A new printing press is being installed in a new Gazette office. In a few weeks the Gazette will change its headquarters from the old office at the corner of Main and Water streets to the building on Summer Street, owned by Mrs. Horace Vincent and formerly occupied as a Jewelry Store.
The arrival of the press last Friday caused considerable stir. It was brought from Boston on a large motor truck and load weighing about twelve tons. This was too sizable an affair to put on the boat, so the base of the press and the heaviest parts were transferred to a smaller truck. The other parts were shipped separately.
When the truckload of heavy parts went on board the Uncatena at New Bedford it smashed a gangplank. When it reached Vineyard Haven it broke through planking on the wharf and held up traffic to and from the end of the wharf for some hours. The accident occurred at the narrow part of the dock, near the head, where one half the planking had been removed for repairs. The other half was simply laid loosely to serve as a temporary passageway.
The truck and its load weighed almost seven tons. The rear wheels sank through the wharf until a plank turned up edgewise caught and held it.
Capt. George Stevenson and the men working under him on the wharf repairs turned to and unloaded the truck as quickly as possible, with the help of an emergency crew. John D. Donnelly and Harry Norton with Mr. Horton's truck effected a new loading and the press parts reached Edgartown in the evening.
The new press is a Whitlock taking a sheet as large as nearly two thousand sheets an hour and gives the Gazette a great capacity for commercial printing of the first grade.
With the installation of a linotype last spring the Gazette was equipped to cast and set type. Since being put in operation the machine has given excellent service despite the fact that the operators never had the advantage of any training. Each week the news for the paper is cast into lines of type, and after publication the lines are simply remelted.
With the new press, the Gazette takes one more step. Both in the departments of type setting and printing the office is equipped in the most modern way and for the best work.
The old office of the Gazette at the “four corners” is not the newspaper's first home although it dates back farther than the memory of many people. In the new plant, the Gazette will find room for its new needs and will have the advantage of a secure foundation on the first floor for its heavy machines.
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