Crandall Historical Printing Museum
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​What was it like to print the original Book of Mormon in 1830?

Picture
This is a photo of Louis Crandall, Jr. setting up the Acorn Press
Here at the Crandall Printing Museum, we attempted to see what it would be like to print 5,000 copies of the original 1830 Book of Mormon. The man-power, the paper, ink, ink balls and hours of work. We set a full-16 pages of the Book and then printed all day and here is a video clip of our findings!
Danny is from Scotland and he came to our printing museum to set 16 pages, He was a typesetter many years ago and the 16 pages took him just under three weeks to set. There was 27 signatures of 16 pages in the original 1830 Book of Mormon, just the typesetting was a HUGE undertaking, let alone the printing. We have determined that it took E.B. Grandin nine full months to print the entire book, and then two years to bind the 5,000 books ordered by Joseph Smith, Jr. All of this, in a tiny town of upper state New York called Palmyra. Our museum is the only place in the World to see and feel the type of the original Book of Mormon and see how it was done. In Palmyra, one can visit the print shop restored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and witness a replica of the original press that is located to day in Salt Lake City at the Church's Museum, but these presses cannot be touched and are non-working. At our museum in Provo, Utah, you can see a REAL working replica and find that it was large job for any print shop in such early printing times. Come visit us today!

 


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  • Home
  • Our Historical Presses
  • From Gutenberg to Grandin
  • Printing the Book of Mormon