Minor

• formal_name:
• first_date: 1809
• last_date: 1810
• function: Printer
• locales: Richmond
• precis: Proprietor of a Richmond job-printing firm (1809-10) with Thomas P. Manson (278).
• notes: Printer
  Richmond
  Proprietor of a Richmond job-printing firm (1809-10) with Thomas P. Manson (278).
  Minor is the unidentified partner of Thomas P. Manson in the Richmond job-printing firm of Manson & Minor in 1809 and 1810. Manson was a journeyman in the capital who had been associated with a series of newspapers there from 1798 onward; in 1806, he opened an independent press office to print the Impartial Observer for Samuel Brooks (054), but was left in dire financial straits after just ten months. By January 1809, after printing a campaign paper in 1808 for Gerard Banks (019), Manson's finances seemingly dictated that he take on a non-printing business partner in order to stay afloat. The unnamed Minor who joined the firm then was apparently a member of the innumerable, wealthy, and influential Virginia family of that surname, but his specific identity has never been established.
  The pair acquired the press and tools of the recently departed Seaton Grantland (186), who left Richmond to become printer to the state of Georgia, and focused in the production of religious tracts, with their largest work being the millennialist treatise A Solemn Warning to All the Dwellers upon Earth by Nimrod Hughes, which predicted that the world would end on June 4, 1812. While such imprints had a popular following, they were apparently unprofitable. Two months after issuing A Solemn Warning, one of Manson's two household slaves – "a Negro Girl named JUDITH" – was seized and sold to settle a promissory note Manson had failed to pay. Subsequently, the Richmond papers show no evidence of his advertising, though imprints show that he continued printing there. However, Minor was no longer credited in those works, suggesting that his association with Manson ended before the July 1810 seizure. Minor is not seen in the trade again.
  In July 1811, Samuel Shepherd (379), a journeyman working for Samuel Pleasants (331), announced his purchase of Manson's office and "that the business will still be carried on in the same house, near the market." After this, Manson disappears from the trade as well.
  
  
  No Personal Data yet discovered.
  
  Sources: Imprints; notices in Richmond newspapers (1809-11).
  
• Related Bios:
  • Thomas Pescud Manson

This version of the Index of Virginia Printing was a gift from the estate of the site's creator, David Rawson. The content contained herein will not be updated, as it is part of the Library of Virginia's personal papers collection. For more information, please see David Rawson Index of Virginia Printing website. Accession 53067. Personal papers collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.