Hall & Sellers Press
York, York County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
First printing press west of Susquehanna River was set up on this site. Here, government publications and continental currency were printed while Congress met in York, Sept. 1777 to June 1778.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On this site stood the first printing press west of the Susquehanna River, operated by the firm of Hall and Sellers. When the Continental Congress fled to York from September 1777 to June 1778, this press turned out government publications and Continental currency for the struggling revolutionary cause. It was during Congress's stay here that the Articles of Confederation were adopted, making York briefly the seat of the young nation.
Why it matters
For nine crucial months York served as the capital of a fledgling United States, and this press supplied the printed word and paper money that kept the Revolution's government functioning.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the autumn of 1777, the American Revolution had reached one of its most perilous moments. British forces had captured Philadelphia, the largest city in the colonies and the meeting place of the Continental Congress. The delegates who governed the rebellion had to run for their lives, moving inland to keep the machinery of a new government out of enemy hands.
They found refuge in York, a modest county town on the far side of the Susquehanna River. In the eighteenth century, that wide river marked a kind of frontier line — the settled east on one bank, the rougher country stretching west on the other. Towns like York were places of farmers, tradesmen, and craftsmen, not the elegant capitals of colonial power.
Into that setting came the demands of a nation at war. A government, even a struggling one, runs on paper: proclamations, resolutions, orders, and the money that keeps armies fed and paid. A printing press was not a luxury here. It was infrastructure.
People & events
On this ground stood the first printing press established west of the Susquehanna — an ambitious thing for a town of York's size. When Congress arrived and settled in for the winter, that press was pressed into national service.
Out of it came government publications, the official words of a government trying to prove it truly existed, and Continental currency — the paper money the young United States used to fund its fight for independence. Printing money was an act of faith and defiance all at once: every bill declared that this new country expected to survive long enough to make good on it.
For roughly nine months, from the fall of 1777 into the summer of 1778, the everyday clatter of a working press became part of the sound of the Revolution's government at work. The people who set the type and pulled the sheets were doing quiet, skilled labor at the very center of a nation's survival.
Its place in the American story
It is easy to picture the Revolution as battles and famous signatures. But a rebellion becomes a government only when it can speak with one voice and pay its debts — and both of those depend on printing. A press that turns out official documents and national currency is doing the unglamorous work of statehood.
That this happened in a small inland town, on a press that was itself a frontier first, says something about how improvised the early United States really was. The country's business went wherever it had to go, carried on by whatever tools were at hand.
When you connect this site to the larger story, it becomes a reminder that independence was not only declared and fought for. It was also printed — line by line, bill by bill — in places most Americans have never heard of.
If you visit
Stand here and try to strip away the modern street around you. What you're looking at is the footprint of a workshop that once did the paperwork of a nation on the run. There is no roar of history to hear — just the idea of a press working steadily through an anxious winter.
York rewards a slow visit. This marker sits within a walkable historic core where the Revolution's temporary capital left its mark in more than one place, so it fits naturally into an afternoon of wandering rather than a quick photo stop.
Let this be the spot where you think about the machinery behind the moment — the money and the words, not just the muskets. It's a good place to remember that a country's survival can hinge on something as ordinary, and as extraordinary, as a working press.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · Continental Congress at York
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
James Smith
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James Smith, who lies buried in this churchyard, was one of Pennsylvania's signers of the Declaration of Independence. A York lawyer of Irish birth, he raised a company of Associators—citizen-soldiers—early in the Revolution and served in the Continental Congress. He was also an ironmaster, part of the frontier industry that helped arm the American cause.
Revolutionary War Gun Factory
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When British troops seized Philadelphia in 1777, Pennsylvania's revolutionary government fled westward and needed weapons for the fight. Near Hummelstown it set up its official state gun factory, working in secret from 1777 to 1779 to turn out muskets and rifles for the Continental Army. In an age when a single skilled gunsmith might finish only a few arms a month, the concentrated production here was a small but vital arsenal for a cause perpetually short of firepower.
Mathias Roeser
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From 1740 to 1771 the gunsmith Mathias Roeser worked here in Lancaster, at the heart of colonial Pennsylvania's craft economy. His shop was central to the development of the Pennsylvania rifle, the long, accurate frontier firearm that became famous in American hands. Family members and his apprentice William Henry, Sr., went on to lead the trade and supply arms to the patriot cause during the Revolution.
Bailey's Printshop
Lancaster, PA · est. 1971
From 1773 to 1780, Francis Bailey ran a printing office on this Lancaster site, serving as official printer to both the Continental Congress and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In an age when the press was a weapon of revolution, his shop turned out patriot documents—including Thomas Paine's "Crisis No. 4," one of the essays meant to steel American resolve through the darkest stretch of the war. Bailey is also credited with being among the first to call George Washington "Father of His Country" in print.