Like William Nuthead, William Bradford introduced printing in more
than one Colony, and he began his American career by establishing
the first Pennsylvania press at Philadelphia in 1685. Here that same
year he printed _Good Order Established in Pennsilvania & New-Jersey
in America_, the earliest Pennsylvania imprint in the Library of
Congress and the second known example of Bradford's press. The author,
Thomas Budd, was a successful Quaker immigrant, who settled first
at Burlington, N.J., and later at Philadelphia. He intended his
description of the two Colonies to stimulate further immigration, and
he printed this statement on the title page verso:
It is to be noted, that the Government of these Countries
is so settled by Concessions, and such care taken by the
establishment of certain fundamental Laws, by which every
Man's Liberty and Property, both as Men and Christians, are
preserved; so that none shall be hurt in his Person, Estate
or Liberty for his Religious Perswasion or Practice in
Worship towards God.
Because neither place nor printer is named in the book, it was long
thought to have been printed at London, but typographical comparisons
made during the latter part of the 19th century demonstrated
conclusively that it issued from William Bradford's press.
[Illustration: _The 19th-century bookseller Henry Stevens._]
The Library of Congress copy was bound at London by William Pratt for
the bookseller Henry Stevens. F. J. Shepard traces this much of its
later provenance in his introduction to a reprint issued in Cleveland
in 1902:
A copy in full levant morocco, by Pratt, belonging to John
A. Rice of Chicago, was sold in March, 1870, to Sabin &
Sons for $155. The same copy fetched $150 at the sale of
the library of William Menzies of New York (1875),[8]
when it was described in Sabin's catalogue as "one of the
rarest of books relating to Pennsylvania." It was again,
presumably, the same copy which at the sale in New York of
S. L. M. Barlow's books in 1889 brought $400, although it
was still incorrectly described as printed in London. After
passing through the hands of two dealers and one collector,
it reached Dodd, Mead & Co., who advertised it in their
November, 1900, catalogue for $700, and sold it at that
price to a private collector whose name is not given.
The copy was among several Americana from the library of C. H.
Chubbock, a Boston collector,[9] which were sold at auction by C. F.
Libbie & Co. on February 23 and 24, 1904, the Library of Congress
obtaining it for $600.
[Footnote 8: Sabin's catalog is dated 1875, but the sale did not occur
until November 1876.]
[Footnote 9: See _American Book-Prices Current_, vol. 10 (1904), p.
vii.]