George Phineas Gordon was the son of Phineas and Mary (White) Gordon. He was born on April 21, 1810, in Salem, New Hampshire, where the family had resided for a hundred years or more, and where his grandfather had been a tavern-keeper and the first postmaster.
Gordon received his primary education in Salem and subsequently attended an academy in Boston.
He became an apprentice in the printer’s trade. After completing his apprenticeship he opened a small job-printing office of his own in New York and operated it for a number of years.
Early in life, Gordon became an actor but presumably for the reason that he gained but little livelihood in this profession, he settled in New York.
His early experiences in news offices and press rooms and his knowledge of the limitations which the available press equipment possessed, caused him around 1835 to begin to experiment in the construction of improved presses for card printing.
He continued experimenting for more than fifteen years before he applied for any patents, the first one of which was granted him in 1851.
While his job press had many defects he quickly made improvements and began to manufacture it, calling it the “Yankee” job press.
A year or two later, he introduced a second job press, called the “Turnover, ” from its method of manufacture, and in 1854, he brought out a press called the “Firefly, ” which was fed with strips of cards and could turn out approximately 10, 000 cards an hour.
About 1858, he invented the so-called “Franklin” press which was very successful and which subsequently became known as the “Gordon. ”
It was extremely strong and well put together, and found its way into hundreds of offices for a great many years thereafter. This press had a rotating ink-distributing disk within which another ink disk revolved in the contrary direction. Both moved very slowly.
An excellent distribution of ink was thus effected as the inking rollers passed over an entirely new surface every time they reached the disks.
Gordon built all told more than a hundred kinds of presses. At first, he had them constructed in Rhode Island, but in 1872, he established works in Rahway, New Jersey, with offices in New York. He resided alternately in Rahway and Brooklyn.
Apparently, he never lost his interest in the stage, for in 1874, he built in Rahway a magnificent opera house for that city which unfortunately was destroyed by fire ten years later.
He suffered from ill health during the last few years of his life and at the time of his death he was living in Norfolk, Virginia, where he had gone to recuperate.
He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.
Gordon was twice married: first in 1846 to Sarah Cornish, and second in 1856 to Lenore May, who with a daughter by his first wife survived him.
