, will, at

convenient hours of the day, be employed in printing Tracts and a

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56      Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

Periodical Publication." The letter of introduction that Bishop

Chase carried from Henry Clay to Lord Gambier (both commis-

sioners to the conference that concluded the Treaty of Ghent in

1814) proved effective, and the bishop was shortly meeting in-

fluential church members who aided him in the collection of $30,000

to establish the college.

When Bishop Chase visited Sir Thomas and Lady Acland in

Devonshire in June 1824, they readily took to the idea of a press.

Chase jubilantly reported to the diocesan convention in 1826: "This

complete and ample set of type, together with £100 sterling, to

purchase a printing press in this country, is the avails of a most

munificent subscription separate from that of the fund, which sub-

scription was originated and circulated among the ladies of the

nobility of England by that most excellent person, Lady Acland,

of Devonshire."¹

From Worthington, Ohio, the temporary quarters of the college,

Philander Chase wrote to Lord Kenyon on the twelfth of October

1825 that "the Printing Press has been purchased in Cincinatti

[sicl and is brought hither and when the types come we shall com-

mence our printing."² The types arrived shortly thereafter from

England.

The bishop's first published plan to allow students the use of

the press was one of many publicity ideas used but for gleaning

funds. As far as can be determined the students were never allowed

to use the press nor would the domineering bishop even let Pro-

fessors William Sparrow and M. T. C. Wing publish the periodical

they wished in Worthington. Chase delayed setting up the press

because of the uncertainty of the permanent location of the college.

The move to Gambier was accomplished in 1827, and the bishop

reported to the convention that a house eighteen by twenty-two feet

intended for a printing establishment would soon be completed.³

However, it was not until September 1829 that the bishop could

1 Journal of the Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal

Church in the Diocese of Ohio for 1826 (Columbus, 1826).

2 Bishop Chase to Lord Kenyon. Kenyon College Library.

3 Journal of the . . . Convention . . . of Ohio for 1827 (Chillicothe, 1827).

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Printing in Gambier                    57

have the satisfaction of saying, "Our Font of Types, most munifi-

cently given through the liberal exertions of Sir Thomas and Lady

Acland has been brought into use."⁴

The Acland Press, named as were all buildings and streets in

Gambier for the liberal English donors, had in fact laboriously

produced two sizeable pamphlets: The Journal of the Proceedings

of the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in

the Diocese of Ohio for 1828 (44p., Gambier, 1829) and, typically

enough, Character and Claims of the Protestant Episcopal Church

in Letters to a Friend (reprinted from the Episcopal Register)

(⁴2p., Gambier, 1829).

The printing was done by George W. Myers, "a good practical

printer and bookbinder,"⁵ whom Bishop Chase had induced to come

from Alexandria, Virginia. Myers lived in the bishop's former log

cabin while the press was set up in a small two-story frame building

northeast of Old Kenyon.⁶ The printing house cost $350 according

to Bishop Chase's Defense Against the Slanders of the Rev. G. M.

West (p. 24). This Defense was urgently prepared and printed, in

unconscious commentary on the abilities and celerity of the Acland

Press, by Olmsted and Bailhache at Columbus in 1831. By this

time the Gambier press was working regularly on the weekly

newspaper, the Gambier Observer, as well as the annual convention

journal and the Kenyon College catalog. The Acland Press there-

after was called upon for the urgent printing of statements by

both sides in a controversy between the bishop and his faculty.

Bishop Chase had returned to residence in Gambier after years

of travel in behalf of his diocese and the college to enforce his

characteristically autocratic methods in the administration of the

college. The professors had creditably governed the institution in

the bishop's absence. They naturally resented the curtailment of

their powers by an authority who regarded the whole institution

as patriarchal, claiming his episcopal powers pertained. This posi-

4 Journal of the ... Convention ... of Ohio for 1829 (Zanesville, 1829).

5 A. Banning Norton, A History of Knox County, Ohio (Columbus, 1862), 391.

6 Henry Caswall, America and the American Church (London, 1839), 28; Bishop

Chase's Defense Against the Slanders of the Rev. G. M. West (Columbus, 1831),

24; George F. Smythe, A History of the Diocese of Ohio (Cleveland, 1931), 550.

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58      Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

tion was publicly taken by Bishop Chase in his Circular . . . Letter

.., dated July 14, 1831, a two-page folder undoubtedly run off

by the Acland Press. The professors of Kenyon College came back

hotly to state in their two-page circular, A Letter Addressed to the

Rt. Rev. P. Cbase, D.D., dated July 25, 1831, that the powers he

claimed were injurious and "contrary to the usage of colleges in

general, and to the spirit of our age and country." The Acland

Press published the end of the dispute in the Journal of the Pro-

ceedings of the Annual Convention ... held in Gambier, September

7, 8, and 9th, 1831, where account is given of the bishop's refusal

to mitigate his position and his speedy resignation from both the

presidency of the college and his bishopric.

Philander Chase, who visualized a specific purpose for his press,

never realized sufficiently the returns of having it at his service.

In fact, the preponderance of its productions were supervised by his

opponents. It remained for his successor, Bishop Charles P.

McIlvaine, to utilize this press fully in his campaign against

Tractarianism.

The main purpose of the Acland Press had been achieved, for

the weekly newspaper, the Gambler Observer, appeared regularly

from August 30, 1830 (Vol. I, No. 2). The first number was pub-

lished on May 28, 1830, an eight-page paper of about fourteen by

ten inches with three columns to a page. All communications were

to be addressed to Bishop Chase, although the editorial style shows

that Professor Sparrow had at last been given his desired oppor-

tunity. Sparrow continued as editor throughout the first volume,

when M. T. C. Wing became editor from 1831 to 1835. Then

Sparrow was named editor-in-chief for 1835 to 1836, when the size

of the paper was increased to about twenty by fifteen inches but

the pages reduced to four for each issue. In 1837 the Rev. Joseph

Muenscher and Mr. Wing were editors when Volume VIII was

issued as the Gambier Observer and Western Church Journal. The

Rev. Chauncey Colton, a seminary professor and local rector, became

editor in 1838 and greatly increased its circulation. George Myers,

who for some time had been established with the press in the

second story of the building just south of the eastern corner of

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Printing in Gambier                    59

Chase Avenue and Brooklyn Street,⁷ completed the printing of

Volume IX. He then retired as printer when Dr. Colton took the

paper to Cincinnati in 1840.

The press by this time had passed through several organizational

changes, reflected by its varying imprints. "The Acland Press,"

"G. W. Myers, Printer," and "Office of the Observer" were used

while the college bore the financial risk from 1829 to 1834. Then

a stock company of members of the seminary faculty and a few

others was formed to purchase a larger press and new fonts of

type. This company, "The Western Protestant Episcopal Press,"

published the Observer for two years, while the press used this title

as an imprint. When the company failed, the paper announced

that it had "passed ... into the hands of a few individuals." The

newspaper became the Gambler Observer and Western Church

Journal and the imprint, the "Western Church Press."

During the first ten years of the Acland Press, the newspaper had

been its major concern. Several other serial productions were ex-

pected of it annually, namely, the convention journal and the

college catalog. Various one-page programs, such as those for

commencement and the literary society entertainments, also appear

to have been regular duties of the press. It was inevitable that the

press should publish the college's refutation of Bishop Chase's

charges⁸ by the acting president, William Sparrow, A Reply to the

Charges and Accusations of the Rt. Rev. Philander Chase, D.D.

(35p., Gambier, 1832).

For the first few years after Bishop McIlvaine became president

of Kenyon the press published an address of his yearly (1834,

1836-39) in addition to the diocesan newspaper, which naturally

presented his views. The first of his addresses the Gambler press

printed, A Charge to the Clergy . . . on the Preaching of Christ

Crucified (22p., Gambler, 1834), was delivered before the diocesan

convention in September and proved so popular that a second

edition (15p., Gambler, 1834) was necessary before the turn of

 

7 Smythe, History of the Diocese of Ohio, 551.

8 Bishop Chase's Defense of Himself Against the Late Conspiracy at Gambier,

Ohio, in a Series of Letters to His Friends (Steubenville, 1832). Printed as a supple-

ment to the Western Herald and Steubenville Gazette.

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60      Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

the year. The bishop as well had other publishing sources in Ohio

and the East that were glad to distribute his popular sentiments in

the battle against "Romish" tendencies. One item, Justification by

Faith (156p., Columbus, 1840), published by a Columbus firm,

was printed at Gambier. This was his charge to the clergy of Ohio,

at the annual convention, to fortify their minds against attempts to

"unprotestantize" the church. The congregation "listened to it in

breathless attention for an hour and a half,"⁹ and the convention

promptly ordered two thousand copies printed.

In 1835 an essay on the Greek verb (56p., Gambler, 1835)10

was undertaken by the Western Protestant Episcopal Press which

necessitated the use of a font of Greek type. The author, William

Nast, was a professor at the time in the college. Another difficult

assignment for Mr. Myers was the printing of a seventy-six page

Catalogue of Books in the libraries of the several institutions at

Gambler in 1837. This was quite in conformity with the custom

of the period and was particularly pertinent for Kenyonites, as they

were inordinately proud of their book collections. They were justi-

fied, for in this time when books were hard to come by in the West,

Kenyon had the largest collection of any college west of the

Alleghenies. Many of these books were collected by Bishops Chase

and McIlvaine on their separate journeys to England from various

lords and ladies and from scholars at Cambridge and Oxford. Later

the press printed a library catalog of one of the literary societies

which did so much to forward the extracurricular development of

the undergraduates in forensic and debate: Catalogue of the Library,

and Names of Members of the Philomathesian Society of Kenyon

College, from Its Formation in 1827 to 1840 (44p., Gambler, 1840).

Myers gradually accepted more difficult printing assignments,

such as The Greek Verb in 1835 and the library catalog in 1837.

Thereafter he undertook the printing of an abridgment of Edward

9 Episcopal Recorder, XVII (1839), 117.

10 The Greek Verb Taught . . . According to the Greek Tables of D. Friederich

Thiersch, is undoubtedly the Acland Press production mentioned so casually as

"Tissue's Greek Forms, a very valuable book, by one of the professors" on page 258

of Norton's History of Knox County. "Tissue" could easily be Norton's phonetic

transcription of "Thiersch."

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Printing in Gambler                  61

Bickersteth's The Christian Hearer (115p., Columbus, 1838) pub-

lished by Isaac N. Whiting, a Columbus bookseller. Probably Myers

was urged to print this by the book's editor, the Rev. Chauncey

Colton. Such an arrangement was obviously found workable, for

the Gambler press produced four other major items published under

the imprint of this enterprising Columbus firm. All of these items

are in a sense concealed imprints, for the printer's name occurs

only on the verso of the books' title pages. Another title by

Bickersteth, A Help to the Study of the Scriptures (139p., Columbus,

1839), likewise abridged and edited by Dr. Colton and printed by

Myers, is apparently quite rare, as the copy in the Yale University

Library is the only copy in the major libraries of the United States.

The most ambitious Gambier production is another concealed

imprint, Margaret Coxe's The Young Lady's Companion (342p.,

Columbus, 1839). Miss Coxe, a little-known author of religious

pamphlets for juveniles, was encouraged in this venture by the

Ohio clergy. This book proved so popular that the Gambler press

could only handle the printing of the first edition. Whiting

farmed out four later editions to a Boston firm, making a national

reputation for Miss Coxe as a leader of the feminist movement.

The last two concealed Gambier imprints were dated 1840 by

Thomas R. Raymond as Gambier printer. Margaret Coxe's Life of

John W ycliffe (272p., Columbus, 1840) was obviously suggested by

the clergy, but as it lacked the popular appeal of the lady's book, its

successor, a proposed life of Crammer,¹¹ never appeared. Miss Coxe

thereafter turned back to the all-fascinating topic of her sex,

writing for Whiting edifying and dull books, such as Claims of the

Country on American Females (2 vols., Columbus, 1842) and

Woman: Her Station Providentially Appointed (2 vols., Columbus,

1848).

The last concealed Gambler imprint was McIlvaine's Justification

by Faith (156p., Columbus, 1840) already mentioned as a charge

to the clergy printed in an edition of two thousand copies. This

book, although well distributed to theologians, understandably

enough did not attain a national popular circulation.

11 Gambier Observer, November 11, 1840.

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62      Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

Thomas R. Raymond replaced Myers as Gambler printer in 1840,

but his name appears only during this one year. In 1841 William

C. French of the college staff was listed as printer. Subsequently

editor of the Episcopal newspaper Standard of the Cross, his chief

claim to printing fame was that in Columbus he taught William

Dean Howells the art of typesetting.12 During the next seven years

the press produced only the essential pamphlets: six issues of the

college catalog and four numbers of the convention journals. Most

of these bore the imprint "Ackland Press, G. W. Meyers," although

once in 1846 "Ackland Press, W. M. Smallwood" appears. It is

hard to believe that Myers, who later lived in the adjacent town,

Mount Vernon, was actively associated with the press at this time.

For the first eleven years that the press existed, he had been its

conscientious printer. Now suddenly he could not be careless enough

to misspell both his own name and that of the press and continue

to do so for nearly a decade.

There are other indications that the press was in a period of

decline at this time. The weekly newspaper, the Gambier Observer,

had been taken to Cincinnati by Dr. Colton in 1840 to continue as

the Western Episcopal Observer. In 1843, M. T. C. Wing, then

one of the college administrators, at his own financial risk began

to publish the Western Episcopalian in Gambler. This continued

only until 1846, when the Rev. Joseph Muenscher, as editor and

publisher, took it to Mount Vernon. Only Volumes III and IV were

printed in this nearby town and Volume V again appears from

Gambler, this time edited by clergymen of the church for Bishop

McIlvaine. A new press able to print a larger sheet was obtained

in 1848 by money subscribed by friends in the diocese, while the

Rev. Norman Badger became the paper's successful editor until 1859.

Gambler press items began to come out under the name of R. M.

Edmonds in 1850. Edmonds, a small man, crippled and asthmatic,

directed the press for nearly thirty years. Under his management the

press became more vital and the printing more skillful and more

artistic. Edmonds, born in Alexandria, Virginia, December 28,

 

12 Kenyon Advance, III (1880), 193.

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Printing in Gambier                 63

1824,13 was brought to Gambler in 1832 by Myers, likewise from

Alexandria, to become his apprentice. Nearly Edmonds' whole life

was spent in Gambler at the printing trade, where he was noted

for his ability to set type in Greek and Hebrew. Although he re-

mained a Methodist all his life, he was known and liked as a

prominent and valuable citizen of this little village which was such

an Episcopalian stronghold.14 He spent a few years in New York

and Columbus before the Rev. Norman Badger brought him back

to Gambier in 1848 to publish the Western Episcopalian. He re-

mained its foreman when the paper was taken to Cincinnati in 1859

but returned with it when Bishop Gregory T. Bedell brought it

back to Gambier the following year. Edmonds published it until

1868, when the Rev. William C. French, then of Oberlin, became

its editor and took it to Oberlin under the name of the Standard

of the Cross.

Edmonds, who then elected to stay in Gambier with his press,

took Daniel Hunt as a partner in 1871. The firm of Edmonds &

Hunt did all of the Gambier printing until Edmonds' death in 1878.

Newspaper publishing intrigued Edmonds and in 1874 the firm

began a newspaper venture of its own, the Gambier Weekly Argus,

"devoted to local and general news, education, literature, the arts

and science." Thereafter the business used the imprints "Argus

Book & Job Office" and "Weekly Argus Print."

Before taking Hunt into the business, Edmonds printed under

the imprints "R. M. Edmonds, Printer," "Western Episcopalian

Press," and "Theological Seminary Press." Alone he issued two

substantial books, both by Joseph Muenscher, Manual of Biblical

Interpretation (318p., Gambier, 1865) and The Book of Proverbs

(265p., Gambier, 1866). These were both in press at the same time

and constituted a major undertaking for at least four years. A.

Banning Norton as early as 1862 mentions having seen proof sheets

of both.¹⁵ They are dull, theological books, but they are monuments

of industry well-bound in clerical black. In addition to these and the

 

13 Ibid., I (1878), 45.

14 Smythe, History of the Diocese of Ohio, 552.

15 Norton, History of Knox County, 258.

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64     Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

five concealed imprints done for Whiting of Columbus from 1838

to 1840, only The Greek Verb (1835) and three other books of the

Gambler press achieved the ultimate dignity of hard covers.

Printed by Edmonds and Hunt together, these were: Parker's Bible

Baptism Not Dipping, Plunging, or Immersion ... (304p., Gambier,

1871), White's Mount Vernon Directory, Volume 1 (160p., Gam-

bier, 1876), and Rust's Exercises in . . . Greek Prose . . . (80p.,

Gambler, 1878).

Two monthly undergraduate magazines were published over the

years. The Kenyon Collegian, 1856 to 1860, was an active literary

paper which is yet being published for the college, having been

rejuvenated in 1887. The Kenyon Advance began its seven-year

career at Edmonds & Hunt's press in Gambier, but after ten issues

had been printed in 1877-78, it removed to another city, where

competitive printing costs were more agreeable to student finance.

The press was always at the service of a ministry anxious to

disseminate the Word. Chief among its functions was the publica-

tion of sermons, of which there were many. Unique among this file

of published sermons is one by James Kent Stone, Moderation and

Toleration in Theology (22p., Gambier, 1867). Although its author,

then a Kenyon professor, was to become president of Kenyon that

year, within the next year he resigned and shortly afterwards

entered the Roman Catholic Church, where he became famous as

Father Fidelis of The Cross. The press was on more solid ground

publishing the guides laid down by Bishop Bedell, such as the

syllabus for the senior theological class, Pastoral Theology (22p.,

Gambier, 1868), and his Ritual Uniformity (12p., Gambier, 1874),

a pastoral letter to the clergy and laity. McElhinney's Infant Baptism

(32p., Gambler, 1872) and Parker's Bible Baptism (³⁰⁴p.,

Gambler, 1871) were also more fundamentalist.

A basic function of the press was printing the college catalogs.

Most of the commencement programs were produced locally, as

well as the myriad programs of the various college societies. The

academic work of the college was carried by printing endless

examination questions, and a financial scheme is recognized by the

issue of scholarship script in 1856 when funds were more difficult

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Printing in Gambier                  65

 

than usual to acquire. Other activities of the college are touched

upon by the printed Abstract and Argument of Henry B. Curtis . . .

(8p., Gambier, 1837), a court defense of the tax-exempt housing

always supplied to the faculty by the college. A faculty specialist's

interest in fresh-water mussels was encouraged by the printing of

Bossard's Catalogue of the Unios, Alasmodontas, and Anodontas

of the Ohio River (21p., Gambier, 1854), the annual Fourth of July

celebration was dignified by the publication of student Joash R.

Taylor's Ode . . . (8p., Gambler, 1839), and the production of the

two library catalogs (1837 and 1840) probably satisfied the

chauvinistic pride of both faculty and students.

While most of the productions of the Gambier press disregard

a world not primarily concerned with theology and the necessity

for preparing men for the ministry, a few publications do recognize

that outside events were occurring. The Memorial of President

Andrews (4p., Gambler, 1861) is a tribute to a Kenyon president

who went to war leading many of his former students. A program

of the Celebration at Kenyon College over the Capture of Jeff Davis

(1p., Gambier, 1865) mentioning the burning of an effigy signalized

the end of the bloody conflict where so many classmates faced one

another over a wall of fire. That the North retained control of

Kenyon is obvious from a "Roll of Honor" in the Kenyon College

Triennial Catalogue ... 1825 to 1872, which lists only the Union

men of the many Kenyon men known to have served on both sides

in the Civil War. A happier note is sounded by the publication of

the Prospectus of the Neff Petroleum Company (46p., Gambier,

1866), which heralded the discovery of oil in Ohio and instigated

the fine series of geological reports on Ohio published by the legis-

lature. This first report by several of the Kenyon professors was

prompted by the vision of a Kenyon-trained clergyman, Peter Neff,

who was forced to give up preaching because of a throat ailment.

Daniel Hunt carried on alone for a year at the press after

Edmonds' death on March 18, 1878,16 while the Argus appeared

somewhat irregularly. Then the press was sold to a young man,

W. Fant, who published a continuation of the Argus as the Gambler

16 Norman N. Hill, History of Knox County, Ohio (Mount Vernon, 1881), 451.

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66      Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

Herald. This too expired when the press stopped functioning in

1884. Gradually the main supports of the press had drifted away,

its last convention journal being issued in 1850 and its last college

catalog appearing in 1877. The diocesan newspaper had been re-

moved in 1868 and was only replaced by a general local paper,

the Argus, which lacked the wider circulation that the religious

organ commanded. The press became outmoded as its audience

dwindled. The village was too small to warrant a publishing house

that did not receive outside support. Competition was increasing as

the theological audience fell away. When the college began to take

its business elsewhere the press was doomed.

In the fifty years of activity of the press, two printers carried most

of the burden: G. W. Myers and R. M. Edmonds. Their work is

testimony to their industry and devotion. The press primarily pub-

licized the aims and purposes of the college and the religious faith

it represented. When the press was first established, it truly was a

voice in the wilderness. As printing became more widespread in the

Midwest, the church expanded, carrying vital missions further west.

New interests and causes within the church made more demands

upon its public, and such support became diffused.

This press established the first Episcopalian newspaper west of

the Alleghenies. This was its major function and design. During

most of its existence it published the diocesan newspaper under one

name or another. It published most of the convention journals for

over thirty years and for over forty years it printed the college

catalogs. It served the college well, printing its everyday business

concerns and publishing the outstanding lectures and sermons de-

livered at the college. In addition, this small press, by what must

have been almost superhuman effort, managed to print eleven re-

spectable books. Five of these were commercial ventures published by

a Columbus firm. The other six were substantial books published

by the press itself. Surely this small and specialized press made a

creditable contribution to the printing history of the early Midwest.¹⁷

 

17 Copies of a check list of Gambier imprints may be secured from the author.

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