The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-04-15

WILLIAM BRADFoRD'S TOMBSTONE.
pf Wall street. Cross Broadway-and
lin the business hours you cross it at
kisk-to the west side, enter the broad
gateway. and you are in an ancient Dutch.
English colonial cemetery.
The noise Of the traffic is subdued to a
continuous and not unpleasing roar. It
Is just the same as if we were in a. quiet,
rural graveyard, with rushing river
near by or waterfall just far enough
away for the murmur to afford q pleas
ing monotone in harmony with devout
Ior rem niscent thought. And here is the
Westminster abbey of New York, if the
state can be said to have such an institu-
tion. Scores of the old tombstones tell
lin quaint lettering of the men and wom-
len Of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and to almost every one at
taches fascinating story. There is the
slab bearing the name of Charlotte Tenn
pie, whose woes SO often moved our
Grandparents to tears. There, too, is the
tomb Of Michael Cresap, most unjustly
assailed in the alleged speech of Logan,
chief of the Mingoes, who died soldier
lin Washington's army at the early age
OF SO.
! There also are the stone memorials of
Sidney Bruse, ancestor Of S. B. F. Morse
of the telegraph; of Alexander Hamilton
and Albert Gallatin and many of their
NOTED contemporaries; Of James Law
renee Of the Chesapeake; Thomas Adds
IEmmet; Montgomery, the hero of Que
lbcc, and many more, one of the latest
being that of our own honored Phil
IKearny. But just at present, when the
two hundredth anniversary of the estab-
tlishment of the printing press in New
York city is exciting men of our profess
kon, unusual interest attaches to a
Quaint old stone which bears this letter
ling:
Here lies the Body of Mr. WILLIAM BRAD,
FORD
Printer who departed this Life Maya,
1752, aged so Years. He was born in
Leicestershire in Old England in 1880;
and came over to America in 1852 before
the City Of Philadelphia was laid out. He
was Printer to this Government for upwards
Of 80 years and being quite worn out
with Old age and labour, he left this
mortal State in the lively hopes Of a
Blessed Immortality.
Reader, reflect how soon you'll quit this Stage:
You'll find hut few attain to such an Age.
lLife's full of Pain: Lol Here's Place Of Rest.
Prepare to meet your GOD, then you are blest.
Here also lies the Body of Elizabeth Wife to
The said William Bradford, who departed
This life July 8, 1871, aged 6S Years.
Such is the record in stone of this re-
msrkable man whose bicentennial now
Interests the New York Typotheta and
hll engaged in the art preservative, and
when the rude appliances employed by
him in 1898 are set alongside the great
sextuple press of today, the latest mar
vel of our art, which prints and folds
$4,000 papers per hour, one is lost in
jamazement at the progress Of two cen
turies. The story has been told ten
Thousand times, but still a few facts
may interest the general reader as show
ling how little had been done before the
days Of Bradford compared to what has
been done since. It is scarcely an exag-
tgeration to say that civilization had but
bust begun and made very little progress
before printing was invented, yet the art
of printing progressed with amazing
rlowness for 800 years, or until demand
forced invention.