[Illustration: (_Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory
of Washington, Passed at the Second Regular Session, Begun and Held
at Olympia, December 4, 1854, in the Seventy-Ninth Year of American
Independence_)]
[Illustration: (_Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of
Washington, ..._ continued)]
The earliest recorded example of Washington printing is the first
number of _The Columbian_, published at Olympia on September 11, 1852.
The founders of this newspaper were James W. Wiley and Thornton F.
McElroy, who purchased a press on which the Portland _Oregonian_ had
for a short time been printed and which before that saw service in
California.[117]
In 1853 the Territory of Washington was created from the northern part
of the Territory of Oregon, and on April 17, 1854, the new Territorial
legislature elected James W. Wiley to be Washington's first official
printer. The earliest specimen of Washington printing held by the
Library of Congress appears to be the following example of his work,
printed at Olympia in 1855: _Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the
Territory of Washington, Passed at the Second Regular Session, Begun
and Held at Olympia, December 4, 1854, in the Seventy-Ninth Year
of American Independence_. It includes an act passed at the second
session, on February 1, 1855, specifying the size and distribution of
the original edition:
Sec. 1. _Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the
Territory of Washington_, That the Public Printer be, and
is hereby required to print in pamphlet form, six hundred
copies of the laws of the present session, and a like
number of the laws of the last session of the Legislative
Assembly....
Sec. 2. It shall be the duty of the Secretary of the
territory to forward to each county auditor in the
territory fifteen copies of the laws of each session for
the use of the county officers, and two copies for each
member of the Legislative Assembly, and to each officer of
the Legislative Assembly, one copy of said laws.
The Library owns three copies of this 75-page official document, all
acquired probably during the last quarter of the 19th century. They
are in old Library bindings and bear no marks of prior ownership.
Among the Library's collections are five other Olympia imprints of
the same year but from the press of the second official printer,
George B. Goudy, who was elected on January 27, 1855. One of these, a
work of more than 500 pages, the Library also holds in three copies:
_Statutes of the Territory of Washington: Being the Code Passed by
the Legislative Assembly, At Their First Session Begun and Held at
Olympia, February 27th, 1854. Also, Containing the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Organic Act
of Washington Territory, the Donation Laws, &C., &C._ The others are
_Journal of the Council of the Territory of Washington: Together With
the Memorials and Joint Resolutions of the First Session of {the}
Legislative Assembly ..._; _Journal of the House of Representatives
of the Territory of Washington: Together With the Memorials and Joint
Resolutions of the First Session of the Legislative Assembly ..._;
_Journal of the Council of the Territory of Washington, During the
Second Session of the legislative Assembly ..._; and _Journal of the
House of Representatives of the Territory of Washington: Being the
Second Session of the Legislative Assembly ..._.
Most official printing in the Territories was paid for by the Federal
Government, and copies of many publications were sent to Washington,
D.C., to meet certain administrative requirements. In some copies now
at the Library of Congress visible evidence to this effect remains,
as in the above-mentioned Council and House journals for the second
legislative session, both inscribed to "Library State Dept." Although
the Department of State continued to exercise broad supervision over
the Territories at this period, supervision of their official printing
was assigned, as it had been since 1842, to the Treasury Department.
The cover or halftitle now bound in at the end of the above-mentioned
House journal for the first legislative session bears notations
made in the office of the Treasury Department's first comptroller,
who exercised this particular responsibility.[118] One is a barely
legible record in pencil: "Recd Oct 14/56 in letter of Sec Mason of
Augt 26/56"; and another is in ink: "Finding enclosed to Sec Mason
March 31/57." These notations refer to correspondence between the
comptroller and the secretary of the Territory of Washington about
remuneration for printing. Part of the correspondence is still
retained at the National Archives (in Record Group 217).
[Footnote 117: See Roby Wentz, _Eleven Western Presses_ (Los Angeles,
1956), p. 35-38.]
[Footnote 118: See W. A. Katz, "Tracing Western Territorial Imprints
Through the National Archives," _The Papers of the Bibliographical
Society of America_, vol. 59 (1965), p. 1-11. Two Minnesota documents
inscribed to the comptroller are cited in footnote no. 2 on page 69.]