[Illustration: (_Laws, Resolutions and Memorials, Passed at the
Regular Session of the First General Assembly of the Territory of
Nebraska, Convened at Omaha City, on the 16th Day of January, Anno
Domini, 1855. Together with the Constitution of the United States, the
Organic Law, and the Proclamations Issued in the Organization of the
Territorial Government_)]
Scholarly investigation has revealed that a supposed early instance
of Nebraska printing--the Mormon _General Epistle_ "written at Winter
Quarters, Omaha Nation, west bank of Missouri River, near Council
Bluffs, North America, and signed December 23d, 1847"--actually issued
from a St. Louis press.[119] The Library of Congress copy of this
imprint is consequently disqualified for discussion here, as are also
the Library's three issues of the _Omaha Arrow_, beginning with the
initial number dated July 28, 1854, since these issues were printed in
Iowa, at Council Bluffs, before Omaha acquired its own press.
Nebraska printing begins in fact with the 16th number of the _Nebraska
Palladium_, issued at Bellevue on November 15, 1854. Previously issued
at St. Mary's, Iowa, the paper takes pride in introducing printing
to the newly formed Territory of Nebraska and identifies the men
responsible:
The first printers in our office, and who have set up
the present number, are natives of three different
states--Ohio, Virginia, and Massachusetts, namely: Thomas
Morton, foreman, Columbus, Ohio (but Mr. Morton was born in
England); A. D. Long, compositor, Virginia; Henry M. Reed,
apprentice, Massachusetts.[120]
The first Nebraska books were printed at Omaha by the Territorial
printers Sherman & Strickland in 1855, and they are represented in the
Library of Congress collections: _Laws, Resolutions and Memorials,
Passed at the Regular Session of the First General Assembly of the
Territory of Nebraska, Convened at Omaha City, on the 16th Day of
January, Anno Domini, 1855. Together with the Constitution of the
United States, the Organic Law, and the Proclamations Issued in the
Organization of the Territorial Government; Journal of the Council at
the First Regular Session of the General Assembly, of the Territory
of Nebraska, Begun and Held at Omaha City, Commencing on Tuesday the
Sixteenth Day January, A. D. 1855, and Ending on the Sixteenth Day of
March, A. D. 1855_; and _Journal of the House of Representatives, of
the First Regular Session of the General Assembly of the Territory
of Nebraska ..._. These three official publications record quite
fully the work of the first Nebraska Legislature, which consisted of
a council of 13 and a house of 26 members. From later in the same
year the Library owns still another Sherman & Strickland imprint:
_Annual Message of Mark W. Izard, Governor of the Territory of
Nebraska, Addressed to the Legislative Assembly, December 18, 1855_.
The Governor delivered this address at the convening of the second
legislature.
The press on which these four books were printed had been transported
to Omaha from Ohio, and it was used to produce the initial number
of the _Omaha Nebraskan_, January 17, 1855.[121] On March 13, with
the approval of a joint resolution which may be read in the _Laws,
Resolutions and Memorials_, John H. Sherman and Joseph B. Strickland
became the official printers of the Territory; and "An Act to provide
for Printing and Distributing the Laws of Nebraska Territory," also
approved on March 13, stipulated that a thousand copies of the
laws and resolutions of the first legislature be printed. Two of
the thousand copies are listed as a "present" in _Additions Made
to the Library of Congress, Since the First Day of November, 1855.
November 1, 1856_ (Washington, 1856).[122] They are still on the
Library shelves, along with a third copy received by transfer from
another Government agency in 1911. The Library received its copy of
the _Journal of the Council_ in 1867 and its copy of the _Journal of
the House of Representatives_ probably not much later in the 19th
century.[123] The Statute Law Book Company sold the Library Governor
Izard's _Annual Message_ for $22 in October 1935.
[Footnote 119: See no. 65 in Thomas W. Streeter's
_Americana--Beginnings_ (Morristown, N.J., 1952). The Library of
Congress possesses one copy, not two as here reported.]
[Footnote 120: Quoted from Douglas C. McMurtrie's "Pioneer Printing in
Nebraska" in _National Printer Journalist_, vol. 50, no. 1 (January
1932), p. 20-21, 76-78.]
[Footnote 121: Ibid., p. 76.]
[Footnote 122: P. 99.]
[Footnote 123: The latter title is indicated as wanting in a
collective entry for Council and House journals in the _Catalogue of
Books Added to the Library of Congress, from December 1, 1866, to
December 1, 1867_ (Washington, 1868), p. 282.]