The history of this house, originally established by his father, and carried on from one success to another by his father's sons, is the history of the evolution of the art of printing, not only in America, but throughout the civilized world. Prior to the invention of the presses which bear the name of Hoe, the machinery by which the uses of " the types " are made manifest on paper was indeed slow-running and, in the light of the development of to-day, very crude. It was the Hoes who gave to the world, in 1847, the first rotary press ever known, and later, the wonderful Web Perfecting Printing-Machines with which the press-rooms of the leading newspapers of the United States and Europe are now provided, and which, from an endless roll or web of paper, print, cut and fold twenty-four thousand eight-page papers an hour.
The honor of having devised and invented this almost human machine, which has made the cheap newspaper a possibility, and completely revolutionized the world of printing, belongs jointly to Colonel Richard M. Hoe and Mr. S. D. Tucker, one of his partners. Although many years ago the mammoth business which he had inherited from his father had made him a wealthy man, abundantly able, had he seen fit, to retire from its active management. Colonel Hoe to the day of his death was the actual head and manager of the great manufacturing house, giving his time and
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inventive brain abundantly to the development of the business.