[Illustration: (_An Act to Prevent Stealing of Horses and Neat Cattle;
and for the More Effectual Discovery and Punishment of Such Persons
as Shall Unlawfully Brand, Mark, or Kill the Same._ Printed by James
Johnston.)]
An act for the provision of printing, passed by the Georgia
Legislature on March 4, 1762, stated that "_James Johnston_, lately
arrived in this province from _Great-Britain_, recommended as a person
regularly bred to and well skilled in the art and mystery of printing,
hath offered to set up a printing press in the town of _Savannah_."
Employed to print the Colony's statutes, Johnston had readied the
first Georgia press by April 7, 1763, when he began to publish his
newspaper, _The Georgia Gazette_.
From the year 1763 the Library of Congress owns several official
imprints bound up in a volume of Georgia laws enacted from 1755 to
1770 and one unofficial imprint, _The South-Carolina and Georgia
Almanack, for the Year of Our Lord, 1764 ... By John Tobler, Esq._
This almanac, which the distinguished collector Wymberley Jones De
Renne gave the Library in 1907, was published by December 8, 1763,
and probably printed very shortly before. The earliest of Johnston's
many official imprints, predating all his other work except _The
Georgia Gazette_, are thought to be two acts advertised in that paper
on June 2, 1763. They are entitled _An Act to Prevent Stealing of
Horses and Neat Cattle; and for the More Effectual Discovery and
Punishment of Such Persons as Shall Unlawfully Brand, Mark, or Kill
the Same_ and _An Act for Ascertaining the Qualifications of Jurors,
and for Establishing the Method of Balloting and Summoning of Jurors
in the Province of Georgia_. They had been passed on March 27, 1759,
and April 24, 1760, and were printed in folio in four and six pages,
respectively. Both acts are represented in the Library of Congress
bound volume of early Georgia laws. Only two other copies of each are
known to be extant.
Various owners inscribed their name in this book. Joseph Stiles, who
operated the Vale Royal Plantation near Savannah from 1806 until
his death in 1838, owned at least the latter part of it, where his
signature and that of his son, the evangelist Joseph C. Stiles, may be
seen. Another owner of the same part was John C. Nicholl (1793-1863),
a prominent lawyer and jurist who served as mayor of Savannah in 1836
and 1837. A later owner of the entire volume was a certain S. H.
McIntire, not known to have any Savannah connections, who inscribed it
in June 1878. The Library of Congress purchased it in June 1909 from
the Statute Law Book Company of Washington, D.C. for $2,500.