Tramp Printers

The printer's trade has always been portable. A job ended or a dispute ensued and the printers were off to find new press-work and while this vocational wandering has been around since the union "chapels" of the 1400s, the term "tramp printer" seems to have emerged somewhere between the 1880s and the Depression.

The best book on the subject is John Howells and Marion Dearman's book, Tramp Printers. I believe that it's now out of print although one could check Amazon or google the title for used copies. After a few emails back and forth to John Howell, I purchased one of his last remaining copies of Tramp Printer. In fact there was some reluctance on his part to sell it to me if "all I was going to do was put it on the book-shelf.” I told him that given the sometimes precarious state of the economy it might be best to learn the way's of the Tramp Printer. The book arrived several days later and I was not dissapointed. If the federal bailout of Wall Street fails, I expect to meet many printers on the road, typesticks in their back pockets (along with a pint of Peach Brandy). Someone will have to print the foreclosure notices.

But maybe it's for lack of a colorful nickname I harken back to the tramp printers. Like "professional" hobos, they were known to each other by nicknames like Windy Jack (do we want to know why?), High Pants, Snuffy and Rabbit and if you happened to be jumping a boxcar and looking for printing work, chances are they'd lead you to the next "print town" and the next race-track, and the next bar and give you the what's up on cheap paying outfits and mean bosses.

My affinity for tramp printers is easy much easier to explain. Having moved six times since I ventured into the world of letterpress, and selling along the way 4 Chandler-Prices, 2 Vandercooks, a Linotype Model 14, 2 guillotine cutters and countless cases of type and other accoutrements, I have been without my own press for some years now and almost unwilling to re-equip until I get psychotherapy and/or steroid treatment enough fo rme to leverage the iron beasts around again. That said, I'd walk a mile barefoot in a blizzard for a Heidelberg cylinder press.

As luck would have it, a move back east from Oregon to Chestertown, Maryland reintroduced me to my alma mater, Washington College and their beautiful press room at the O'Neil Literary House where Mike Kaylor has served as master printer for some two decades and inspired printer's devils to continue the tradition. Finally I was back to the presses.

As luck continued to rain down on me, an old school chum (from Choate and Washington College days), Bill Frank reappeared in Chestertown, met with another friend of mine, Gerry Cataldo of Chestertown Old Book Co. and the three of us decided the time was right to produce our own books starting with The Chesapeake Voyages of Capt. John Smith. Chester River Press was founded.

Alas, I altered my landscape once again, moving to northern Michigan to be with my girlfriend and her two daughters. Problem was— a printing project was not yet finished and the Vandercook press I was using was down with a bout of sheared bolts. So began a frenzied search for a letterpress printer in northern Michigan (think North Pole weather and French trappers) when Chad Pastotnik at Deep Wood Press was discovered. Who would have guessed I'd end up within an hour's drive of one of the finest printers in the country? I might as well have thrown a dart at a map of North America. Chad helped me finish the project (a book by the esteemed John Barth) giving us a chance to get to know each other, talk printing and design and soon found we collaborated with ease and good humor. The die had been cast and we've worked on Chester River Press projects since, including the John Smith book (now sold-out) and the about to be released Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. More about that later.