|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Extension of the Maryland Press
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The press mentioned in the advertisement was probably that of M.
Day and W. Hancock who began the George-Town Weekly Ledger on
April 17, 1790, for an unnamed proprietor. It is possible, but there is no
definite evidence, that the proprietor was Opie Lindsay who announced
in a circular letter on November 6, 1790, that he had established a post
to carry mail and newspapers from Fredericksburg through King George,
Westmoreland, Northumberland, and Lancaster counties to Richmond
and that he would receive subscriptions for the George-Town Weekly
Ledger and the Fredericksburg Herald.
Maryland was not yet ready for a magazine and, like Goddard and
Longworthy's proposed American Spectator^ the Georgetown periodical
failed to receive enough support to justify its publication. A year after
their arrival Day and Hancock turned their newspaper over to Alexander
Doyle and disappeared in that obscurity which surrounds so many of
the pioneers of Maryland printing.
The number of printers in Maryland increased rapidly after 1790,
and in 1799 there were at least thirteen individual printers in Baltimore,
two in Frederick, two in Annapolis, two in Hagerstown, one in Easton
and perhaps one in Chestertown. By the end of the first decade of the
nineteenth century, the printing business of Maryland had expanded to
considerable proportions and Baltimore had become one of the leading
publishing centers of the country, a position it was to hold with distinc-
tion for many years, stimulated later by the courageous ventures and
the skilful craftsmanship of Fielding Lucas, Jr., printer and publisher.
The historian of the Maryland Press will find the task of recording the
activities of the later Maryland printers increasingly difficult as he comes
into the nineteenth century but his efforts will be rewarded by a clearer
insight into the cultural development of the state.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[ 75 ]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
