Illinois' first printing took place at Kaskaskia, the no longer
existent Territorial capital. In 1814 Governor Ninian Edwards induced
the Kentucky printer Matthew Duncan to settle there, and probably in
May of that year Duncan founded a weekly newspaper, _The Illinois
Herald_.
The earliest Illinois imprint in the Library of Congress, listed as
number 4 in Cecil K. Byrd's definitive bibliography, is _Laws of
the Territory of Illinois, Revised and Digested under the Authority
of the Legislature. By Nathaniel Pope_, published by Duncan in two
volumes dated June 2 and July 4, 1815. Nathaniel Pope (1784-1850), who
prepared this earliest digest of Illinois statutes, went to Kaskaskia
upon being appointed secretary of the newly authorized Illinois
Territory and did important organizational work there in the spring
of 1809 before Governor Edwards' arrival. On December 24, 1814, the
legislature decreed that Pope should receive $300 "for revising the
laws of this Territory making an index to the same, and superintending
the printing thereof."[73] The work he produced was to a large extent
based on an 1807 revision of the laws of the Indiana Territory, from
which Illinois had recently been separated.[74]
[Illustration: (_Laws of the Territory of Illinois, Revised and
Digested under the Authority of the Legislature. By Nathaniel Pope_)]
Even though it paid him for his labor and authorized printing,
the Illinois Legislature never enacted Pope's digest into law.
Nevertheless, the work had a certain importance, as explained by its
20th-century editor, Francis S. Philbrick:
"The first thing that anyone will notice who opens
this volume is that Pope began the practice of
topical-alphabetical arrangement to which the lawyers of
Illinois have now been accustomed for more than a hundred
years. At the time of its appearance the work's importance
was increased by the fact that it collected, so far as
deemed consistent and still in force, the laws of 1812,
1813, and 1814. These enactments--though presumably all
accessible in manuscript, for a time, at the county seats,
and in many newspapers--had not all appeared in book form;
nor did they so appear until fifteen years ago [i. e., in
1920-21]."[75]
The Library of Congress set of two rebound volumes is seriously
imperfect, with numerous missing leaves replaced in facsimile. The
volumes were purchased in June 1902 from the Statute Law Book Company
in Washington together with a volume of Illinois session laws of
1817-18 for a combined price of $225.
[Footnote 73: See _Collections of the Illinois State Historical
Library_, vol. 25, 1950, p. 178.]
[Footnote 74: Ibid., vol. 28, 1938, p. xviii.]
[Footnote 75: Ibid., p. xxi.]