Elizabeth Glover


Elizabeth Harris Glover was the responsible for bringing the first printing press to the American Colonies. She established a press in Cambridge, Massachusetts where, with the help of Stephen Daye, she printed The Freeman's Oath, William Pierce's Almanac, and The Bay Psalm Book. She married Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard University. After Elizabeth's death, the printing press was gifted to Harvard, thus beginning the Harvard University Press.

Early life

Little is known about Elizabeth Harris’s early life. Her father was Reverend Nathaniel Harris who was “prominent in university and ecclesiastical circles.” She had a brother, Richard Harris, who would follow her to the British Colonies.

Marriage to Joseph Glover

Elizabeth married Reverend Joseph Glover in 1630 while he served as the Rector of Sutton, in the Hundred or Wallington, formerly Croydon, in Surry, England, a post he had held since May 1624. Still mourning the loss of his first wife, Sarah Owfield, Rev. Glover could not ask for a better partner in Elizabeth.
During the first six years of their marriage, Joseph Glover continued to serve in his rectory in Surrey. Elizabeth cared for her three step-children and their family grew by two more children. Though respected as Rector, Rev. Glover eventually grew out of his role. One historian explains, “Mr. Glover became interested in the non-conformists and preached acceptably to them in London.” This “non-conformist” thinking eventually pushed Joseph and Elizabeth to leave their comfortable life in Surrey in 1636. It must not have been an easy decision. Rev. Glover was loved by his those to whom he preached. This could not be an easy decision as he “was much loved by most if not all, and his departure much lamented.” However, his forward-thinking led him to leave his precious Rector in search of new challenges. As one historian writes of Rev. Glover,
His heart was wrapt in its progress and advancement; and during the interim of his retirement from the Rectory of Sutton, he had been untiring in his efforts to promote its growth under the influence of an educational system. He contributed unsparingly himself of his wealth and influence, and induced others of his friends both in England and Holland, to become interested in so noble a cause.

Buying the Press

Joseph had contacts in Cambridge, Massachusetts who helped them prepare to establish a printing business in that region of the world. As Isaiah Thomas remarks in A History of Printing:
Among the first settlers of New England were not only pious but educated men. They emigrated from a country where the press had more license than in other parts of Europe, and they were acquainted with the usefulness of it. As soon as they had made those provisions that were necessary for their existence in this land, which was then a rude wilderness, their next objects were, the establishment of schools, and a printing press.
Joseph and Elizabeth saw an opportunity in New England. Joseph and Elizabeth both had the means to make the move to Cambridge. Joseph had purchased lands and built a house in Boston in preparation for the permanent move.
In order to gain funds, the printing business, Joseph and Elizabeth began looking for donors. With financial support from friends and at his own expense, Joseph purchased a press, font, and other supplies needed to establish a printing business. Several friends supported Joseph in his new endeavor, including monetarily. Their names are Major Thomas Clarke, Captain James Oliver, Captain Allen, Captain Lake, Mr. Stoddard, Mr. Freake, and Mr. Hues.
Though the press would be the first in the Colonies, it was not the first printing press on the North American Continent. The press would be the second in the Americas. A century earlier in 1536, a printing press was brought to Vera Cruz, Mexico. Now, Joseph and Elizabeth would bring a press to the growing colonies of New England.
The Glovers still needed someone to perform the actual printing. For this purpose, on June 7, 1638 Joseph contracted with a man named Samuel Daye. Daye worked as a locksmith in London before being hired by the Glovers to run their press in Cambridge. Part of that contract included paying for Daye’s passage to the colonies as well as passage for his family.
Thus, in June of 1638, Elizabeth boarded a ship with her husband, five children, furniture, a printing press, printing materials, a man to run the press and his family, and three assistants.

Journey to the Colonies

In the summer of 1638, Elizabeth left London with her husband, children, a printing press with supplies, a man to run the press, and three assistants. The ship was called the John of London. Weeks later when The John arrived on the shores of New England in the fall, it would be without one important passenger, and with one new widow.
During the voyage, John died of an illness. The accounts of his death do not explain the specifics of his illness, though the cause was most likely smallpox. The accounts merely state that during that voyage, Joseph Glover “fell sick and died.” He was buried in the waters of the Atlantic. Elizabeth was then sole owner of the printing pressed and Samuel Dayes' indenture.

Arrival in Cambridge, MA

Elizabeth arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fall of 1638. From his previous travels to the colonies, Joseph Glover had already purchased land and built a house for his family in Boston. However, Elizabeth made the decision to live near the college in Cambridge to be closer to her printing business.
Elizabeth bought the house built by Governor Haynes from Sir Harry Vane. The two-and-a-half story house was the “most elegant abode in town” As one historian states, “It is cheering to know that the widow and children, so suddenly bereft, found so soon a pleasant and substantial dwelling in which to make a new home in the new country.”
Elizabeth’s household included five manservants and four maids. The Testimony of Sarah Bugknam and Joan Hassall reports:
Her furniture and plate were the talk of Cambridge for years. Former domestics remembered eleven feather beds, one with ‘philop and Cheny curtaines in graine with  a deep silke fring on the vallance, and a smaller on the Curtaines, and a Coverlett sutable to it, made of Red Kersie, and laced with green lace, round the sides, and 2 downe the middle’; a blue bed-rug and an ‘outlandish quilt’; a chest full of fine linen and damask; tapestry and green dornick hangings on the walls; a great store of brass, pewter, and latten ware; and as ‘faire and full cubbard of plate there was as might ordinarily be seene in most Gentlemens houses in England.
Of all of Elizabeth’s fine possessions, the only surviving artifact today is a piece of silver known as “The Great Salt.” This silver dish belonged to Elizabeth and Joseph and has their initials engraved in it. It passed to Elizabeth’s brother, Richard, upon her passing. He, in turn, bequeathed it to Harvard University where it is currently displayed.
With her living accommodations taken care of, Elizabeth established the printing business. This process involved getting approval from the local magistrates and elders and finding a location to set up her press. Since Elizabeth owned Stephen Daye’s indenture, she took it upon herself to find him and his family housing. She purchased a house on Holyoke Street and set up the printing press in one of the lower rooms.
It is unclear the exact date the printing business began, but it appears to have been almost immediately after Elizabeth arrived in Cambridge. In October of 1638, a man named Hugh Peter wrote a letter to a friend stating:
Wee have a printer here and thinke to goe to worke with some special things, and if you have anything you may send it safely by these.
The first documents were printed and distributed by the beginning of 1639.

Stephen Daye

On June 7, 1638, Joseph Glover signed a contract of indenture with Stephen Daye. The contract specified that Joseph would pay Stephen one hundred pounds for two years of work, with an advance to pay for Stephen and his family’s passage to Cambridge. The contract states:
The condition of this obligation is such that whereas the above named Josse Glover hath undertaken and promised to bear the charges of and for the transportation of the above bounded Stephen Day and Rebecca his wife, and of Matthew and Stephen Day, their children, and of William Bordman, and three menservants, which are to be transported with him the said Stephen to New England in America, in the ship called the John of London;
The contract further lists specific items and tasks which Joseph purchased and performed to help Stephen into his new life, as well as consequences and responsibilities for carrying out the charges of the contract. Nowhere does the contract mention Daye’s specific work with the printing press. He was hired to perform labor, but not necessarily as a printer. However, he was hired while Joseph Glover arranged his printing business. He accompanied Joseph and Elizabeth on the same ship as the printing press. The press was set up in a room in the house Elizabeth purchased for him and his family. As Hudak states, “From what few facts are available, we may conclude that Mrs. Glover, as owner, might be termed proprietress or publisher of the press, while Stephen Daye was the overseer or manager.” Some historians theorize that most of the labor fell to Stephen’s son, Matthew, who had some knowledge of printing and performed most of the labor with the press.
While in London, Stephen was employed as a locksmith, and may have been related to John Daye, might've worked as a printer in London from 1560 to 1583. No solid link has been found between the two men. Stephen Daye was the first printer in the British Colonies.
One item printed is the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in the Colonies. As Roden describes:
Daye is not supposed to have been a learned typographer, his workmen were untrained, his types were poor; the operations of the press, therefore were slow. The result of his labors was a rudely printed quarto of 148 leaves, or 37 sheets In addition, a few words in Hebrew letters are employed in the preface, and may have been specially cut on wood or metal for this book. Typographical errors and curiosities of spacing exist throughout the book. Oddly enough, the heading at the top of each left-hand page is printed “Psalm,” while on the opposite page the word is spelled and spaced “Ps-alme.”
Thomas wrote, “In 1642, he owned several lots of land ‘in the bounds of Cambridge.’ He mortgaged one of those lots as security for the payment of a cow, calf, and a heifer; whence, we may conclude, he was not in very affluent circumstances.” Daye also has a criminal record and there exist several lawsuits filed by Daye after he left the printing press.
Daye worked on Glover’s press until 1648, several years after Elizabeth’s death. Management of the press was taken over by Henry Dunster. Whether Dunster was dissatisfied by Stephen Day’s work or Daye left voluntarily is unknown. Subsequent operation of the press fell to a man named Samuel Green.

Printed Documents

With Elizabeth’s press operational only months after its arrival in Cambridge, the first printed documents became available. Early in 1939, Governor John Winthrop recorded in his journal,
Mo. 1.] A printing house was begun at Cambridge by one Daye, at the charge of Mr. Glover, who died on seas hitherward. The first thing which was printed was the freemen’s oath; the next was an almanac made for New England by Mr. William Peirce, mariner; the next was the Psalms newly turned into metre.
These three documents, The Freeman’s Oath, the 1639 Almanac, and The Bay Psalm Book have become three of the most valuable documents ever printed. While originals of the first two have been lost over time, original copies of The Bay Psalm Book sell for millions of dollars today. The historical significance of these documents alone make them treasures.

The Freeman’s Oath

Written by John Winthrop, the oath was taken by every man who was over the age of twenty and a householder for at least six months. Taking the oath made them both a freeman of the Corporation and legal citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Company.
Besides the original handwritten copy penned by Winthrop, no surviving copy of this document exists today. The only surviving printed copy is from a reprint done in 1647. This reprint is found in the book, New England’s Jonas cast up at London 1647 and contains a record of the proceedings of the Boston court. The Freeman’s Oath can be found on pages 24 and 25.
In 1985, a man named Mark Hoffman claimed to have found two original printed copies of The Freeman’s Oath. After trying to sell one of the copies to the Library of Congress for $1.5 million dollars, the copies were both found to be forgeries. Hoffman was later found guilty of fraud and sentenced to prison in Salt Lake City, Utah.
THE OATH OF FREEMEN
A.B., being, by Gods providence, an inhabitant & ffreeman within the jurisdiccon of this comonweale, doe freely acknowledge my selfe to be subiect to the govermt thereof, & therefore doe heere sweare, by the greate & dreadfull name of the eurlyving God, that I wilbe true & faithfull to the same, & will accordingly yeilde assistance & support therevnto, with my pson & estate, as in equity I am bound, & will also truely indeavr to mainetaine & preserue all the libertyes & previlidges thereof, submitting my selfe to the wholesome lawes & orders made & established by the same; and furthr, that I will not plott nor practise any evill aginst it, nor consent to any that shall soe doe, but will timely discovery & reveale the same lawfull aucthority nowe here established, for the speedy preventing thereof.
Moreouer, I doe solemnly binde myselfe in the sight of God, that when I shalbe called to giue my voice touching any such matter of this state, wherein ffreemen are to deale I will giue my vote & suffrage, as I shall iudge in myne owne conscience may best conduce & tend to the publique weale of the body, without respect of psons, or favr of any man. Soe helpe mee God in the Lord Jesus Christ.

William Peirce’s Almanac

According to Robert Roden, Captain William Peirce was “One of the most esteemed and accomplished navigators of his time, master of three of the five ships that brought the first settlers to New England, and an intimate of Bradford, Winslow, and Winthrop.” In 1639, Peirce wrote An Almenack for the Year 1639. Unfortunately, no copies of this Almanac exist today.

The Bay Psalm Book

One publication that came from Glover’s press is The Bay Psalm Book. The full title of the book reads, The Psalms in Metre, Faithfully translated for the Use, Edification, and Comfort of the Saints in Publick and Private, especially in New England. 1640 and was the honor of being the first printed book in America. The text for this book was translated into meter by Richard Mather, minister of the church in Dorchester, John Eliot, historically famous as the “Indian Apostle” who started in Roxbury, and Thomas Welde who also ministered in Roxbury.
The introduction to the Applewood Books copy of the Bay Psalm Book reads:
The cost of printing the seventeen hundred copies was £33, that one hundred and sixteen reams of paper were used, valued at £29, that the book sold at twenty pence per copy, and that the total receipts from sales were estimated at 141 13s. 4d., leaving a profit of 79 13s. 4d.
Out of the seventeen hundred copies printed, only 10 copies are known in existence today, and many of those are in poor condition.
After Elizabeth’s death in 1643, the press was used much less. Samuel Morison notes that, “The fact that Sam Nowell of the Class of August 9, 1653 had his ‘study in the printing roome’ indicates that the press had very little business; which Stephen Day’s accounts show to be the case.” It was Elizabeth’s passion to see the press’s success which brought about the printing of these important documents. It’s unclear why she chose an oath, an almanac, and the Psalms. Whatever Elizabeth’s reasons for choosing the first three printings, America can thank her for ensuring their place in history.

Marriage to Henry Dunster

Henry Dunster was the son of a Yeoman in Ford, Lancashire. He was baptized on November 29, 1609,. At age seventeen he attended Magdalene College. As described by Samuel Morison,
Like so many country boys who find themselves in a great university, Henry entered into the fascinating game of acquiring knowledge with more zeal than discretion – at least so he thought in later years. ‘Growing more careless,’ he ceased to think of Christ.

After graduating from Cambridge in 1634, Dunster became a teacher in Bury in Lancashire where he grew up. He had doubts over his religious beliefs, however, saying, “As corruptions in the church came I began to suspect them, then to hate them. But here was my falseness that I was loath to read such bookes as might make me see such truths, but the Lord helped me…”
In the summer of 1640, Dunster left for the Colonies. Dunster lived in Massachusetts only three weeks before being offered the position of President of Harvard College. As Morison states,
It would be interesting to know why Dunster was chosen – what evidence he had given of those remarkable qualities he was to show as a teacher and administrator, or what there was in his personality that appealed to the Overseers…Dunster possessed but one visible asset, a master’s degree…He belonged to an obscure family of a county which sent few emigrants to New England; and he was proud of his native Lancashire…He had published nothing, shone with no reflected glory…Yet, after all the magistrates and elders by the summer of 1640 may have felt so desperate a need of someone to revive the College as to draft any well-appearing university man who seemed likely to accept.

On June 22, 1641, Elizabeth and Dunster were married.
They moved into Elizabeth’s fine home. They had no children, but Dunster helped educate Elizabeth’s children and stepchildren.
When he married Elizabeth, Dunster became co-owner of the printing press. Upon Elizabeth’s death, he dismissed Samuel Daye and gave charge of the press to Samuel’s son, Matthew. When Matthew died in 1649, Dunster appointed Samuel Green as the new steward of the press. From Green, Dunster commissioned a reprint of the Bay Psalm Book in 1651, perhaps in memory of his first wife. Dunster later gifted the press to Harvard College, and thus was born Harvard University Press, the very same that still exists today.
Dunster’s rebellious religious beliefs eventually caught up with him. His disagreements on scripture and religion forced him to part ways with Harvard. Centuries later, Harvard’s 21st president, Charles William Eliot said of Dunster,
Two Hundred and forty-five years ago, Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard College, was turned out of his office by the Congregationalists, who then ruled Massachusetts, because he had ceased to believe in infant baptism, finding adult baptism more scriptural and edifying. He was turned out on a cold, rough, thankless world after fourteen years of the most devoted service, under the most adverse conditions; but today Dunster is one of Harvard’s saints and heroes, and for a hundred years Harvard has been devoted in every fibre of her body and every drop of her blood, to freedom of thought and speech.
As Morison states,
The College certainly owes a debt of gratitude to the widow Glover, whose love cheered the first president in his well-nigh impossible undertaking, and whose property enabled him and the College to carry on.
After Elizabeth’s death, Henry Dunster continued his crisis of faith to the point that he showed open opposition to Reverend Jonathan Mitchell, a Harvard graduate and greatly renowned minister. Their quarrels eventually led to Dunster leave his presidency at Harvard. When Dunster died in 1659, Dunster and Mitchell’s stories intertwine further as some speculate that the grave attributed to Dunster actually contains the remains of Mitchell, though there is no proof to this claim.

Elizabeth's Death

Elizabeth Harris Glover Dunster died on June 23, 1643. She is buried in the burial ground at Cambridge in a place marked only by a decaying gravestone. Elizabeth left behind two children, three stepchildren, one husband, and a printing business.
Upon her death, Elizabeth’s property, including the press, became the subject of lawsuits. Elizabeth’s first husband, Joseph Glover, stated in his final will and testament that all his property should go to Elizabeth, with the instruction that upon her death the property would go to his children.
When Elizabeth died, her second husband, Henry Dunster, took ownership of all her possessions, including the press. John Glover, Elizabeth and Joseph’s son, filed a lawsuit against his stepfather, Dunster, to reclaim his inheritance. Dunster counter-sued for the expense it took to raise and educate his five stepchildren. He argued in his lawsuit that since he’d paid for Elizabeth’s funeral, repairs on their house, and other everyday expenses he shared with Elizabeth and her children that he was not obliged to share the remaining fund with Elizabeth’s children.
In the end, the court ruled in favor of Elizabeth’s children, but as John Hruschka notes, “Dunster simply ignored the court ruling and retained most of the value of the estate and possession of the press.” Before further legal action could be taken against Dunster, John Glover died in London.