In 18th-century Philadelphia, Christopher Sauer was known for his publication of the Bible in German, which he printed in 1743. Sauer had also printed the first German newspaper in 1739 for an eager German speaking/reading audience. The first English Bible was printed in America by Robert Aitken in 1782. Christopher died in 1758, and the sons, Sauer II and III, were actively engaged in a conspiracy with York County militia colonel William Rankin, who supported the British during the American Revolution. This cabal with Rankin, a former Quaker from Newberry Township, and Sauer in the year 1778 involved funneled information to British General Sir Henry Clinton in New York and the high command in Philadelphia. The loyalist threat was a reality in spite of the prevailing belief that the Revolution was a popular groundswell event. Many Pennsylvania Germans labored long and hard for generations to achieve status as British subjects and obtain clear title to their lands.
The German printer Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized the dissemination of information to the average person in 1450. From this invention came books and broadsides for public distribution. By the time of Martin Luther (1483-1546) and Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), thousands of books were printed and distributed in Germany. Books in English were printed about 1475, and by the early part of the 16th century printing presses made their way throughout Europe. Indeed, the printing press hastened the Protestant Reformation and the Peasants War. One has to bear in mind that only a very few people were literate at the time of Luther, so the struggle was a matter of whose theological views would prevail with Charles V.
Earlier in New England, John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, authorized the operation of a printing press as early as 1638, ostensibly for the printing of religious materials. Printing in Pennsylvania began with Philadelphia Friends under the guidance of William Penn, who received a proprietary charter for Pennsylvania from King Charles II in 1681. William Bradford, the first printer to receive a warrant to operate a printing press in 1685, soon found himself in trouble for printing articles critical of the Quakers.
When Bradford left to print in New York, he left his journeyman apprentice Reinier Jansen in charge, along with the press. Jansen was believed to be a Hollander. Jansen and Bradford shared the profits from this enterprise in Philadelphia and New York. Franklin had gotten his start in the printing business under the employ of Bradford. Later, Franklin’s indolence would let him criticize his former employer Bradford. Benjamin Franklin was apprenticed to his brother, James Franklin, in his youth and later worked under Bradford. Then entries in the records dated 1696 in the minutes of the Friends meeting in Philadelphia state that Daniel Pastorious, of Germantown, will operate a press. The ever-increasing German population would be able to read the first German newspapers and other notices posted in handbills and broadsides.
According to “The History of York County, published in 1834, authored by Carter and Glossbrenner, the first printing press west of the Susquehanna extant arrived in York in 1777, where the Continental Congress had relocated due to the British invasion of Philadelphia. The press was operated by Hall and Sellers. Then, in the spring of 1796, Solomon Meyer began publishing the first German language newspaper, Die York Gazette.