Mississippi's first printer was Andrew Marschalk of New York, an Army
lieutenant stationed at Walnut Hills, close to the eventual site of
Vicksburg.[55] There, probably in 1798, he attracted attention by
printing a ballad on a small press he had acquired in London. At the
request of Governor Winthrop Sargent, Marschalk undertook in 1799
to print the laws of Mississippi Territory, and for that purpose he
built a larger press at Natchez. Late in 1799 a second printer, Ben
M. Stokes, purchased this press from Marschalk and soon commenced
a weekly paper, _The Mississippi Gazette_. On May 5, 1800, James
Green, a printer from Baltimore, introduced a rival paper at Natchez,
_Green's Impartial Observer_.
The Library of Congress earliest Mississippi imprint was designed to
controvert remarks by "The Friend of the People" in _Green's Impartial
Observer_ for November 1, 1800. It is a small broadside "From the
Office of J. Green" that would seem to corroborate the printer's
impartiality, at least in this particular dispute. Captioned "To
the Public," dated November 8, 1800, and signed by eight members
of the new Territorial House of Representatives, it refers to "an
exaggerated estimate of the supposed expence attending the second
grade of Government"; and it continues, "We therefore consider it our
duty to counteract the nefarious and factious designs of the persons
concerned" in the anonymous article. Mississippi's second grade of
Territorial government had come about in 1800 with the creation of a
legislature to enact the laws, theretofore enacted by the Governor and
three judges. The authors of this broadside itemize the maximum annual
expenses for operating the legislature, concluding with a comparison
of the total estimates: their $2,870 as opposed to the $15,050 of "The
Friend of the People."
[Illustration: "To the Public," dated November 8, 1800]
In addition the Library of Congress has a lengthy rebuttal to the
November 8 statement on a broadside also captioned "To the Public,"
dated at Natchez "November 15th, 1809" (a misprint for 1800), and
signed "The Friend of the People." The writer begins:
Fellow-Citizens,
Of all the extraordinary performances I ever beheld, the
late hand-bill, signed by eight members of our house of
representatives, is the _most_ extraordinary--and I doubt
not that it will be considered by the country at large as
the legitimate offspring of the subscribers; being replete
with that unauthorized assumption of power, and those round
assertions so truly characteristic--propagated for the
avowed purpose of 'undeceiving the people' in a matter of
the first moment, and yet not containing one authenticated
fact for them to found an opinion on--but resting all upon
their mere _dictum_, penetrating into future events, and
proclaiming what _shall be_ the decisions of legislators
not yet elected.
His argument against his opponents' cost estimates touches upon
certain fundamental issues, such as the threat of an aristocratic rule
if the stipend for legislators is indeed kept very low. Towards the
end he notes an instance of intimidation:
One thing more I would observe--a very threatening letter
has been written to the printer denouncing vengeance on
him, if he does not deliver up the author of "_the friend
of the people_"--this I take to be an attempt to frighten
and preclude further investigation, but it will be of
little avail when the interests of my fellow citizens are
so deeply concerned.
That James Green, although not named, is the printer of this second
broadside can be demonstrated by typographical comparison with
the January 24 and February 21, 1801 issues of _Green's Impartial
Observer_, available at the Library of Congress.
The two broadsides cited are the only copies recorded in Douglas
C. McMurtrie's _A Bibliography of Mississippi Imprints 1798-1830_
(Beauvoir Community, Miss., 1945).[56] They bear manuscript notations,
in an identical hand, that suggest use in an official archive; and
the earlier broadside is stated to be "from M^r Banks, Nov^r 12^{th}
1800." Sutton Bankes, one of the eight signers, is presumably referred
to here. The second broadside has, besides a brief caption in this
hand, a more elegantly written address: "His Excellency Winthrop
Sergent Bellemont." Bellemont was one of Governor Sargent's residences
near Natchez.
It is interesting that at the time Governor Sargent expressed himself
privately on the earlier broadside as follows:
They [the members of the House of Representatives] are
undoubtedly the proper Guardians of their own honour and
Conduct, but nevertheless, will not take it amiss, in a
Communication intended only for themselves, that I should
observe it has always been Considered derogatory to the
Dignity of Public Bodies, to notice anonymous writings, in
the style and Manner of the Hand Bills,--it opens a broad
Avenue to Retort and Satire, with many other obvious and
unpleasant Consequences.[57]
[Footnote 55: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Pioneer Printing in
Mississippi_ (Atlanta, 1932); and Charles S. Sydnor, "The Beginning of
Printing in Mississippi," _The Journal of Southern History_, vol. 1,
1935, p. [49]-55.]
[Footnote 56: Nos. 11 and 12.]
[Footnote 57: From letter dated November 12, 1800, in _The Mississippi
Territorial Archives_, compiled and edited by Dunbar Rowland, vol. 1
(1905), p. 301-302.]