Many of the early settlers in America from England came seeking religious freedom. The Pilgrims arrived in 1620 and brought with them the Geneva Bible, not the King James Bible. The KJV was seen as the Bible of the English King and the state Church of England which had been persecuting them. But by the mid-1600's, the King James Bible was arriving in the New World with the increasing flow of settlers. It was much later in the colonial period, in 1782, when the first complete King James Bible was printed in America. Prior to that time, English Bibles were readily available as imports from England. With the coming of the Revolutionary War, the importation of British goods was seriously curtailed, so Robert Aitken, who had started printing the King James New Testament in the Colonies in 1771, gained the support from the United States Congress to print the entire King James Bible, which he did in 1782. His Bible became known as the “Bible of the Revolution,” because of its small size so copies could be given to the soldiers in the Colonial army. In 1798, John Thompson produced the first King James Bible to be “hotpressed” in America. This printing technique helped to sear the ink clearly into the paper with heat. Thompson’s Bible was a pulpit folio size, the largest Bible printed in America up until that time. Item 1: Aitken Bible Page, 1782 This original page from a King James Bible is from a copy printed in Philadelphia in 1782, Robert Aitken’s only edition of the first English Bible printed in America. The page measures about 6 inches by 4 inches, making the Bible small enough to fit into the pocket of a Continental Army soldier. The text on these two pages is from I Corinthians 7:1-8:7. Item 2: King James Bible, Thompson Hot-Press Edition, 1798 This copy of the King James Bible was printed by John Thompson in Philadelphia in 1798, the first hot-pressed printing of the Bible in the American colonies. This copy was rebound in leather in 2004 by the artisans at the Ohio Book Store in Cincinnati, Ohio. Item 3: New Testament, 1807 This copy of the King James Bible New Testament, published during the time of the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), was printed in New York in 1807 by Duyckinck and Mesier.
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