In 1833, when Erastus was twelve years old, he, in his turn, was to enjoy his first extensive experience of wilderness journeying. He accompanied the rest of the family on an overland migration to the town of Schoolcraft, in Kalamazoo County, Michigan Territory, which pilgrimage occupied many weeks. But the Far West of those days did not suit Flavel Beadle, and he brought his family back to New York about two years later. [Illustration: SETH JONES By Edward S. Ellis TYPE A] [Illustration: COVER IN THREE COLORS TYPE B] As a boy, Erastus Beadle worked on a farm, and as apprentice to a miller. It was while he was a miller’s apprentice that he laid the foundation of his future career as a printer. Need arose in the mill one day for some letters to be used in labeling the bags of grain. Erastus cut the letters from blocks of hardwood, just as the old block-letters had been made in the days before Gutenberg. He then left the mill, and, with an alphabet of his home-made wooden type, he traveled about the region stamping bags in various mills and similarly marking lap robes, wagons, and other things. On reaching Cooperstown he came to the attention of Elihu Phinney, the pioneer printer of that town, who offered him work. In Phinney’s establishment Erastus learned to be a type-setter, stereotyper, printer, and binder, and with these abilities as his only capital he moved to the village of Buffalo in 1847. By 1852 he had a printing shop of his own, and in that year he issued his first publication, entitled “The Youth’s Casket.” In 1856 he began to issue the excellent magazine called “The Home Monthly” (shown in the exhibition), and two years later he removed to New York City to test his great idea. This plan was to issue “Dime” publications, and possibly had its immediate origin in the unusual success in Buffalo, of a “Dime Song Book” in which he had assembled a number of the penny lyrics of the period. These had been earlier issued in separate broadsides, by various publishers. The New York issues of the song books also made an immediate hit, and were swiftly followed by a number of the miscellaneous hand-books shown in the present exhibition. Then, in the summer of 1860, came the first of the original “Dime Novels” in their orange covers. Success was assured from the start, and the publishing activities of Beadle and Company speedily grew to vast proportions. Many of the best writers of the period, who possessed intimate knowledge of American pioneer life, were asked to put the conditions and events of earlier generations into attractive form. Among those whose help was thus enlisted were Judge Jared Hall, Francis Fuller Barritt, John Neal, Mayne Reid, Mrs. Victor, Colonel A. J. H. Duganne, Edward S. Ellis, William Eyster, Ann Stephens, Judge William Busteed, N. C. Iron, Herrick Johnstone, James L. Bowen, Mary Denison, John Warner, Charles Dunning Clark, and various others.