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A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland: 1686-1776 by Lawrence C. Wroth
Volume 435, Page 77   View pdf image (33K)
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Jonas Green, his Family and his Associates

infancy. The three sons who reached manhood continued in Maryland and
passed on to another generation of their family the typographical tradi-
tion which they had inherited from their New England forefathers.

THE DATE OF GREEN'S COMING TO MARYLAND

That the young journeyman from the north began his labors in Mary-
land sometime in the year 1738 seems to be true in spite of the fact that no
Annapolis imprints of that year have been recorded. As early as May 1738
a bill was introduced into the Lower House providing for the repeal of the
several laws which stood on the books in favor of William Parks, and five
days later, on May pth, another bill was brought in for the encouragement
of Jonas Green. The Assembly was prorogued in this year, as it was also in
the following year, before any of its bills became laws, and it was not until
the session of July 1740 that an act for the encouragement of the new printer
found place on the statute books. When Green died in 1767 his obituary
affirmed that he had been for twenty-eight years printer to the Province,
a term of service which, if exactly stated, would have had its beginning in
the year 1739, but on the other hand in a printed petition which he issued
in 1762,1 Green himself spoke of having served the Province as public prin ter
for twenty-four years, while additional evidence that he began his printing
operations in Maryland in the year 1738 is found in an act of Assembly
of ten years later2 in which provision was made for the payment of sal-
aries owing him for his services in that year. Finally, there is to be consid-
ered the fact that in October 1738, the first-born child of Jonas and Anne
Catharine Green was baptized in St. Anne's Church, Annapolis, an occur-
rence which indicates that the Greens were at that time residents of the
Maryland capital. In the face of these several evidences of his association
with Maryland in the year 1738, it seems curious that the earliest recorded

vember 1755, died October 2; Jonas b. 29 August 1755, died of smallpox 26 December 1756; Samuel b. 27 April
1757; Augusta, b. 4 April 1760.

For the foregoing facts relating to the ancestry and early life of Jonas Green, see "Flint Genealogy" by J. L.
Bass; "Brief Memories and Notices of Prince's Subscribers," by Ashbel Woodward, the first in 14: 60 of New
England Historical and Genealogical Magazine, the second in 16:14 and 15 of the same magazine; Isaiah Thomas,
both editions.

See also "Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths," St. Anne's Parish, Annapolis, copy in Maryland His-
torical Society, and "Marriages in Christ Church, Philadelphia," vol. 1, in Record of Pennsylvania Marriages
Prior to 1810, being vol. 8, Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series. See also notice in Maryland Gazette for October
27, 1763, where is announced the death early in the month of Jonas Green's brother Timothy, who had given
up his partnership with Kneeland of Boston and returned to New London at the time of his father's death in
1757.

1 See bibliographical appendix.

2 Acts, 1748. Printed copy in Maryland Historical Society. In an appendix to this narrative will be found ref-
erences to all acts of Assembly concerning Green and Parks, and a concise statement of Green's financial rela-
tions with the Province,

[77]


 

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A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland: 1686-1776 by Lawrence C. Wroth
Volume 435, Page 77   View pdf image (33K)
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