171

THE ENGLISH PRESS OP HAGERSTOWN

Stewart Herbert, Pioneer Printer of Hagerstown.
It is not surprising that Hagerstown, standing as it
does at the junction of East-West and North-South
highways, now known as U. S. Routes 40 and 11, should
be distinguished for having the first Maryland press
west of the Blue Ridge range. Frederick, only thirty
miles away, east of the mountains, had a press as
early as 1777¹; Winchester, in the valley to the
south, had a press in 1787²; and in the Cumberland
valley to the north, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, acquired
a press in 1785 , and Chambersburg in 1790⁴.

Jonathan Hager, founder of Hagerstown, laid out
his village in 1762, and named it after his wife
Elizabeth, the former Elizabeth Kershner of Washing-
ton County, calling the village Elizabethtown, It
was known, however, as Elizabethtown and Hagerstown,
alternately, and was sometimes designated Elizabeth
(Hager's) Town; gradually "Elizabeth" was dropped and
it was known exclusively as Hagerstown⁵. The village

1 Wheeler, J.T. The Maryland press, p. 59.

2 McMurtrio, D.C. A history of printing in the
United States, p. 303.

3 Ibid. p. 86.

4 Sealock, R.B. Publishing in Pennsylvania,
1785-1790. p. 2^

5 Scharf,,J.T. History of Western Maryland,
v, 2, p. 1059-1060.