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 Cincinnati Typefoundry, manufacturer MHS Museum Collections, MC4222 |
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This cast-iron hand press, weighing nearly 1,800 pounds, was first used in 1836 in Dubuque. It was sold in 1843 and moved to Wisconsin Territory, where it was used to print the Grant County
Herald. Lawyer, farmer, and aspiring journalist James Madison Goodhue entered the story in 1844, when he became the Herald's editor. Five years later, the restless Goodhue took the press and headed west to Minnesota Territory. It was on this press that he printed the Territory's first newspaper, the Minnesota Pioneer, which first appeared on April 28, 1849. Along with the press, Goodhue brought his cases of type, a supply of ink and paper, and two assistants. The only space he could find in St. Paul to use as a print shop was a rickety shack--"a building through which the out-of-doors is visible by more than five hundred apertures," as he later wrote, with hogs rooting around under the floorboards.
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