Tour the North Hall of the National Museum After the First Fifty Years

This press was purchased by Edward Cox in 1770, with other materials, from the printing office where Franklin worked as a compositor, and, as usual at that period, also occasionally at press. It was in the possession of Messrs. Harrild & Sons when discovered by Mr. John B. Murray, of New York, who felt that an upper room in a by lane of London, at some distance from a frequented street, was not the place for any relic, however trifling of Benjamin Franklin. He immediately proposed to the owners to send it to America. They replied that they had had some intention of presenting it to the Government of the United States, but were not at present prepared to decide upon doing so. They assured him, however, that they would not part with it for any other purpose.

Mr. Murray, after some months, again addressed Messrs. Harrild on the subject, who finally consented to part with it provided he would secure for them, in return, a donation to the Printers' Pension Society of London an institution highly deserving, (its object being the support of aged and decayed printers and widows of printers,) for the purpose of supporting a pensioner, to be called the "Franklin Pensioner."

This course was at once acceded to, and Mr. Murray addressed a letter to Mr. John Vaughan, of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, offering to that institution this relic of its founder and first president, upon certain conditions, one of which was that of returning a donation. The society, however, declined the gift, regretting that they could not, consistently with their constitution, accept the press on the conditions named. When this was made known to the Messrs. Harrild, they immediately presented the press to Mr. Murray, individually and unreservedly, on the 16th November, 1841.

Mr. Murray at once undertook to raise a fund for the object indicated by the Messrs. Harrild, and by exhibiting the press, by selling impressions of a poem by Dr. Franklin, entitled "Paper," and the twelve rules which he laid down for his own government in early life, and by the proceeds of a lecture on Franklin by Rev. Hugh McNeile, one of the most eloquent and popular clergymen of England, he was able to add 163lbs to the Printers' Pension Society of London, to be appropriated as desired by the donors.

Mr. Murray remarks: "As a glorious consequence of the appropriate and liberal arrangement proposed by Messrs. Harrild, each country will be put in possession of a new memorial of Franklin: America, of HER CITIZEN'S PRESS, and England, of an endowment bearing his name; benefiting those who have worked as he once worked, directly resulting, moreover, from the fact of his having worked at an English press, and in precise accordance with his benevolent and provident disposition, the appropriation of the funds which have accrued from the new destination of this press, being one which, were he living, there can be no doubt would receive his own entire sanction."

The following inscription is engraved upon the plate affixed to the front of the press:

"Dr. Franklin's Remarks relative to this Press, made when he came to England as agent of the Massachusetts, in the year 1768. The Doctor at this time visited the printing office of Mr. Watts, of Wild street, Lincoln's Sun-Fields, and going up to this particular press (afterwards in the possession of Messrs. Cox &; Son, of Great Queen street, of whom it was purchased) thus addressed the men who were working at it. 'Come my friends, we will drink together. It is now forty years since I worked like you, at this press, as a journeyman printer.' The Doctor then sent out for a gallon of porter, and he drank with them-

"Success to Printing"

"From the above it will appear that it is 108 years since Dr. Franklin worked at this identical press."

JUNE, 1833.

Presented by Messrs. Harrild & Sons, printers' brokers, London, to John B. Murray, Esq., New York, November, 1841.

The press is almost identical with the Blaew press, the first patent press made and in use in 1620.

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