Boone County Recorder
20 May 1891 p. 3, col. 4
A friendly rivalry existed between the correspondants for the Boone County Recorder in the early days, and you will often find them replying to some incident, jeering at an accomplishment of another neighborhood, or trying to top a story told in one of the other columns. Here is an article offered to counter a story about an old jug written about by the correspondent from Union. (See Boone County Recorder 6 May 1891 p. 3, col. 3)Florence The Union correspondent writes of an old jug, 120 years old. What would you say to a book 284 years old? At the bottom of the title page you find this:
At London,
Imprinted by Humphrey Lowns for Samuel Machen, and are to be sold at his
shop in Paul's Church Yard, at the sign of the Bull-head.
1607.This book is in perfect repair, and printed in the old "black letter." The paper has turned yellow from age, but is almost as tough as parchment. The gilt edged leaves, deeply incrusted for ornament, time has changed to bronze, but the binding and gilt lettering are perfect. Better still, from the beginning to the end, it contains the finest thoughts, though the "black letter" makes it troublesome to read.
Note: Paul�s Churchyard was the main center for the bookselling and publishing and trade in London at the time the book mentioned was printed, in fact it continued to be so up until the end of the eighteenth century. The booksellers of St. Paul�s stored their books in the cathedral crypt during the great fire of London in 1666, praying that God would not allow the great cathedral to burn, but the cathedral and books were burnt together.
Florence Kentucky History