The Ramage Press

W. W. Phelps Ramage Printing Press

At Winter Quarters W. W. Phelps, the printer, editor, poet and preacher was called by the church leaders to obtain a printing press to take West. In Boston, Brother Phelps purchased the little Ramage Press you see here.

This is the printing press that was used in the film "The Work and The Glory" Volume II. You will see it thrown from the window by the mob who destroy his little print shop above his home.

The mobbers threw it out of the upstairs windoew along with type, furniture and printed sheets of the Book of Commandments.

The first five signatures (a 32 page sheet) had been printed when the mob broke into the printing office on July 20, 1833. Mary Rollins, 14, and her sister Caroline, then 12, watched the mob's action. Realizing what the scattered pages were, she and her sister gathered up as many pages as they could and ran into the corn field. A few saved portions were individually bound into a 160 page book called the "Book of Commandments." This little book is the forerunner to the Doctrine and Covenants.

Howard Egan Wagoned it West

The printing equipment was urgently needed in Salt Lake Valley. The leaders gave the assignment of guiding the valuable press, type, ink, stationary and carding machine to Howard Egan, a stouthearted irishman who had already proved himslef under great difficulties. The much needed press finally arrived in the valley on August 7, 1849

The Original "News" Ramage Press"

The Ramage Press, after crossing the Plains by wagon, was the first press of the state of Deseret (early Utah) in 1850 and became the first newspaper press in the Utah Territory. It printed the first Deseret News by hand at a breakneck speed of two pages per minute.