Old Salem

Old Salem Museums & Gardens: 600 South Main St., Winston-Salem, NC 27101.

Gaskell (1970, page 30, USA12) locates this press at the Wachovia Historical Society, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He notes: “Built by Adam Ramage of Philadelphia in about 1810; Stamped ‘A. Ramage. N336’ on the spindle. Bought in Raleigh, N.C.”

Newspaper “The Western Sentinel” (Volum XL, no. 44. February 18, 1897) writes: ‘A Relic of the Past. The Republican says the Salem Historical Society will remove to their recently remodeled building the old wooden Ramage Printing Press, used in the former L. V. & E. T. Blum printing office and bought by the father of these gentlemen in Hillsboro in 1827. It was second hand then and is primitive in appearance and reality.’

Website about photo 1: “Photograph (circa 1900 – 1920) of one of the earliest printing presses in North Carolina, preserved in the Wachovia Historical Society Museum.”

The sign states: “John Christian Blum established Salem’s first print shop in 1827, with a secondhand press, which was made about 1810 by Adam Ramage of Philadelphia. Ramage was a well-known and highly respected press builder and is credited with making the first major improvements in the mechanics of the printing press since its invention in the fifteenth century. Blum hired an experienced printer, H.S. Noble of New York, to do the printing and to teach the trade to his son, Levi. During the 1830s a succession of apprentices worked in the shop. By 1874 the printing office had acquired a “Fast Job Press” but the Ramage press continued to be used until 1877.”

There is a text on the cap: “W.H.S. W. Salem NC”.

The Blum House was restored in 2017. The press moved to the Old Salem Visitor Center in 2015.