AMERICANA TO 1820

Considering theA--------n R---------n

•  Although this is labelled “Second Edition,” it is printed from the same setting of type as the first edition. (Another edition of 1778, also labelled “Second Edition,” is indeed entirely reset and has a shorter collation.) The work attempts to convey the substance of several Parliamentary speeches concerning the American controversy, with at least one Cassandra saying the Franco-American alliance cannot last, and another doubting the war can have any lasting effect on the British economy. Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Adams, American Controversy, 78-102b; Sabin 95788.   Sewn, later wrappers applied; some foxing. Four leaves chipped along the outer margin, not affecting text. Without the final blank (only); with the half-title. A very good, clean copy.  (25497)

Thomas à K forAmerican Methodists
    Ownership Marks to Dream On?

•  Early American printing of John Wesley's abridged version of the Imitatio Christi, following the London first edition of 1741. This was one of a series of works published by John Dickins, an early Methodist preacher, for the use of Methodist Societies in the U.S.; Dickins's publishing operation eventually became the Methodist Publishing House, still in business today as the United Methodist Publishing House.

Provenance: An interesting array of ownership inscriptions: “Abigail Davis Book Given her By her Friend [Master?] Vaughan” — “Abigail Davis Book”— “Abigail Davis” — “Abigail Vaughan, Her Book,” this last written largest of all.  (“Reader, I married him”?)

•  Evans 27179; ESTC W33646.   Contemporary sheep, binding overall showing scuffs and small cracks. Endpapers and fly-leaf with early inked ownership inscriptions; title-page verso institutionally rubber-stamped. Pages age-toned and spotted, with intermittent pencilled bracketing; a few leaves starting to separate. (20808)

SomeoneHad to Be . . .
   . . . NORTH CAROLINA's First

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•  Somebody had to be North Carolina’s first native born poet and the task/honor was Joseph Thomas’s, and he did it with A Poetical Descant! It is scarce, having been printed in small format in a small town by a very small-time printer for a rather small audience. Thomas’s other publications include a hymnal and short works of theology (totally fitting given that he was an itinerant preacher), and an autobiography.

•  Wegelin, American Poetry, 1168; Shaw & Shoemaker 39076. Recent quarter cloth with blue-green paper sides, in the style of early 19th-centry American books. Ex–mercantile library with a few stamps, including on title-page. Two letters of title abraded and mostly invisible, yet, still, a clean copy.

Party Strife!
     New York State Senate — 1806

•  A wall posting of the so-called “Lewisites” or “Quids,” the faction of the Democratic-Republican party that supported Gov. Morgan Lewis of New York against the faction led by New York City Mayor DeWitt Clinton. It is a direct reply to a handbill circulated by “A Republican of 1776,” who assailed the character of three candidates for State Senate in the Western District, Evans Wharry, Freegift Patchin, and Joseph Annin. Much of the text presents a defense of the incorporation of the Merchants' Bank. Printed in triple columns.

Rare: We fail to trace any copies via OCLC; only one holding listed in Shaw & Shoemaker.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 11490.   As issued, with old folds, edges slightly irregular. Two tiny holes within text, at the point where two folds intersect, and costing only a portion of two letters. Fingernail-sized stain. Four words have been redacted by the previous owner in ink, but can still be easily read.  (24636)

Folwell's Printing:  The Fifth U.S. Congress

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•  Acts of the first, second, and third sessions of the Fifth Congress, printed in the same years as their original appearances — with these Richard Folwell printings being less common than the William Ross editions. Each section has a separate title-page, with the pagination of the first session's acts continued in the second and third. Covered here are the establishment of the Department of the Navy, the creation of the Mississippi Territory, treaties with the Cherokees and with Tripoli, and the Alien and Sedition Acts; the volume closes with a copy of the Constitution as “ratified by the several states.” In passing, one happens upon acts regulating the distillers of “Geneva” (gin) and “the Medical Establishment.” Reading or browsing, in this volume, is interesting and eye-opening.

Provenance:  Old signature, “Hall Harrison,” on title-page.

•  Evans 32952, 34688, & 36479; ESTC W11750; Sabin 15502, 15503, & 15504. Contemporary treed calf, rebacked with calf, spine with gilt-stamped bands and gilt-stamped leather title and publication labels; leather of boards (but not spine) crackled, chipped/chipping, and discolored from a fire, with rear board most affected and with one corner lost (3/4" up and across from the point, this showing in our extra photograph). Front pastedown with old institutional bookplate; title-page with early inked ownership inscription as above and old institutional rubber-stamp. Offsetting from binding at beginning and end, intermittent mild offsetting and faint spotting generally, a few leaves towards the back browned, with pages otherwise clean; the fire that affected the boards did not reach the interior, here.  (25667)

For Books for the BUSTED
            BIBLIOPHILE,  click here.

Selling (Forming) Mississippi (& Alabama)

•  Via this agreement, Georgia turned over to the U.S. its claim to land south of Tennessee and west of the “Chatahochie” River, for the express purpose of creating the future state of Mississippi; the new territory would eventually result in the creation of Alabama and Mississippi. In return it received the sum of $1,250,000. A sticking point, but one ultimately resolved, was the problem of land in Georgia set aside for the Creek Indians by a treaty in 1798. Click the image for an enlargement.

This is the true 1802 printing: In 1804 it was reprinted in 8 pages as a preface to other related documents (Report of the Commissioners appointed in pursuance of An Act for the Amicable Settlement of Limits with the States of Georgia ... : 29th November, 1804 (p. [9]-28); and Documents accompanying the Report of the Commissioners on the Georgia Mississippi Territory, Ceded to the United States: Feb. 10, 1803 (p. [29]-140)). That 8-page reprint is sometimes found by itself without its required accompaniments and in fact is miscatalogued in Shaw & Shoemaker (3343).

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 3344. Recent paper wrappers. Slightly age-toned, otherwise clean.

Abolishing “Traffick” — Proposing “Colinization”

•  Resolution authorizing the president to negotiate with foreign governments to abolish the slave trade and to negotiate with Great Britain to establish a colony in Sierra Leone for free blacks. Government document: House document (United States. Congress. House); 14th Congress, 2nd session, no. 77. Printed at head of title: [77].

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 42596; Library Company, Afro-Americana, 10583.   Removed from a nonce volume. Lightly pencilled librarian's notation on p. [1]. Very mild foxing.  (18436)

Back to Africa?

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•  An early document of the American Colonization Society, founded in December 1816. Concerns the feasibility of negotiating with Great Britain to establish a colony of free blacks in Sierra Leone. Government document: House document (United States. Congress. House); 14th Congress, 2nd session, no. 78. Printed at head of title: [78].

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 42738; Library Company, Afro-Americana, 10602.   Removed from a nonce volume. Lightly pencilled librarian's notation on p. [1]. Leaves separated.  (18440)

An Irish-AMERICAN'S Service & Claims

•  Oliver Pollock, an Irish-born American merchant, claims remuneration for losses sustained in his capacity as commercial agent for the United States at Orleans during the American Revolution.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 14058. Removed from a nonce volume. Librarian's lightly pencilled notation on title-page. Stray brown spots. Very good. (18017)

North Carolinians . . . Petition Congress

•  The petitioners seek to have Plymouth, North Carolina, made a port of entry; the committee recommends against it.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 14060. Removed from a library-style pamphlet binding and in new wrappers.

Indiana Already Wants to Join the Union — 1812

•  Concerns a resolution to admit Indiana into the Union as a state. The territory was then in the midst of great population growth of settlers and still being convulsed occasionally by wars and battles with the Native American population, etc., but was of stature to seek admission as a state — which it achieved in 1816.
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•  Shaw & Shoemaker 27339. In modern wrappers, old sewing holes; age-toned.

MILITIA, Provide Yourselves EACH with a
“Good Musket or Firelock”

•  A reading copy of the bill, with each line numbered. At head of title: “VI. In Senate of the United States. December 22d, 1812. Agreeably to notice. Mr. Smith, of Maryland, obtained leave to bring in the following bill, which was read and passed to the second reading.” Click the image for an enlargement.

“[A]fter the passing of this act, the militia of the United States shall be composed of all able bodied white male citizens of the respective states, resident therein, who shall respectively be of the age of twenty years and under the age of forty years.”

Scarce: Only one holding located via OCLC (at US Navy Department Library, Naval Historical Center); not in RLIN.

•  Not in Shaw & Shoemaker.   Removed from a nonce volume. Uncut copy. Ink numeral at top of first page. A few light spots. (13790)

Treasury Department Copy

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•  Extremely detailed accounting of appropriations and expenditures. Both reports were submitted by Samuel Meredith, the first treasurer of the United States; both of these government documents are not commonly seen in institutional holdings save in microform.

Provenance: A Treasury Department Library copy, with bookplate of that institution on the front pastedown. Gilt-stamped leather labels on spine state “1798” and “First Comp’t Office”; gilt-stamped leather labels on front cover state “Register’s Office” and “Treasurer's Accounts.”

•  Evans 34885, 36541, & 36595. Contemporary or very early19th-century library sheep, spine and front gilt-stamped on green and red leather labels (as described above); binding much rubbed and abraded, with some peeling of leather and loss at head and foot of spine; front cover detached. Remnants of old paper label adhered near inner edge of front cover. Pages clean save for some offsetting.

Freedom of the Press — Philadelphia, 1800

• Was it slander or libel, or exercising the freedom of the press (or both) — when on 19 February 1800 William Duane published an article concerning the secret activities occurring in Senate caucuses? In any case the senators were not pleased! In this publication they quote the offending passages and then order Duane to appear before them to defend “his conduct” and the Aurora’s for having published “the aforesaid false, defamatory, scandalous, and malicious assertions and pretended information.”

At the heart of the controversy was Duane’s support of Jefferson for president and his exposure of the notorious Ross election bill by which the Federalists sought to thwart Jefferson’s bid for that office.

• Evans 38856; ESTC W021879. Removed from a nonce volume. Clean and in nice condition.

“United States Register” —For English Reference 1794

•  Uncommon British reprint of an American work originally printed in Philadelphia. Although no calendrical information is present, much other material commonly found in almanacs is: lists of government officials by state, population statistics (categorized by free white males and females, slaves, and “other persons”), and duties payable on assorted goods.

•  ESTC T105844. Period-style quarter calf with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands. Title-page and a few others stamped by a now-defunct institution. Some offsetting to margins of first and final leaves, pages otherwise clean. A nice little Anglo-Americanum, very evocative of its era.

Spanish Southwest  Mexican Art  New World Biography

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•  This is part 4, issued separately, of the author's Teatro mexicano: descripción breve de los sucesos exemplares. The Chronica de la provincia del Santo Evangelio gives detailed descriptions of the Franciscan houses and missions in all of New Spain — especially in Mexico City and Puebla, but also in such far-flung areas as New Mexico and California. Henry Raup Wagner, the dean of bibliographers of the Spanish Southwest, labels the Chronica “a prime authority for the history of New Mexico.” Vetancurt further offers a marvelous section on various apparitions of the Virgin across New Spain, each being given a lengthy paragraph with full details. He ends his volume with a menology of Franciscans and a biographical list of the bishops, writers, and other notables who served or lived in New Spain; a number of these figures were martyrs and their stories are recounted.

It must be pointed out, because it is often forgotten, that art historians will find the Chronica to be rich in architectural detail and brimming over with information about art work in 17th-century New Spain churches and convents. Guillermo Tovar de Teresa, the great historian and bibliographer of colonial-era Mexican books containing information on Mexican art, writes of the Chronica, “Para la historia del arte en México durante el Virreinato es capital; su lectura es imprescindible para los estudiosos de la arquitectura de los siglos XVI y XVII.”

Provenance:  Augustinian monastic library of Morelia (marca de fuego on upper edge of closed book; on verso of title-page in an 18th-century hand: “pertenece al convento de San Augustin de Valladolid”); private use of Fr. Manuel Aigustin Farias (noted on the verso of title-page in an 18th-century hand, prelim. p. 12, first p. 1); later owned by José Martín de Infanzón (prelim. p. 9).

•  Medina, Mexico, 1684; Palau 361217; Sabin 99386; Andrade 1073; Tovar de Teresa, Bibliografía novohispana de arte, 105; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 68.   Early vellum over boards, rebacked; new endpapers and title-page backed for strength. Stray stains and ink markings variously, the latter in margins; minor worming in some lower margins, with waterstaining notable in the final section and a brown stain perhaps of another nature in upper gutter-ward areas of the same section, sometimes into text. Final six leaves with loss of lower outer corner, including some text; paper replaced and text in excellent facsimile. Volume now housed in a quarter blue morocco tray case with gilt spine.  (26824)

TO Part XX . . .

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