Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As we know, the Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth Rock was beset with disease and a horrific die-off of the ship's passengers. They were woefully ill-prepared for their enterprise and did not have sufficient provisions or know-how to survive in the Massachusetts wilderness in that first winter. About half died by the end of February.
The story goes that they supposedly brought a printing press on the ship but not adequate provisions. Were they planning to sell religious tracts or newspapers to the Indians. They intended to land in Virginia so perhaps there would have been some literate English settlers there.
Was the one thing the Pilgrims needed above all else a printing press? There is some debate as to whether there was a press on the ship. Governor Bradford never actually says there was a printing press. He mentions a "great screw" that people assume was part of a press. Because William Brewster, one of the Elders on board the ship, was a partner in a print shop and printer of religious tracts in Leiden it was an easy assumption to make. But the "great screw" could have been a tool used in home building, something that they might have seen as a necessity. But the irony of the Mayflower press story is that the "great screw" (printing press or not) was used to prop up the sagging main beam that jeopardized the integrity of the ship. The ship could have broken apart if the beam didn't hold together. It saved them from disaster. I wasn't there but it seems more likely that a home building tool used to raise heavy beams would have come to mind in the event of an emergency at sea before they would have considered a printing press.
William Brewster was arrested in 1619 and his printer's type was seized in a raid on his shop in Leiden for printing prohibited religious tracts that were smuggled into England. He was released or escaped and went into hiding as a fugitive for a year before the Pilgrims left for America. He reappeared in England that year and worked to acquire the land patent for the Pilgrims to relocate to Virginia. I don't find any account of him being a printer after his arrest in Leiden. There is no indication that he showed up at the ship with a printing press in time to sail. Governor Bradford said the screw was "brought out of Holland" but Brewster was in England. Bradford wrote a glowing description of Brewster and said he was an able farm worker and sometime preacher on the Sabbath. Bradford said he was "Inoffensive and innocent in his life and conversation, which gained him the love of those without as well as those within; yet he would tell them plainly of their faults and evils, both publicly and privately, but in such a manner as usually was well taken from him.” Bradford does not mention that he was a printer or that he had a printing press. Brewster was the only university-trained member of the Mayflower party and he lived until 1644. He was well read, and his probate inventory includes a collection of books.
It would not surprise me if they had a printing press. As we know from history the development of the Gutenberg movable type press was critical in the development of dissent and "non-comfornity." I would be shocked if religious dissidents did not have one.
What they actually probably brought was the giant wooden screw and its nut, and a couple fonts of type. All the other components of a printing press of the time could be made on the spot from local timber, but a good quality screw of that type is challenging to make with limited tools. Lots of transatlantic immigrants would just bring key components of tools - for example, a group immigrating for a settlement might bring 3 dozen axe heads (knowing they could make handles on the spot) and only two axes with handles. Much less storage required. Use the first two axes to cut handles for the others when you get there. Same with hammers, chisels, etc.
You have to put yourself in the mindset of 1620, when even city dwellers had a level of manual skills that is rare today, and then consider that you're trying to get everything you need for survival, that's not locally available, into a very small compass on a ship. You don't carry anything you can't make when you get there.
I am not aware of any actual printing taking place by the Mayflower survivors. Brewster lived a long life but was never identified as being in the printing trade after his arrest in Leiden and escape to England. The "great screw" was not associated with a press until many years later and the story of a press on the Mayflower is probably apocryphal. Printing probably took place during or after the Great Migration. Beginning with the Winthrop Fleet of 1630, about 20,000 Puritan settlers began to populate the Massachusetts settlements. They were reasonably wealthy and educated. Harvard was established in 1636 and the first documented press was in the home of the Harvard president i 1638. The printer, Stephen Daye, seems credited with bringing that press over from England.
It's my understanding that the Pilgrims had a "great screw" that they brought with them, not an actual printing press; supposedly the screw was a jack screw that was to be used for raising and leveling the buildings they expected to erect in their new colony.
The Pilgrims were not well funded, as they were basically religious refugees without much wealth on their own. Their existence depended upon turning a profit for their investors back in England, shipping fish, lumber, and furs back to the company backing their colony. Unfortunately, Plymouth Colony turned out to be a financial failure.
The Puritans who settled Boston and Massachusetts were of a different sort. They were much more organized and were definitely in a better financial situation than the Pilgrims. The Puritans would have had the time and the means to indulge in the luxury of a printing press; the Pilgrims, not so much.
It's my understanding that the Pilgrims had a "great screw" that they brought with them, not an actual printing press; supposedly the screw was a jack screw that was to be used for raising and leveling the buildings they expected to erect in their new colony.
I think that is the case. The great screw was some sort of a jack used to raise or support heavy beams. It came in handy when the main support beam cracked on the Mayflower. Apart from the Mayflower myth, there is no real mention of a printing press in the American colonies before the one at Harvard in about 1638. The first book printed was an Algonquin language bible.
Apparently, there is some evidence that the cost of the first press was partially shared by some Dutch settlers. New Amsterdam was established in 1625 so perhaps there was interest in supporting a printing operation in the Dutch colony by 1838. The Dutch and English were butting up against each other in Connecticut. Hartford was originally the site of a Dutch trading fort.
I think the Native Americans got the "great screw".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
