The Evangelical Association's first General Conference, meeting in 1816 in the house of Martin Dreisbach of Buffalo Valley in Union County, Pennsylvania, authorized the establishment of a denominational printing house. Groundwork had been laid by the 1815 purchase of this lot in New Berlin and by Presiding Elder John Dreisbach's purchase of a printing press in Philadelphia. A smaller building was constructed beside the newly erected meeting-house, and operations began in October 1816. George Miller of Harrisburg was hired as printer, and Rev. Solomon Miller of Schuylkill County was elected publisher. The first two volumes issued in 1817 were a revision of the denomination's Discipline, essentially a German version of the theologically similar Methodist Episcopal Church, and a new hymnbook, Das Geistliche Saitenspiel, The Spiritual Psaltery. Within twenty years, the operation had outgrown the original small building, and a larger facility for the printing press, bindery operations, and living quarters was purchased on the northeast corner of Market and Plum Streets. The Evangelical Association's publishing house occupied that structure, now a private home, until the entire operation moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1854. As compensation for losing the publishing house, New Berlin became the inaugural site for Union Seminary, the denomination's first permanent educational institution and the forerunner of Albright College. The second printing house building then served as a girls' dormitory from 1854 until it was sold in 1864.