A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland

the Greens had in their possession a font of German types; they may have
been from a Philadelphia press, but there seems no good reason that the
work should have been carried to Philadelphia when a printer capable of
printing in both languages was living in Baltimore; they may have been
and probably were from the Baltimore press of Nicholas Hasselbach. Un-
fortunately there remains only one known specimen of Hasselbach's Bal-
timore press for comparison with them, and this, printed three years earlier,
evinces many typographical differences from the petitions. A prosperous
printer, however, would have renovated his fonts with such frequency as
to render this negative result of little importance in the investigation. On
the positive side there is the fact that the petitions were printed in both
Roman and German types, and that Hasselbach, a prin ter capable of print-
ing in both types, was living in Baltimore at the time that the work was
done, and further, that in a dispute where local pride was a large element
it would have been natural that the literature of the dispute should be printed
in the locality chiefly concerned. If these petitions, copies of which are now
in the Maryland Historical Society, may be truly attributed to Nicholas
Hasselbach's press, they are of particular interest in Baltimore printing
history as very early examples of the press in that city and as the first re-
corded issues of the Maryland press in the German type and language.

It has been mentioned here that Hasselbach's widow sold his equipment
to William Goddard, who set up an establishment in Baltimore in the year
1773. There is a tradition¹ to the effect that Goddard believed himself at
this sale to be purchasing an outfit of Caslon type, but that he discovered
later a disparity in size between the bodies of his genuine Caslon and those
of Hasselbach's letters. It was the discovery of his error which led Goddard
to sell the Hasselbach fonts, which are said by Isaiah Thomas to have been
cast by Sower of Germantown, to Francis Bailey, a printer of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, who at a later time, certainly, made conspicuous use of Sow-
er's type faces. There seems to be no evidence, however, that Sower had
commenced type-founding commercially before the year 1772, so that one
has difficulty in reconciling the tradition and the facts.The problem which is
here presented is of interest to the student of American type-founding.

HODGE AND SHOBER

After the death of Hasselbach, late in the year 1769 or early in 1770,
Baltimore was without a printer for nearly three years. It was not until

¹ Related to the writer by Mr. Preston Fiddis, of Baltimore. Mr. Fiddis is a repository of Baltimore printing
traditions.

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