up the first printing press in the American
Colonies belongs to Massachusetts. Only eighteen years had elapsed from
the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, before a press was in operation
at Cambridge--then as populous as Boston. The project of establishing a
press in the New World was conceived and almost executed by the Rev.
Jesse Glover, a dissenting clergyman in England, who had interested
himself largely in planting the colony, and a portion of whose family
was already in America. Mr. Glover raised the means of purchasing his
press, types, and other necessary apparatus by contributions in England
and Holland. With these materials he embarked for America in 1638, but
died a few days before the ship reached the shore. Cambridge was at that
time the seat of the civil and ecclesiastical power in Massachusetts;
and as the academy which subsequently grew into Cambridge University had
then been commenced, it was determined by the leading men of the colony
to establish the press there; and there it remained for sixty years
under their control, and forty years before a press was established in
any other colony. The first printer was Stephen Day, engaged in London
by Mr. Glover, and supposed to be a descendant of the celebrated John
Day, the noted printer. The second printer in the Colonies was Samuel
Green, to whom Day relinquished the business in 1649. Colonel Samuel
Green, the late venerable editor of the _New London Gazette_, was a
descendant in a direct line from the original printer of that name; the
family having uninterruptedly engaged in that business for nearly two
hundred years. The elder Green printed the Indian Bibles and Testaments
for those early apostles of the New World who first engaged in the
benevolent work of attempting the civilization and evangelization of the
aboriginals of this country--a noble race of wild men, who have melted
away before the palefaces, like the hoarfrost beneath the beams of the
morning sun.

The sturdy republican religionists of New England became very soon as
chary of allowing the freedom of the press as were the Pontiff and the
crowned heads of Europe. Some religious tracts having been published
which the clergy and the General Court deemed of too liberal a
character, licensers of the press were appointed in 1662; but in the
year following, it was ordered by the Provincial Government that 'the
printing press be as free as formerly.' This freedom, however, was soon
exerted more