Did you know that the first attempt at a free press in Virginia took place here, in Gloucester County, 342 years ago?
In 1682, John Buckner, a Gloucester County businessman with a store at Gloucester Point, brought a printer, William Nuthead, and a press, to Virginia.
According to information from the Library of Virginia, Nuthead proceeded to print the recent acts of the General Assembly. This project attempted to help local clerks and other officials understand what the Assembly had done. News of the assembly’s acts was slow to reach localities after a session ended.
The library said that John Buckner, as a member of the House of Burgesses and the Clerk of the Gloucester County Court, “became aware of the tardy distribution of the laws enacted by the General Assembly, then ‘published’ only in widely-varying manuscript form carried home by the individual Burgesses.”
When Buckner brought the press to Virginia, the royal governor was Thomas Culpeper, who was rarely in the colony. William...