The project is documented in great detail: “The Cary Graphic Arts collection maintains a collection on the history of printing, including a full pressroom with 18 historic presses. Few original wooden common presses still exist; in order to better present the history of printing, the Cary Collection is seeking to have a reconstruction of a wooden press made. The goals of this project are to design a wooden press based upon historical research, to build a press in accordance with this design, and to publish a paper documenting the design and construction processes. The final press must be consistent with original common presses and maintain historical accuracy. This press will function as an original press and be used for instruction at the Cary Collection.”
The development of this reconstruction is described in six messages on APHA website: 1 (February 19, 2016), 2 (March 14, 2016), 3 (April 22, 2016), 4 (October 6, 2016), 5 (December 5, 2016), and 6 (February 22, 2017).
The plaque on the head states: “The Uncommon Press. Reconstruction of an English common press, c. 1770-1790. Created by Seth Gottlieb, Veronica Hebbard, Randall Paulhamus, Ferris Nicolias, & Daniel Krull. With assistance from S.F. Spector, Inc., Genesee Country Village and Museum, KGCOE ME Machine Shop. 2016.”
Website: “This printing press was previously identified as a Stansbury press, ca. 1820, originally from Schoharie, New York. In 2013 it was tentatively re-attributed by printing technology historian Bob Oldham as the work of George Clymer, ca. 1808-1809. If that attribution is correct, this may be the only surviving example of the trials Clymer made of different impression mechanisms before he settled, in 1813, on the design of the Columbian hand press.
The press was acquired by the Staten Island Historical Society from collector George Simmons in 1960. It had been found in a barn in upstate New York and was believed to have been used in the early 19th century for printing the “American Herald” newspaper of Schoharie, New York.”
Website: The location is described as: “It displays a rare early printing press, one of the treasures of Historic Richmond Town’s artifact collection.”
Photo: Josehp Halliday. [ Source ] March 24, 2017. Full size.
Website (November 14, 2012): “John Peter Zenger Exhibit. Printing press (c. 1735) in the John Peter Zenger Exhibit at Federal National Memorial Hall.”
The New York Times (March 24, 1985) states: “Now the one-story stone and wood building on South Columbus Avenue shelters the Bill of Rights Museum, which contains dioramas tracing the story of John Peter Zenger’s contributions to freedom of the press and a working replica of an 18th-century press built in 1949 in Williamsburg, Va., by William Parks.”
It is likely – but this needs to be confirmed – that this press was built in 1949 by William Parks.
