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Tag Archives: independence

A fine piece of early Americana and a very fine gift

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Donations

≈ Comments Off on A fine piece of early Americana and a very fine gift

Tags

almanac, American, American Antiquarian Society, American Revolution, Americana, battles, Benjamin Franklin, bibles, bindery, books, bookstores, Boston, broadsides, Caleb Alexander, Charles River, collector, Concord, dictionaries, Dr. Ronald Rubin, English, Greek, Greek New Testament, history, independence, Isaiah Thomas, John Mill, Lexington, literature, London, Maryland, Massachusetts, medicine, music, Newburyport, newspaper, Nova Scotia, Oxford, pamphlets, paper mill, printer, printing history, rare books, Ronald Rubin, sedition, Vermont, Virgil, war, Worcester, Yale University

title

HE KAINE DIATHEKE, NOVUM TESTAMENTUM
Wigorniae, Massachusettensi: excudebat Isaias Thomas, Jun, 1800
Editio Prima Americana

This is the first American printing of the Greek New Testament, considered a milestone in American printing history.

Isaiah Thomas’ printing shop was dubbed “the sedition factory,” during the American Revolution. Thomas moved his press from Boston across the Charles River to Worcester in order to avoid confiscation by British troupes. His press reassembled, Thomas remained in Worcester for the rest of his life, printing the first reports of the battles of Lexington and Concord (“Americans! – – – Liberty or Death! – – – Join or Die!”) and continuing to print until he sold his business in 1802.

Isaiah Thomas was born in Boston in 1749. Thomas was apprenticed to a printer, at the age of six, after the death of his father. He stayed for ten years, then broke his bond and headed to London, much as Benjamin Franklin had done earlier. Thomas got as far as Nova Scotia, where he stayed to print a newspaper. After six months, he was sent packing because of his anti-Stamp Act actions. After another foray, this time to the south, Thomas returned to Boston to set up his own newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy. At the same time, he began what would become a lucrative printing business, which included an almanac and the Royal American Magazine, in 1774.

After the war for independence was won, Thomas built his press into an enterprise that included a bindery, a paper mill and bookstores from Vermont to Maryland. In 1773, he established the first press in Newburyport, Massachusetts, at the request of some of its citizens. He printed books on medicine, music, history, and literature; and printed spellers, dictionaries, and bibles. Caleb Alexander (1755-1828), a graduate of Yale University, worked with Thomas as editor for his first American editions of Virgil and other works in Greek, including He kaine diatheke. Alexander based his edition on a 1707 Oxford edition by English scholar John Mill (1645-1707).

Thomas retired around 1802, about two years after his printing of He kaine diatheke. He spent the rest of his life collecting printed American works – books, pamphlets, broadsides, almanacs, and newspapers. He used these as primary sources for his History of Printing in America, published in 1810. He donated his collection to the American Antiquarian Society, an institution he organized in order to provide a home for print material from early American history.


This is the most recent of numerous gifts throughout the years from Dr. Ronald Rubin, a collector, like Isaiah Thomas, of early Americana and a very fine friend of Rare Books. Thank you, Dr. Rubin!

238-239spread

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Boom!

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

American, Benjamin Franklin, Bill of Rights, Boston, Boston Gazette, Boston Massacre, British, colonial, colonies, David Hume, Dunlap, Edmund Burke, England, Great Britain, independence, John Adams, John Wesley, Josiah Quincy, London, monarchy, pamphlet, Philadelphia, Richard Price, Stamp Act, tuberculosis, William Pitt

“…that sacred blessing of Liberty, without which man is a beast, and government a curse”

E263-M4-Q7-1774-title

“No free government was ever founded or ever preserved its liberty without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defence of the state…such are a well-regulated militia…who take up arms to preserve their purposes, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.”

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ACT OF PARLIAMENT…
Josiah Quincy (1744-1775)
Boston, N.E., Printed for and sold by Edes and Gill, 1774
First edition

Attorney Josiah Quincy, a Boston native, wrote a series of anonymous articles for the Boston Gazette in which he opposed the Stamp Act and other British colonial policies. His evenhandedness, however, in his approach to the troubles between the American colonies and England, served him and the colonial stance well. He, along with John Adams, defended the British soldiers in their trial after the Boston Massacre. That act aside, in Observations, Quincy urged “patriots and heroes” to “form a compact for opposition…For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, and howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.” In the same year as this publication, Quincy went to England to argue the colonial cause. He died of tuberculosis on the way home in sight of land.

E211-P9625-1776-title

“Our own people, being unwilling to enlist, and the attempts to procure armies of Russians, Indians, and Canadians having miscarried; the utmost force we can employ, including foreigners…This is the force that is to conquer…determined men fighting on their own ground, within sight of their houses and families, and for that sacred blessing of Liberty, without which man is a beast, and government a curse. All history proves, that in such a situation, a handful is a match for millions.”

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURE OF CIVIL LIBERTY…
Richard Price (1723-1791)
London printed 1776; Philadelphia, Re-printed and sold by J. Dunlap, 1776?

Richard Price, radical in his religious and political views, was well-known in Great Britain as a writer on economic and political issues. A close friend of William Pitt, David Hume, and Benjamin Franklin, he became one of Britain’s most vocal supporters of American independence. Several thousand copies of Observations were sold within a few days. The pamphlet both extolled the rights of the American colonists and excoriated the British crown. Harshly criticized by John Wesley, Edmund Burke, and others, the controversy quickly made Price a celebrity. Price argued that governments held their power in trust from the people and were not instruments of divine authority. The monarchy of England, he said, was only legitimate because it ruled by consent of the people under England’s Bill of Rights. The revolutionaries in the American colonies were merely asserting the same principle. His pamphlet played no small part in encouraging the colonists to declare independence. In 1778 he was invited by Congress to go to America and assist in the financial administration of the states. He refused the offer, unwilling to quit his own country.

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Continental Paper Currency, 1776

02 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

American Congress, Benjamin Franklin, British, Chester County, colonies, colony, Congress, Continental Congress, Continental paper currency, Counterfeit, currency, Elisha Gallaudet, FUGIO, gold, Hall & Sellers, independence, Ivy Mills, pence, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, political revolution, pounds, shillings, silver, sovereignty, Spanish, sundial, war


CONTINENTAL PAPER CURRENCY, 1776
Philadelphia: Printed by Hall & Sellers, 1776

Loosely united in the midst of political revolution and war, the British colonies had no unity whatsoever in currency. Each colony began printing its own paper currency valued both in British-style pounds, shillings, and pence and in the universally familiar Spanish milled dollar. Each colony valued the Spanish dollar at wildly different rates.

In the early flush of independence, the Continental Congress decided to use currency as one indication of sovereignty by launching a standard currency for all the colonies. An emission totaling $4,000,000 payable in Spanish milled dollars, or the equivalent in gold or silver, was authorized by the congressional resolution of February 10, 1776. Of this, $1,000,000 was reserved for the first national fractional currency.

The front design on the fractional notes included the first use of the “FUGIO” (I fly) legend and sundial as well as the “Mind your Business” legend. The back showed the thirteen linked rings representing the colonies and the legends “We are one” and “American Congress.” These designs were created by Benjamin Franklin. The devices and border designs were cut by Elisha Gallaudet. On the fractional bills the dots in the corners of the front design reflected the denomination.

The first four emissions of Continental paper currency from May 10, 1775 through May 6, 1776, included a dollar bill. There was one signer, in red ink, on the fractional bills and two signers, using red and brown ink, on the dollar denominations. Counterfeit detectors for the dollar denominations were made on blue paper. The paper, made at Ivy Mills in Chester County, Pennsylvania, contained blue fibers and mica flakes.

On this bill is printed, “This bill entitles the bearer to receive three Spanish milled dollars, or the value thereof in gold or silver, according to a resolution of Congress, passed at Philadelphia, Nov. 2, 1776.”

alluNeedSingleLine

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