By Jeremy Dibbell

Our February Object of the Month is a 15 February 1939 letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to historian Roger Merriman, FDR’s former teacher at Harvard and in 1939 the vice president of the MHS. In this letter, Roosevelt bemoans what he calls the “We who are about to die, salute you” attitude exhibited by the British, recounting to Merriman a recent visit by the British ambassador, Lord Lothian which made him “mad clear through.” He ends his letter thus: “What the British need today is a good stiff grog, inducing not only the desire to save civilization but the continued belief that they can do it. In such an event they will have a lot more support from their American cousins — don’t you think so?”

You can see images of the letter, read a transcription, and get some more background here, in Tracy Potter’s Object of the Month essay.

By Jeremy Dibbell

Just a brief update on some of the latest discoveries in our research on the Thomas Shepard books (see Part 1 and Part 2 for earlier posts):

More than 100 extant copies of books (at ten different libraries) once belonging to the Shepards have now been identified, as Steve Ferguson notes in a post from Princeton, and each day we’ve discovered a few more. I’ve created an online version of the Shepard Library, which you can now browse here (just click on “Your Library” for the whole collection, or on each instution to see the books they now hold). Please note: as of 28 January this catalog is not yet complete – the largest portion of books, at Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, still need to be added. But we’re getting there!

One neat find from our collections here at MHS was a note (at left) in Thomas Shepard III’s copy of John Danforth’s An almanack or register of coelestial configurations &c. for the year of our Lord God 1679 (Cambridge: Samuel Green, 1679), which is among our holdings. Shepard kept notes in the interleaved almanac (mostly in shorthand), including one in which he describes receiving books from the estate of his friend and ministerial colleague Daniel Russell, who died of smallpox on 4 January 1678/9. In his will, Russell left Shepard a choice of books from his library, and Shepard reports choosing fourteen titles. Two of these, we were delighted to find, are now held at Princeton, and each contains an inscription by Shepard noting that it came from Russell’s library. You can see catalog records for the fourteen books here.

By Jeremy Dibbell

Picking up right where we left off yesterday, this post continues the saga of the Shepard library biblio-sleuthing expedition. As I wrote, I thought it might be worth checking to see whether we had any Shepard family books here at MHS, and if so whether they exhibited any of the marking patterns seen in the copies at Princeton. Our various catalogs resulted in the discovery of six books with Shepard provenance (and I suspect there may be a few more lurking in the stacks that I’ve yet to find). The titles we know so far are:

1. Thomas Goodwin, The returne of prayers: a treatise vvherein this case, how to discerne Gods answers to our prayers, is briefly resolved : with other observations upon Psal. 85.8 concerning Gods speaking peace, &c. (London: Printed for R. Dawlman, and L. Fawne at the signe of the Brazen serpent in Pauls Church-yard, 1636).

Notes: On front pastedown: MHS bookplate, noting Gift of “Miss Susan Minns, May 1, 1931”; inscribed below bookplate, “W. Beaman [?] 1905”; inscribed on title page [A2r]: “price 1s 4d”; inscribed on verso of title page [A2v]: “Thomas Prince Charlestown 1707 / [1?]s 4d silver.”; inscribed sideways on A3r, in ornate script: “Thomas Shepard me dedit 1652”; inscribed at top margin, A3r: line of shorthand, above which “Prince” (partially obliterated); inscribed on p. 396, sideways: “Thomas Shepard me tenet [?] and several shorthand marks at foot of page. Contains the “TS” stamp on the top edge.

2. William Gouge, A learned and very useful commentary on the whole epistle to the Hebrews : wherein every word and particle in the original is explained … : being the substance of thirty years Wednesdayes lectures at Black-fryers, London by that holy and learned divine Wiliam Gouge … : before which is prefixed a narrative of his life and death: whereunto is added two alphabeticall tables (London: Printed by A.M., T.W. and S.G. for Joshua Kirton, 1655). Second volume.

Notes: Inscribed on front flyleaf: “Tho: Shepards Booke / 1659: May. 19 / prot. 40s”; below same: “Warham Williams his Book 1738”; in pencil further down on page: “From J.B. Thayer / Feb. 1886”; inscribed on title page: “Warham Williams 1738 25/”. Contains a very clear “TS” mark on the top edge (pictured below).

3. Christopher Airay, Fasciculus praeceptorvm logicorum: In gratiam juventutis Academicae compositus & typis donatus (Oxoniae: Excudebat H.H. Impensis Jos. Godw., 1660).

Notes: Inscribed on front pastedown: “Presented to the Mass Hist’l Soc’y by Horatio G. Somerby”; inscribed on title page: “Thomas Shepardus [ejus?] liber prst[?] / 18 . 8’o 1674”; inscribed on verso of title page: “Edward Michesson [?] / His Book / 69”; inscribed on page *3, upside down at foot: “John green His Book / 1670”. Contains several glosses in text. Smudged/unclear “TS” mark on top edge.

4. John Cotton, Some treasure fetched out of rubbish: or, Three short but seasonable treatises (found in an heap of scattered papers) which providence hath reserved for their service who desire to be instructed, from the Word of God, concerning the imposition and use of significant ceremonies in the worship of God (London: [n.p.], 1660).

Notes: Inscribed sideways on title page: “Thomas Shepards booke 1660 5s [?]”; additional notes on title page; scattered shorthand and plaintext glosses through p. 15. No “TS” mark on top edge (too thin).

5. John Cotton, Of the holinesse of church-members (London: Printed by F.N. for Hanna Allen, and are to be sold at the Crown in Popes-head Alley, 1650).

Notes: Title inscribed on front flyleaf in an early hand; below this, “Wm Jenks A’o 1814.”; inscribed on second front flyleaf, long paragraph in shorthand with short plaintext gloss; inscribed on title page: “Thomas Shepard’s Book”; further note on verso of title page; inscribed on last leaf (blank): “Thomas Shepard’s Book 1660”; below this, notes referring back to pp. 42, 90. No “TS” mark on top edge (too thin).

6. [Synopsis purioris theolgiæ: disputationibus quinquaginta duabus comprehensa, ac conscripta per Iohannem Polyandrum, Andream Rivetum, Antonium Walæum, Antonium Thysium (Lvgduni Batavorvm: Ex officina^ Elzeviriana, 1632).]

Notes: Missing title page. On front pastedown: MHS bookplate noting gift of “Horatio G. Somerby / Nov. 1 1843”; inscribed on first blank: “Thomae Shepardi liber / 21. 3’o 1677”; inscribed below: “Edwardi Parsoni / Liber ex dono superscripti quondam possesoris / 1677” Lightly next to this, “Pret 3s-6d.”; inscribed below this: “Sam’th Parson / 1714”; various pen tests (mostly ggggg) around page. Later notes (librarian’s) on verso of ffep given title information (suggesting this is the 1652 edition, with later penciled note suggesting 1625). Insribed on last full leaf: additional note about Somerby gift to MHS, 1843, and some partially torn away earlier notes on the verso. No “TS” mark on top edge.

Beyond these books at MHS, we’ve also been able to confirm a few other Shepard titles at other libraries, including six that ended up in the Mather collection now at the American Antiquarian Society (I think before we’re done we’ll discover that they have a few more Shepard books, too); one at the John Carter Brown Library; and one at the Morgan Library. Those at the AAS all have the “TS” mark on the top edge (look for a blog post from them on this topic too), and our former MHS colleague Kim Nusco who’s now at the JCB reports that their book was rebound and gilded, probably destroying any edge-mark that used to be there (there’s a glimmer of hope that a trace of the mark might remain).

These discoveries seem to indicate that at least some of the Shepard books probably left the family and did not travel the same path as the Princeton books did, although we’ve yet to determine exactly how they made their way down through the centuries. That remains to be explored, but the names gathered from our copies (i.e. Thomas Prince, Warham Williams, William Jenks, Edward Parson) offer some interesting leads and points of exploration, some of which will be explored in future posts. In the meantime, if you know of any additional Shepard books, please let us know!

By Jeremy Dibbell

Biblio-sleuthing is one of my very favorite things to do, so it was fun to be able to spend some time last Thursday working on a really interesting project in collaboration with Stephen Ferguson, Curator of Rare Books at Princeton University; Diann Benti, Assistant Reference Librarian at the American Antiquarian Society; and staff at the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS).

The project got underway when, as Stephen Ferguson noted in a blog post, they found at Princeton more than twenty books from the library of the Thomas Shepards. That’s three generations of early (and famed) New England ministers, each named Thomas Shepard. Or as we’ve taken to calling them, TS1 (1605-1649); TS2 (1635-1677); and TS3 (1658-1685). Most of the Shepard books, Ferguson found, were each “branded” or stamped on the top edge with a “TS” monogram (quite an uncommon practice in early New England, as far as we’ve been able to discover so far). In a follow-up post, Ferguson notes some of the most interesting finds.

Steve called me to see if I could find out a little about the wills and probate inventories of the Shepards, to see if there might be a list of the libraries included there, so off I went to NEHGS and looked through their microfilm copies of the seventeenth-century Middlesex County probate records. Frustratingly, the Shepard probate documents are vague (as so many are) about the contents of the library. TS1’s will leaves to his son Thomas “all my Bookes, manuscripts & paper which last named, viz: bookes, manuscripts & papers, although be propriety of my sonne Thomas yet they shall bee for the use of my wife and my other children.” The inventory lists, as the final item “about two hundred and sixty printed bookes” valued at £100, reiterating that they are to go to TS2.

TS2’s 1677 will leaves to “my son Thomas my whole library, both printed books &  writings, which though the property of my son, shall be also, occasionally, for the use of my wife, & daughters, as they may need, and desire the perusal thereof.” The inventory lists “his Library”, again valued at £100.

TS3, who died in his mid-twenties, left no known will or inventory. His widow Mary (nee Anderson) later married Rev. Samuel Hayman. Hayman died in 1712; his will doesn’t mention a library, and there is no inventory. Mary died in 1717; her will also doesn’t mention a library. Thomas and Mary had one surviving child, a daughter Hannah (or Anne) who married Rev. Henry Smith of New York. Steve has some ideas about how the books now at Princeton made their way there, which I’m sure he’ll share in good time, and he’s also found some good evidence to prove a statement Cotton Mather made about TS3 in his Magnalia Christi Americana (Volume II, p. 124 of the 1820 edition): “… his piety was accompanied with proportionable industry, wherein he devoured books even to a degree of learned gluttony; insomuch, that if he might have changed his name, it must have been Bibliander. … he had hardly left a book of consequence … in his library (shall I now call it, or his laboratory) which he had not so perused as to leave with it an inserted paper, a brief idea of the whole book, with memorandums of more notable passages occurring in it, written in his own diligent and so enriching hand.”

When I got back to MHS from NEHGS, I decided to take a peek through our “manuscript catalog,” which sometimes lists annotations or signatures found in books. Jackpot! I quickly discovered a few Shepard titles in our collections here at MHS … and I look forward to sharing those with you tomorrow. Did those here also have the “TS” mark on the top edge? Where’d they come from? Stay tuned! And what other institutions have Shepard books today?

By Jeremy Dibbell

To mark the 100th Object of the Month, we’ve decided to go back to our very deepest roots, highlighting one of the first published documents produced by the MHS (and probably my personal favorite of all the things under the roof). It’s the “Circular Letter, of the Historical Society“, in which Jeremy Belknap and the other founders lay out their goals for the organization: “to collect, preserve, and communicate, materials for a complete history of this country.”

Read more about the Circular Letter, Belknap, and the founding of the MHS in Library Assistant Rakashi Chand’s Object of the Month essay. You can also find high-quality scans and a transcription of the Letter there.

You can browse all 100 Objects by clicking here.

By Jeremy Dibbell

Part of our new website design (well not so new anymore, I can’t believe it debuted in September!) is a rotating “Spotlight” section, where we highlight one of our various digital collections. Currently we’re focusing on Phillis Wheatley: click here to see digital images of manuscript poetry by Wheatley, letters by and about the poet, and information on a writing desk in the Society’s collections believed to have been used by Wheatley.

By Jeremy Dibbell

Our December Object of the Month is one of the MHS’ recent acquisitions: a “dimity pocket” once owned and used by Abigail Adams. It came to the Society as a gift from antique purse collectors Paula Novell Higgins of Georgia and Lori Rose Blaser of California, who purchased it from an estate in Adams, NY. The pocket was previously in the possession of Abigail’s granddaughter Elizabeth “Lizzie” Coombs Adams, possibly passed to her directly from Abigail under the terms of her will, in which she left “all my Cloathing–body Linnen &–not already heirred shall be equally divided between my five Grand daughters and Louisa Catherine Smith.”

A note by Lizzie Adams attesting to the original ownership of the pocket accompanies the piece.

To read more about dimity pockets in general and this one in particular, and for further reading suggestions, see Adams Papers Assistant Editor Sarah Sikes’ Object of the Month essay.

By Jeremy Dibbell

Our November Object of the Month is up: it’s an October 1918 photograph of a group of American prisoners of war taken at the German prison camp Landshut. Atlantic Monthly correspondent (and fighter pilot) James Norman Hall, one of those prisoners, sent the photo along with a note to Atlantic editor Ellery Sedgwick.

See the photograph, and read background on Hall, Segwick and others here. And remember to check out our current exhibition: “Atlantic Harvest: Ellery Sedgwick and The Atlantic Monthly, 1909-1938.”

By Jeremy Dibbell

Most of us probably don’t tend to think of 5 November as a holiday, but in colonial Boston it was one of the most festive days of the year. In Britain the holiday was (and still is) known as Guy Fawkes Day; here in New England it was called Pope’s Day, or Pope Night. There is an excellent introduction to the holiday at 5th of November in Boston, a site mounted by our sister institution the Bostonian Society.

There are many items in our collections relating to Pope’s Day, but I wanted to highlight one of them today: the James Freeman notebook. Rev. James Freeman (1759-1835), was one of the founders of the Historical Society, and his little historical notebook (given to the Society in 1791) “contains notes on population, prices, epidemics, unusual weather, and earthquakes in Massachusetts, particularly the earthquake of 1755; also, descriptions of Guy Fawkes Day pageants and riots in Boston, and of the public reaction in Boston to the Stamp Act of 1765.” These aren’t personal recollections by Freeman, but rather contemporary newspaper accounts that he copied later.

On the first page of the notebook, under the heading “1745,” Freeman writes: Nov’r 5. Two Popes were made & carried thro the streets in the evening 1 from the N. & ye other from ye S. attended by a vast number of negroes & white servants w/ clubs &c., who were very abusive to ye inhab. insulting persons and breaking windows &c of such as did not give them money to their satisfaction, & even of those who had given them liberally, & ye 2 Popes meeting in Cornhill their followers fell upon one another w/ ye utmost rage & fury. Several were wounded & bruised & some left for dead, & rendered incapable of business for a long time. Fleets Evening Post.” This account appeared almost verbatim in the Boston Evening-Post issue dated 11 November 1745, which also included a letter to the printer “written by a Gentleman of great Character.” The gentleman urged Mr. Fleet not to suffer the riot “to pass off without a public Rebuke … What a Scandal and Infamy to a Protestant Mob, be it of the rudest and lowest Sailor; out of Boston, or even of the very Negroes of the Town, to fall upon one another with Clubs and Cutlasses, in a Rage and Fury which only Hell could inspire, or Devils broke loose from their Chains there, could well represent!”

For 5 November 1764, Freeman writes: “It was formerly a custom on these anniversaries for ye lower class of people to celebrate the evening in a manner peculiar to themselves, by having carried images erected on stages, representing the Pope, his attendant, &c. and these were generally carried thro’ the streets by negroes & other servants, that ye minds of ye vulgar might be impressed w/ a sense of their deliverance from popery, & money was generally given to them, to regale themselves in the evening, when they burnt the images. But of late those who are concerned in this pageantry make a party affair of it, & instead of spending the evening agreeably, the champions of both ends of the town prepare to engage each other in battles under the denomination of S. end & N. end. In ye afternoon the magistrates & other officers of the town went to the respective places of their rendezvous, & demolished their stages, to prevent any disorders, which they did without opposition. Notw/standing which as soon as it was dark, they collected again, & mended their stages, which being done they prepared for a battle, & about 8 o’clock the two parties met near the mill bridge where they fought with clubs, staves, brick bats, &c for about half an hour, when those of ye S. end gained the victory, carrying off not only their own, but their antagonist’s stages &c which they burnt on Boston neck. In the fray many were much bruised & wounded in their heads & arms, some dangerously. It should be noted that these parties do not much subsist at any other time.” This account appeared in the Boston Evening-Post of 12 November 1764.

The following year, in the wake of the Stamp Act riots, Freeman’s entry indicate that things turned out a little differently: “It has long been the custom in Boston on ye 5th of Nov’r for Nos. of persons to exhibit on stages some pageantry denoting their abhorrence of popery & the horrid plot which was to have been executed on that day in the year 1605. These shows have of late years, been continued in the even’g, & we have often seen the bad effects attending them at such a time; the servants & negroes would disguise themselves & being armed with clubs would engage each other with great violence whereby many came off badly wounded. In short, they carried it to such lengths that two parties were created in ye town under the appellation of N. end & S. end. But the disorders which had been committed from time to time induced several gentlemen to try a reconciliation between the 2 parties; accordingly the chiefs met on the 1st of this inst., & conducted the affair in a very orderly manner. In ye even’g the commander of ye N. & after making general overtures they reciprocally engaged in an Union, & the former distinctions to subside, at the same time the chiefs with their assistants engaged their honour no mischief should arise by their means, & that they would prevent any disorders on ye 5th. When the day arrived about noon the pageantry representing the Pope, the Devil, & several other effigies signifying tyranny, oppression, slavery, &c. were brought on stages from the N. & S. & met in Kings Str. where the union was established in a very ceremonial manner, & having given three huzzas, they interchanged ground, the S. marched to ye N. & the N. to the S. parading thro’ ye streets until they again met near ye Court House. The whole then proceeded to Liberty tree, under the shadow of which they refreshed themselves for a while, & then returned to ye Northward agreeably to their plan. They reached Cop’s hill before 6 o’clock, where they halted, & having enkindled a fire, the whole pageantry was committed to the flames & consumed.” This account appeared in the Boston Evening-Post of 11 November 1765.

For more information on Pope’s Day, I recommend 5th of November in Boston, plus the excellent Pope Night series at Boston1775. Brendan McConville’s excellent book The King’s Three Faces (University of North Carolina Press, 2006) contains much background and context. On James Freeman, see F.W.P. Greenwood’s memoir of him, published in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3d. Series Volume V (1836), pp. 255-271.

By Jeremy Dibbell

One of the MHS digital collections currently being highlighted on our homepage is Photographs of Native Americans, a compilation of portraits and other photos collected by four Bostonians during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “Charles W. Jenks and Francis Parkman collected carte de visite and tintype portraits of American Indians during the 1860s as historical records of tribal groups and their role in contemporary American politics. After a visit to southern California, Boston collector Kingsmill Marrs brought home platinotypes of southwestern Indians taken by Adam Clark Vroman in the late 1890s. An anonymous donor was inspired to collect Joseph Kossuth Dixon’s photogravures from the Wanamaker Indian expeditions of the early 1900s after hearing Dixon lecture in 1912.”

The fellow at left is a Chippewa man, photographed in Washington, D.C. in 1862 by Charles D. Fredericks & Co. The carte de visite is from the Charles W. Jenks collection.

You can find background text and links to many more photographs here.