[Illustration: _Conclusion of General Vallejo's message to the
Governor of Alta California, which was printed on a press that had
been shipped from Boston via Hawaii._]
As early as 1830 Agustín V. Zamorano, executive secretary of the
Mexican territory of Alta California, was using limited printing
equipment to produce official letterheads. Zamorano later became
proprietor of California's first regular printing press, which was
shipped from Boston (via Hawaii) and set up at Monterey about July
1834. While he controlled this press--that is, until the uprising in
November 1836--Zamorano appears to have employed two printers, whose
names are unknown.[84]
Under the revolutionary government the same press continued in
operation at Monterey and at Sonoma, and the earliest California
printing in the Library of Congress is the first known Sonoma
issue: _Ecspocision_ [sic] _que hace el comdanante_ [sic] _general
interino de la Alta California al gobernador de la misma_. It is a
small pamphlet having 21 pages of text, preceded by a leaf bearing a
woodcut of an eagle. The text is dated from Sonoma, August 17, 1837,
and signed by Mariano G. Vallejo, beneath whose printed name is a
manuscript flourish.
Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1807-90) held the highest military
office of Alta California at the time of writing, his headquarters
then being at Sonoma. In his communication to the Governor, he
advocates certain commercial reforms summarized as follows in Hubert
Howe Bancroft's _History of the Pacific States of North America_ (San
Francisco, 1882-90):
His plan was to prohibit all coasting trade by foreign
vessels, and to transfer the custom-house from Monterey
to San Francisco. In defence of the first, he adduced the
well known practice on the part of traders of presenting
themselves at Monterey with a few cheap articles for
inspection, afterward taking on board from secure
hiding-places the valuable part of the cargo, to be sold
at other ports. Thus the revenue was grossly defrauded,
leaving the government without funds. By the change
proposed not only would smuggling cease and the revenues
be augmented, but Californians would be encouraged to
become owners of coasting vessels or to build up a system
of inland communication by mule-trains.... The transfer
of the custom-house was advocated on the ground of San
Francisco's natural advantages, the number and wealth of
the establishments tributary to the bay, and the importance
of building up the northern frontier as a matter of foreign
policy.[85]
General Vallejo was his own printer. In a manuscript "Historia de
California" he says of his pamphlet, "I wrote the attached statement
of which I sent the original to the governor of the State and which
I printed immediately in the small printing office that I had in
Sonoma and of which I was the only employee; I had the printed copies
distributed throughout all parts of California and furthermore I gave
some copies to the captains of merchant ships that were going to ports
in the United States of America."[86]
The Library of Congress copy shows that the general left something
to be desired as a printer, some pages being so poorly inked
as to be scarcely legible. This copy--one of but four known to
bibliographers--was previously in the possession of A. B. Thompson of
San Francisco, and the Library purchased it from him in February 1904
for $15.
[Footnote 84: See George L. Harding, _Don Agustin V. Zamorano_
(Los Angeles, 1934), p. 178-210; Herbert Fahey, _Early Printing in
California_ (San Francisco, 1956); H. P. Hoyt, "The Sandwich Island
Story of California's First Printing Press," _California Historical
Society Quarterly_, vol. 35 (1956), p. 193-204.]
[Footnote 85: Vol. 16 (1886), p. 87-88.]
[Footnote 86: Quoted from Herbert Fahey, _Early Printing in
California_, p. 27.]