Label
Printing Press, c. 1700
English
Gift of the Vermont Publishers Association, #1895.1
This printing press, known as the Dresden Press, served as the first official press of the State of Vermont. Printer Alden Spooner brought the press to Dresden, a district of Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1778; later, moving to Windsor, Vermont, in 1783. The press was previously used in Connecticut in the early 1700s by that state's first printer, Thomas Short. Stories and popular belief placed this press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1638 – historians have yet to find proof of these assertions.
The government of Vermont was thrilled to have a printer nearby after having to travel all the way to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1777 to print the Vermont Constitution. As a democracy with a legal system based on written word, it was important for Vermont's legislature to print new laws as quickly as possible.
A prominent feature since it's donation in 1895, the Historical Society considers it one of the most significant artifacts in the collection - representing the importance of the written word in the culture and governance of the people of the state of Vermont.