Grandin Printing

We entered the Grandin Printing store on the back side of the building. This is the side that faces the street. This is where the Book of Mormon was printed.

I love this picture because it shows how important it is to have the Book of Mormon and the Bible together. They are both witnesses of the life of Jesus Christ. One testifies of his life from Jerusalem-the Bible and the other from the American Continents-the Book of Mormon. You can't have the complete gospel without them both.

Here is the store portion of the Printing shop. Very old bound books and tools.

Ink Bottles

As we went to the second floor they had  a replica of one of the homes where the Book of Mormon was translated.

Book of Mormon Manuscript pages.

They would dip the ink balls in ink and then blot them on the plates of letters.

The thing in the back that has a black base and you can see the white lid to the right is where the ink is put on the black portion. Then the paper is put between the two white pieces and pressed down. This particular press was called the Smith press which allowed them to decreased the time in making a book in half because it allowed for 12 pages to be done at once rather than 6.

These stands are all of the different letters and numbers used to print the books.

Here is one of the finished pages before it is folded, cut, glued and bound.

The Ink Balls

Here is where the binding took place

This is the book press

Then the books were brought here to be cut and sewn

The binding would then be glued

Here they would be finished with making the cover and finish the binding.

Law office that took up a room in the Printing shop.

There were many miracle that were present to help get the Book of Mormon printed. Grandin didn't want to take the contact with Joseph Smith because he didn't want to print this many books and not get paid for it. Martin Harris promised Grandin he would be paid and in the end Martin sold his farm in order to pay for the Books of Mormon. The completion of the Erie Canal was important because they were then able to get the Smith Press sent to them and allowed for a quicker shipment. The Smith Press alone is a miracle because it allowed them to make the books twice as fast.

It is incredible the time they took on just one book to print and bind it. It was a lot of work in a very long process. It was most interesting to be able to see each step it took to make a book. To think they had 5,000 printed is incredible which a job that size was never heard of for a printing press company like Grandin's. It sure does give one perspective on how lucky we are to have the technology we have today that allows us to make jobs like these much easier and quicker to accomplish.