Ohio History Journal

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ANTECEDENT EXPERIENCE OF WILLIAM

ANTECEDENT EXPERIENCE OF WILLIAM

MAXWELL, OHIO'S FIRST PRINTER

BY DOUGLAS C. McMURTRIE

 

The facts regarding the first printing in Ohio are

well known and clearly established.    William   Maxwell

set up a printing office in Cincinnati and published the

first issue of the Centinel of the North-Western Terri-

tory on November 9, 1793.1     But where Maxwell came

from and what his previous experience was are points

of information which have never been dealt with in any

of the literature dealing with the beginnings of the press

in Ohio.

Nor am I able to give much information as to where

Maxwell originally came from, but I am able to throw

light on his printing experience immediately precedent

to the setting up of his press in Cincinnati. According

to the usual story he crossed the Alleghanies on his way

from his New Jersey home to Pittsburg, and from there

he conveyed his press down the river directly to Cincin-

nati.  Recent research for my forthcoming history of

early printing in Kentucky has revealed the fact that

 

1 This story has been told in the excellent article by C. B. Galbreath

in Newspapers and Periodicals in Ohio State Library, Columbus, Ohio,

1902, p. 3. See also:

Reuben Gold Thwaites, "The Ohio Valley Press before the War of

1812-1815," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. XIX,

1908-1909, p. 309, and

Douglas C. McMurtrie, "The Westward Migration of the Printing

Press in the United States, 1786-1836," Gutenberg Jahrbach, [Mainz, 1930],

p. 269-288.

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