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THE GERMAN PRESS OP HAGERSTOWN

John Gruber¹s name still appears on the imprint
of his best-known production, the Hagers-Town Town and
Country Almanack. It is the second almanac, in point
of age, in the United States - the first being the
Farmer's Almanac, established by Rohert Bailey Thomas
and first printed in Boston in 1792, now published by
Robb Sagendorph in Dublin, New Hampshire, and now
(1942) known as the Old Farmer's Almanac.¹

John (or Johann) Gruber, the first German printer
of Hagerstown, was the eldest son of Dr. Everard Gruber,
a physician of Strasburg, Lancaster County, Pennsyl-
vania (1736-1814)² and his wife, Anna Christiana Pein
(b. 1738),³ The young John Gruber, born October 31,
1768, decided in favor of a mechanical trade, rather
than the medical profession, which his father wished
him to follow. Accordingly, at the age of fifteen, he
was apprenticed to Charles Cist of Philadelphia, and it
was during his apprenticeship that he had the rare
privilege of following in the funeral procession of
Benjamin Franklin.

Gruber's health was feeble at the termination of

Ms apprentice ship; and at the advice of his physician

1 Christian science monitor. January 2, 1942.

2 Hagers-Town town and country almanack, 1859. p. [7]

3 Eshleman, C.H. John Gruber and the Hagerstown almanac

4 Hagers-Town town and country almanack. 1859. p [7]