I have a fascination with hand-presses and the printed work that has emanated from them over the years. I seek out not only printed items when affordable, but have a small but growing collection of books containing historical accounts of presses and their operators, as well as manuals that describe their operation. Being situated on the coast of the Pacific Ocean and but a few miles from the town of Monterey places me close in miles, if not in time, to the location of the first printing press west of the Rocky Mountains.
The press was what is called a Common Press, made by and with improvements by Adam Ramage, a Scotsman who settled and plied his trade in Philadelphia. It was constructed of wood, with an iron screw to lower the platen, and a stone bed on which the type was assembled for printing. A complete printing office had been ordered probably in 1831 by missionaries in Hawaii, by the time it was to be delivered it was no longer needed or wanted. The press had left Boston as part of the cargo of the ship Lagoda in May, 1833 bound for the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), a voyage that took nearly a year. In a copy of a listing of the ship's cargo preserved in the James Hunnewell Papers, Harvard College a single entry reads: 1 Case Printing press, Type and apparatus complete. The captain of the Lagoda then carried the equipment to the port of Monterey, where it was purchased by Augustin Vicente Zamorano to print Mexican governmental documents. Zamorano had arrived in Monterey in 1825 to perform the duties of the executive secretary of the Territory of Alta California, and served for 11 years as the second administrative officer. The first preserved document known to have been printed on the Ramage Press was dated July 28, 1834. The press was used to print government papers, and the first book printed in California before the American occupation: Manifiesto de la Republica Mejicana, by Governado Jose Figueroa. A small arithmetic book and a small catechism were also produced. During the Mexican Revolution in 1836 the press saw various owners, and was for a time removed to the home of General Mariano G. Vallejo in Sonoma. It was used to print a total of twelve books, nine in Monterey, and three in Sonoma, with a total output of seventy-seven items. The press ended up neglected in a storage room probably somewhere in or near the Presidio, where it was found by Reverend Walter Colton, a navy chaplain and writer, and Robert Semple, a Kentuckian remembered for his extremely tall figure. Both men were with the Navy Squadron that took over the old capitol of Monterey in July, 1846 .
Colton and Semple assembled the remaining equipment, having to make spacing from lead sheets cut with a pocket knife, among other inventions, and together they produced the first newspaper in California, aptly named The Californian. Press and types were set up in an adobe, a former Mexican government building called El Cuartel that was located on Munras Street, close to the Presidio. The first issue appeared on August 15, 1846. The type found with the press was Small Pica No. 1, manufactured by the Boston Type Foundry. There was only one size of body type, Roman and Italic, with small caps; Four Line Pica Shade was used for the masthead, and Two Lines Brevier Double Shade was used for the smaller masthead on the second page of what was only a four page paper. The page size was eight and one half inches by twelve and one half inches, with two columns of 21 picas. It was printed weekly in both English and Spanish. The text font was purchased with a letter count designed for Spanish usage, and as Walter Colton stated in an extra two-page sheet published Thursday, January 28, 1847:
OUR ALPHABET. - Our type is a spanish font picked up here in a cloister and has no W's in it as there is none in the spanish alphabet. I have sent to the Sandwich Islands for this letter, in the mean time we must use two V's. Our paper at present is that used for wrapping cigars; in due time we will have something better, our object is to establish a press in California, and this we shall in all probability be able to accomplish. The absence of my partner for the last three months and my duties as Alcald[e]d here have deprived our little papes[r] of some of those attentions which I hope it will hereafter receive.
WALTER COLTON
The little paper limped along with limited readership, but it became obvious that San Francisco was developing as the major port in the area. Semple who had sole ownership by May, 1847 moved The Californian to San Francisco. Later, after the Gold Rush had begun it was used to print the Placer Times at Sutter's Fort, the Stockton Times, in Stockton, and in 1850 it moved to Sonora to print the Sonora Herald. It's last move was to the mining town of Columbia to print the Columbia Star in 1851. The owner at the time defaulted on payments, and the press was seized and partially dismantled. The wooden frame of the press which had been left on a sidewalk overnight was set on fire by rowdies, bringing the first press in California to an undeserved fiery end.
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