A printing press was set up in Cambridge, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638, and others in Boston, New York and Philadelphia before the end of the century; but the printed output was small, less than one thousand books and pamphlets in the sixty-two years from 1639 to 1700.
At that time correspondence was not extensive and writing was largely left to the ministers and the officials. Their needs were altogether easily supplied by importing from the Netherlands and then England. The first long distance postal route was organized in 1673 along the King’s Highway between New York and Boston.
Printing was of more substantial business importance in Boston than in any other colonial center, but even there the need of a paper supply independent of importation was not seriously felt; nor does it appear that paper-makers could have been found to run a mill even if one had been built.
Between 1639 – when the first press was set up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and 1728, there were about 35 printers in the colonies, 23 of whom were in Boston, nine in Philadelphia and two in New York. The output in those years was 3,067 books, pamphlets and broadsides…