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Dard Hunter's Mountain House Press
In 1919 the Hunter family returned to Chillicothe and moved
into Mountain House, built in the early 1850s by German émigrés.
In 1920 Hunter traveled to England where he purchased old
hand papermaking equipment in hopes of establishing a production
paper mill, but he postponed this to concentrate on writing.
For years he had wanted to write a book based on several articles
he had had published on the history of hand papermaking and
watermarks. Initially with no thoughts of producing the book
himself, he was persuaded to print it with his type. He bought
another Washington hand press and the Studio at Mountain House
became the site of the Dard Hunter Press.
Since he did not have sufficient Marlborough paper for the
book and could not make more himself, he ordered it from England
as there were no mills in America making handmade paper. Hunter
sent his large, antique laid moulds to W. Green, Son &
Waite with designs for a new watermark: a branch, a shield
enclosing DH, and 1922. The moulds were then forwarded to
the J. Barcham Green Company's Hayle Mill in Maidstone, Kent
which made about 30 reams, or 15,000 sheets.
Old Papermaking, in a limited edition of 200, was completed
in July 1923. It was a financial as well as a critical success,
and like many of Hunter's later books, it was named one of
the "Fifty Books of the Year" by the American Institute
of Graphic Arts. On the title-page, there is no information
about the printer/publisher, but Hunter's printer's mark is
prominent. This mark, based on the branch and leaf motif from
the Marlborough books, also includes a Bull's Head. The printer's
mark changed with each book as one leaf was added to denote
the total number of books printed by Dard Hunter's press with
his, or his son's, type; the count included the two Marlborough
books.
Hunter's next book, The Literature of Papermaking 1390-1800,
was completed in 1925. Now that he had a reliable (and relatively
inexpensive) source of paper, he changed the format of Literature
of Papermaking to a folio. For his next books Hunter concentrated
on oriental papermaking, and to gather material first-hand,
he traveled to the actual mills. His first trip had to be
postponed when he lost the sight in his left eye in early
1925, but a year later he was on a ship to the South Sea Islands
to record the manufacture of tapa. There he collected material,
tools, and information which resulted in his 1927 book, Primitive
Papermaking. It is on the title-page of this book that
the imprint MOUNTAIN HOUSE PRESS first appears. The paper
for Primitive Papermaking was also made by Hayle Mill,
but the watermark was changed to a variation of his printer's
mark, called the Bull's Head and Branch watermark.
Between 1927 and 1932 the Mountain House Press was on hiatus
while Hunter established a commercial hand papermaking mill
in Lime Rock, Connecticut. In 1930 the first sheet of paper
was made by members of a family of English papermakers. Unfortunately
the mill did not thrive due in part to the Great Depression,
and it was sold in late 1933. The mill did, however, provide
Hunter with enough handmade paper for many of his later limited
edition books. Much of that paper was formed on his moulds
with the Bull's Head and Branch watermark.
In 1932, Old Papermaking in China and Japan from the
Mountain House Press appeared. It was the last book to be
printed with Dard Hunter's type. In 1933 Hunter traveled to
Japan, Korea, and China; in 1935, to Indo-China and Siam;
and in 1937-38, to India. Several books on hand papermaking
in these countries followed, all quartos printed with 18-point
Caslon type.
For use in the last book to be written by Hunter and published
by the Mountain House Press, Dard Hunter, Jr. cast a completely
new font of type. This book was the magnificent, Papermaking
by Hand in America, completed in late 1950. Over three
hundred pages long with nearly two hundred illustrations and
facsimiles of old papers, this book remains Hunter's masterpiece.
The leaf on the printer's mark designating this book has fallen
from the branch, and indeed this was Hunter's last Mountain
House Press book.
Hunter did not retire from writing, however, and he published
his second autobiography in 1958, My Life with Paper
(Knopf). Ironically perhaps, Hunter felt that, rather than
his books, his greatest accomplishment was the Dard Hunter
Paper Museum. Originally housed at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (1939-1954), it now comprises most of the collection
of the Robert C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking located
in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dard Hunter died in 1966 at age 82. His considerable legacy
is the current revival of hand papermaking and the book arts,
and his work will continue to give those who esteem the art
of the book inspiration well into the next millennium.
Cathleen A. Baker
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The Art of the Handmade Book
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