In 1796 John McCall, the earliest printer active in Michigan, issued
at Detroit a 16-page Act of Congress relating to Indian affairs.
Apart from blank forms printed on the same press before its removal
to Canada in 1800, no other specimens of Michigan printing survive
antedating the press that Father Gabriel Richard, the influential
Sulpician priest, established at Detroit in 1809.
Entry number 2 in the _Preliminary Check List of Michigan Imprints
1796-1850_ (Detroit, 1942)[51] describes a 12-page publication said to
exist in a unique copy at the Library of Congress: _To the Honourable
the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States. Memorial
of the citizens of the United States, situated north of an east and
west line, extending thro' the southward bend of Lake Michigan, and
by the Act of Congress of 30th April 1802 attached to, and made part
of the Indiana Territory ..._ ([Detroit? 1802?]). This entry is, in
bibliographical parlance, a ghost. Actually, the Library of Congress
possesses the work only as a negative photostat of a manuscript
document which is preserved at the National Archives.[52]
The earliest _bona fide_ Michigan imprint in the Library of Congress
is _L'Ame penitente ou Le nouveau pensez-y-bien; consideration sur
les ve'rite's eternelles, avec des histoires & des exemples ..._
printed at Detroit in 1809. The printer, James M. Miller, of Utica,
N. Y., was the first of three operators of Father Richard's press.
This particular imprint is the fourth item in a standard bibliography
of the press, which calls it "the first book of more than 24 pages
printed in Detroit or Michigan."[53] As a matter of fact, it is a very
substantial work of 220 pages, albeit in a small duodecimo format. It
is a reprint of a devotional book first published in France in the
18th century and attributed to a prolific Jesuit author, Barthélemy
Baudrand (1701-87). As head of the Catholic Church in the area, Father
Richard wanted to make such religious literature available to the
largely French-speaking inhabitants.
[Illustration: (_L'AME PENITENTE OU LE NOUVEAU PENSEZ-Y-BIEN;
CONSIDERATION SUR LES VE'RITE'S ETERNELLES, Avec des Histoires & des
Exemples ..._ printed by James M. Miller at Detroit in 1809.)]
The Library of Congress copy of _L'Ame penitente_, in a speckled calf
binding of uncertain date, was obtained through a 1954 exchange with
Edward Eberstadt & Sons. It had been offered in one of the bookselling
firm's catalogs earlier that year for $500.[54]
[Footnote 51: Historical Records Survey, American Imprints Inventory,
no. 52.]
[Footnote 52: The original is in Record Group 46 at the National
Archives; the Library's photostat is in the Manuscript Division. The
imaginary imprint recurs as no. 3168 in _American Bibliography, a
Preliminary Checklist for 1802_, comp. by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H.
Shoemaker (New York, 1958).]
[Footnote 53: A. H. Greenly, _A Bibliography of Father Richard's Press
in Detroit_ (Ann Arbor, 1955).]
[Footnote 54: Catalogue 134, no. 392. Two years later the same firm
offered another copy for $750, in its Catalogue 138, no. 428.]