FIRST - Printing Press in North Carolina - First of its Kind on Waymarking.com

North Carolina in 1749 was mostly a collection of individuals and families scattered on farms so isolated there were no visible neighbors. Without large towns, there was little use for a library, and there was no easy way to circulate a newspaper. There wasn’t even a printing press in the state, making North Carolina one of the last of the 13 original colonies without one.

Finally the General Assembly in New Bern, then the unofficial capital, agreed it needed someone to take the messy handwritten laws and compile them into neatly printed books that could be sent to magistrates who enforced the law.

James Davis of Virginia was hired as state printer on June 24, 1749. But Davis brought more than his printing press to North Carolina: He brought journalism and published the state’s first newspaper. In August 1751, Davis published the first North Carolina newspaper, The North Carolina Gazette. The weekly was published until 1761.

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