Posts by Kathy Bell

Mary Devlin Booth

Mdbooth_portrait One great advantage of working in a museum library is the likelihood of being surrounded by interesting artifacts or works of art. One of our favorites, a haunting painting of a young woman, watches over us in our staff work area.

Mary Devlin Booth, 1883, (shown at left) was painted by an important 19th-century artist, Eastman Johnson (1824-1906).  Johnson was born in Maine, worked in Boston as a lithographer early in his career, but eventually turned to illustrations, genre painting and later, portraits.  Many of his best known works, A Ride for Liberty and Negro Life at the South were painted around the time of the Civil War.

The subject of the portrait is the first wife of Edwin Booth, actor, and sister-in-law of the more infamous Booth brother, Abraham Lincoln assassin, John Wilkes Booth.  Mary Devlin Booth (1840-1863) was an actress in her own right, and in The Letters and Notebooks of Mary Devlin Booth (PN 2287 .B5 A4 1987) she details her passion for her own career as well as her early relationship, courtship and marriage to Booth.  The letters and notebooks provide an interesting glimpse of theater life in the 1850’s and 60’s, with comments on Edwin Booth’s roles and reviews and thus make it all the more tragic that she died so young.  One can only imagine the value of this kind of commentary after her brother-in-law’s actions in 1865.

This oil portrait, painted from a photograph 20 years after her death, is one of several Booth family portraits done in the early 1880's by Johnson.  He painted Edwin's father from a miniature, a portrait of Edwina, Mary and Edwin's only child born in 1861, and Edwin.  Our records don't indicate whether the portrait of Mary was a paid commission or not, but it is signed 'E.J. Xmas 1883' so there is the possibility it was a present from the artist.  It is clear from several of the sources noted below, and Edwina Booth Grossman's Edwin Booth; Recollections by his Daughter, Edwina Booth Grossman, and Letters to Her and His Friends, (New York: Century, 1894) that the artist and actor were good friends.  And when Edwin Booth died, according to this article in the New York Times, Johnson was a pallbearer at the funeral.

Img_0409 Mary Devlin Booth died in Boston and is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA.  Edwin Booth, who died in 1893, is buried beside her and their daughter and her family share the plot. (A recent photograph I took of their tombstones is shown at left.)

Quite a bit of documentation exists for the entire Booth family.  McFarline Library at the University of Tulsa, the New York Public Library and the University of Rochester all hold materials in their special collections.  Many of Eastman Johnson's letters are available online at the Smithsonian.  We also hold titles about the Booth family and artist Eastman Johnson.  A few are listed below; additional titles may be found in our online catalog.

Carbone, Teresa A. Eastman Johnson: Painting America.  N.Y.: Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1999.  Call number:  ND 237 .J7 A4 1999

Kimmel, Stanley.  The Mad Booths of Maryland.  Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1940.  Call number:  PN 2287 .B49 K5 1940

Oggel, L. Terry, ed.  The Letters and Notebooks of Mary Devlin Booth.  N.Y.: Greenwood Press, 1987.  Call number:  PN 2287 .B5 A4 1987

Ruggles, Eleanor.  Prince of Players: Edwin Booth.  N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 1953.  Call number:  PN 2287 .B5 R9 1953

Stainton, Leslie. "Players: Edwin Booth and the 19th Century American Stage" Common-Place, April 2008.

Winter, William.  Life and Art of Edwin Booth.  N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., 1894.  Call number:  PN 2287 .B5 W5 1894

Mary Devlin Booth portrait above is included courtesy of the National Heritage Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Manney, 79.78.2

Portrait photograph by David Bohl.

 


Our Corner of the World

Nhm_google_earthAs you can see from this Google Earth image showing our Museum in Lexington, MA, we are surrounded by quite a bit of green and open space.  This is partly because our sponsoring organization, who purchased 22 acres of land in 1968, wanted room enough for a headquarters for the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction (NMJ) and a Museum and Library, and the fact that the Town of Lexington has had a longstanding commitment to conservation.  It was determined early on that the existing home and carriage house on the property could be used for administrative offices so the NMJ went about planning for a national museum on the campus. The Town worked with the architects to scale the design and roof lines in keeping with the existing residential neighborhood.  The result was an A.I.A. award-winning building -- and the retention of lots of trees and open space.

One of the wonderful aspects about our campus, and something not many places can claim, is that if you look at maps of our corner of the world for the past 230 years or so, you can see a lot of the original openness remains.

Lex_map_1775_3We are located at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Marrett Road.  In 1775, when General Gage's Regulars passed on what is now Massachusetts Avenue (the road to the far right on the Google map above), it was known as the County Road or, to old timers as the Great Road (to Cambridge or to Concord depending which way you were traveling).  Marrett Road was the Road to Bridge Farm.  In this close-up recreation of Lexington in 1775 produced for the April 19th Bicentennial in 1975, you can see no buildings stand on what is now our corner property.  There were several houses and farms in the general vicinity and one of the closest was the Munroe Tavern, which remains today about a half a mile from us up Massachusetts Avenue.

A hundred and one years later Lexington was more settled.  The portion of an 1876 map below shows buildings belonging to both 'Nunn' and 'Tower' on our current property.  According to Lexington historian Charles Hudson, "William Augustus Tower (1824-1904) was born in Petersham the eldest of 11 children.  In 1850 he moved to Boston and entered the flour and grain business in Haymarket Square, as a member of the firm of Rice, Tower & Co."  He first bought property in Lexington in 1855, and went on to become a successful merchant and banker.  Thomas Sileo, in Historic Guide to Open Space in Lexington provides more details: Tower purchased a house and land in Lexington from Jacob J. Nichols, on the hill, and in 1873 he had a Victorian mansion built.  By 1886 the Tower estate included a barn and stable, 2 cottages, a tea house with a flower garden and greenhouse, a windmill, 8 horses, 2 cows, and 8 carriages.  Initially the Tower’s family spent summers in Lexington and winters on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston but later he lived in Lexington year around.  By 1904 when he died, Tower owned 127 acres. In 1906, Tower’s son Richard, also a banker, erected a red brick house on the knoll off Marrett Road.  It is Richard Tower's renovated home that is now the Scottish Rite's NMJ headquarters. William Tower’s original Victorian House which was closer to Pelham Road, no longer exists.  Tower's daughter, Ellen, continued to live in Lexington and it was she who donated Tower Park (across Mass. Avenue from the Museum) to the Town in 1928 in honor of her father.  Though accounts of Tower and how active he was in Lexington differ in various histories about Lexington, notably he was Chief Marshall at the Lexington Centennial on April 19, 1875.

Lex_map_1775_2The Chas. Nunn (1828-1882) house (noted on map at left) is closer to where our Museum sits today.  Edwin B. Worthen, in Tracing the Past in Lexington, Massachusetts, pays special attention to East Lexington, where he grew up. In the chapter, 'The East Village as I remember it', he reminisces: "Opposite our house on the upper corner of the present Marrett Road lived the Nunns in the big house now owned by Ralph Smith.  Much earlier there had been a small house on the property which probably dated from the early 1800s.  Mr. Nunn  came to Lexington before the Civil War married Susan Pierce and built the present residence.... I do not remember Mr. Nunn as he died in 1882 but he had taken his part in town affairs."  Town records for 1860 indicate Nunn had a much smaller estate than the adjoining Tower's.  He owned 1 house, 1 barn, 1.5 acres of land and paid $47.80 for real estate tax that year.  The Nunn house no longer exists today as it was destroyed by fire on November 10, 1972.

The horses and windmill are gone, and admittedly the footprint of both the Museum and the headquarters of the Scottish Rite NMJ are larger than the original Nunn and Tower properties, and, of course, we've added a parking lot to accommodate visitors.  However, if you take another look at the Google Earth image above or come to visit us in person, it's definitely possible to imagine what this area looked like in the past.

Many useful resources exist that make any research about Lexington's past easy to find.  Our Library has extensive resources about Lexington, its early residents and Revolutionary War history.  Our Archives hold materials related to the development of the property (including blueprints and correspondence).  Please contact the Library & Archives for more information and assistance.

The sections of the 1775 and 1876 maps used above are both courtesy of Cary Memorial Library in Lexington and appear here with their permission.  Cary Library and the Lexington Historical Society have excellent local collections and helpful staff members.  Additional records are available through the Town Clerk's office at Lexington Town Hall and some old records are available through the state.  Full information for the titles used above from our own collection include:

Hudson, Charles.  History of the Town of Lexington.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1913.
Call number:  F74 .L67 H91 1913 v.1 and 2

Sileo, Thomas P.  Historical Guide to Open Space in Lexington.  Lexington : Thomas P. Sileo, 1995. 
Call number:  F 74 .L67 S5 1995

Worthen, Edwin B.  Tracing the Past in Lexington, Massachusetts.  New York: Vantage Press, 1998.
Call number:  F 74 .L67 W67 1998. 
This (and other Worthen books) contain many useful maps.  Cary Memorial Library holds the entire Worthen Map collection which shows the progression of Lexington beginning in 1636 in a series of maps drawn by Mr. Worthen in 1924.


Boone: A Biography

Brown University historian Gordon Wood, who spoke at a Lowell Lecture on Benjamin Franklin at our Museum recently, observed he thought Carl Van Doren's classic biography on Franklin is the one that has best stood the test of time.  I wonder if the same might eventually be said about Robert Morgan's Boone: a Biography, published last year.  Morgan admits he entered an already crowded field of books about Daniel Boone when he began his first biography, and reviews many of the earlier efforts in his introduction.  Yet he maintains he was compelled to write about his boyhood hero because, through his research, he "found Boone a much more complex person than I had noticed before."

Morgan draws heavily on the Draper Manuscripts at the University of Wisconsin, a rich resource gathered by Lyman Copeland Draper (1815-1891) who's life's work was assembling information about the 18th century American frontier.  Among those Draper interviewed were Boone's son Nathan and his wife.  Though Draper planned to write biographies of Daniel Boone and other pioneers, he never actually did.  Many others have used his material, however, including, most notably, Boone biographers Ted Franklin Belue, Neal O. Hammon and Michael A. Lofaro.  One of the areas Robert Morgan ventures into that hasn't been covered before is Boone's ties to Freemasonry.  Although I thought his documentation somewhat scarce, he does provide some circumstantial evidence that Boone and other members of his family were Freemasons.

Boone Most acknowledge John Filson (ca. 1747-1788) as the person who first brought wide attention to Daniel Boone.  He published The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucky in 1784 and included a chapter "The adventures of Col. Daniel Boon" written as an autobiography.  Interestingly, Gilbert Imlay (1754-1828), who swindeled some land from Boone, also lifted the chapter and placed it in his own work: A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America, (RARE  F 352 .I33 1797) -- the first page of our library's copy of the 'borrowed' chapter appears at left.  While Filson's work introduced Boone to a larger American audience at the time, Imlay, through his association with Mary Wollstonecraft, and her ties to many of England's literary figures, broadened his fame to Europe.

If your image of Daniel Boone is Fess Parker or if it in anyway includes a coonskin cap, this very readable biography will introduce a much more interesting, multi-dimensional man.  He worked closely and fairly with Native Americans, was a skilled legislator yet saw himself as a simple woodsman with deep ties to family and community.  And, as America moved west, he lived in some very interesting times.

Some of the many resources available on Daniel Boone in our collection include: 

Bakeless, John.  Master of the Wilderness: Daniel Boone.  N.Y.: Morrow, 1939.
Call number:  F 454 .B724 1939

Imlay, Gilbert.  A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America.  3rd ed.  London: Printed for J. Debrett, 1797.
Call number:  RARE  F 352 .I33 1797.

Morgan, Robert.  Boone: A Biography.  Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007.
Call number:  F 454 .B66 M67 2007

Additional resources that may be of interest:

Filson, John.  The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucky.  Wilmington, Delaware : Printed by J. Adams, 1784.  An online version available here.

The Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky provides information and resources about the history and culture of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley.

Also, The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820 at the Library of Congress contains  "15,000 pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century."


J.J.J. Gourgas and his books

Gourgas_32i_3 J.J.J. Gourgas' signature, initials (shown at left), bookplate, notes and even reviews appear in the dozens of books from his collection held in our library.  His handwriting is distinctive and noteworthy.

John James Joseph Gourgas (1777-1865) was an important figure in Scottish Rite Freemasonry.  He was the first Secretary General and served as third Sovereign Grand Commander of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction from 1832 to 1851.  In fact it's difficult to overstate his contributions to Scottish Rite Freemasonry.  At the 125th anniversary of the founding of the Supreme Council, August 5, 1938, Sovereign Grand Commander Melvin M. Johnson stated  “…the outstanding personality of the founders was John James Joseph Gourgas.  It was he who kept the Scottish Rite alive during the years when – but for him – it would have faded out.  It was Gourgas, assisted by [Giles Fonda] Yates, who re-vivified the Rite after the great anti-Masonic agitation, and then started our Supreme Council on its career to become the strong, virile and successful organization which it now is.”

Gourgas_plate2_2 According to biographer J. Hugo Tatsch, Gourgas was born in Switzerland to a family of French Huguenots and moved with several family members to America in 1803.  He stayed briefly with them in Boston then moved to New York City where he started as an accountant and later prospered as a merchant.  He first became a Mason in 1806 with initiation into Lodge L'Union Francaise but made rapid progress so that seven years later he was elevated to the 33rd degree.  Gourgas remained in New York City for most of his life but often summered at the 'Gourgas Place' in Weston, MA.  He died in New York on February 14, 1865 and is buried in the family plot in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The colored bookplate (shown at left) is one of three known Gourgas family plates.  According to Tatsch, his plate "is identical to the oldest (that of his grandfather Jean Louis Gourgas) except for the deletion of “Jean Louis” and the substitution of the [his] initials."

J.J.J. Gourgas seems to have continued the family tradition of acquiring and maintaining a fine library where he could place his bookplate as well.  Peter Ross, in A Standard History of Freemasonry in the State of New York (available online here) notes "the magnificent library which he gathered around him was evidence of his studious habits and his faculty for study and research.  His written and printed productions show him to have been a man of wide reading, a thinker, and a scholar and one who was full of the purest aspirations for the Masonic banner whether it covered Lodge, Chapter or Consistory.”  Tatsch maintains "He was continually buying books in Paris; others were procured from London and in America.  He was deeply interested in the history of the Crusades and the Knights Templar, and was doubtless a believer in the descent of Freemasonry from the chivalric orders.”

Gourgas_29_3 His signature appears (to the left) on the title page of Toland's History of the Druids but his notes about the book cover the endpapers and appear throughout in margins.  His review of the preface?  "A modest and sensible preface with a large body of notes which display very considerable ingenuity and learning."

Gourgas_36_3 One book in our current collection (shown at right) found it's way here by way of a purchase.  Tatsch explains, “Early in Dec., 1937, a copy of M. Zimmerman’s Solitude Considered with respect to its Influence on the Mind and the Heart, bearing the Gourgas bookplate was called to our attention by a Boston bookseller and promptly acquired.  It settled what had been a perplexing question, for on the title page is the inscription, “J.J.J. Gourgas, To Louise Marie Gourgas, my dear daughter.”  There had been some confusion about the number of children Gourgas had and the identity of Louise Marie, buried in the Gourgas plot with her husband, who also was her cousin.

The Northern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite awards the Gourgas Medal, the highest honor it confers, for "Notably distinguished service in the cause of freemasonry, humanity or country."

Many resources exist on J.J.J Gourgas and still others about his extended family.  A few used here include:

Ripley, Emma.  Weston, a Puritan Town.  Weston: The Benevolent-Alliance of the First Parish, 1961.  Call number:  F 74 .W74 R5 1961

Ross, Peter.  A Standard History of Freemasonry in the State of New York.  New York: Lewis Pub. Co., 1899.  Call number:  17.0775 .R825 1899

Tatsch, J. Hugo.  John James Joseph Gourgas, 1777-1865: Conservator of Scottish Rite Freemasonry.  Boston: Supreme Council, 1938.  Call number: 16.5 .G715 T219 1938

Also, the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives hold the Gourgas documents and correspondence [SC 083, 084].  Please contact our Archivist for more information.

The books where the images shown above are found include:

Initials:  Robison, John.  Proofs of a conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe, carried on it the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.  N.Y. : George Forman, 1798. Call number: RARE 19 .R666 1798

Signature:  Toland, John. A new edition of Toland's history of the Druids: with an abstract of his life and writings and a copious appendix, containing notes, critical, philological, and explanatory.  Montrose: Printed by J. Watt for P. Hill, 1814.  Call number: RARE BL910 .T7 1814

Dedication to daughter:  Zimmerman, J.  Solitude considered with respect to its influence upon the mind and the heart. Boston : Printed for Joseph Bumstead, 1804. Call number: RARE BJ 1499 .S6 Z53 1804


Twelve Mighty Orphans

Looking for an engaging yet quick read this summer?  How about something that combines sports and Freemasonry?

Sportswriter Jim Dent covered the Dallas Cowboys for 11 years. While in Texas he never heard of the Masonic Home, in fact he first learned about them half-listening to a story about an old football player on ESPN.  Something about it got his attention though and the next day he headed for Fort Worth and began researching the recently closed Masonic Home, Hardy Brown, coach Rusty Russell and and an entire team of underdogs that played in some of the biggest games in Texas high school history.

Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Might Mites Who Ruled Texas Football tells the story.  Dent details how this small band of orphans in the middle of the Depression, a bunch of underweight, under-equipped kids went on to beat larger, better funded, and much better-equipped schools during the 1930's and 1940's.  It's a great, true story.

Masonic_homeAdditional background information about the Masonic Home and School of Texas may be found in our copy of Robert L. Dillard's 1973 history of the orphanage (image at left is from the cover).  Dillard, a former President of the Board of Directors there, provides a detailed history of the institution that opened its doors in 1900.  While there is only brief mention of sports of any kind and a short note in the chronology for 1942 that "H.N. "Rusty" Russell, long-time Principal and coach, left the Home", it provides some background for Dent's more focused story.

Full information for both books follows:

Dent, Jim.  Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007.
Call number: 42 .D46 2007

Dillard, Robert L.  History of Masonic Home & School of Texas.  Fort Worth: Masonic Home and School, 1973.
Call number: 42 .D578 1973

And, as suggested by the comment below, see also an interesting look at the Masonic Home and the integral part athletics played in it, in

Vaughn, William Preston, "Masonic Home and School of Texas, 1920-1940: The Glory Days" in A Daily Advancement in Masonic Knowledge: The Collected Blue Friar Lectures.  Bloomington, IL: The Masonic Book Club, 2003.  Call number:  61 .D133 2003


Bancroft's History of the United States

File0001In a recent article in the New Yorker, historian Jill Lepore provides some perspective on historical writing. She begins by asking "What makes a book a history?" and notes that "in the 18th-century novelists called their books 'histories'"....

In spite of some recent, notorious examples to the contrary, it seems most people today have a pretty clear idea of what constitutes a novel versus a history book.  But after reading about one of Lepore's more blatant examples of a 19th-century work reconsidered now, I went looking in the stacks for George Bancroft's History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent [RARE E 178 .B2276 1874-75].  We own several editions, but our library's copy (volume 1 spine shown at left) of the 10-volume, 12th edition is a particularly handsome set:  tan 1/2 calf, backs gilt, with red and green leather labels and marbled edges.  It's pleasure to pick up and leaf through.  The table of contents is lengthy and detailed.  The font is large and the pages uncrowded.  What could possibly have caused Charles McLean Andrews of Yale to describe Bancroft's work, a generation later, as "nothing less than a crime against historical truth"?

As Lepore documents, historians and historical writing change.  Worcester-born and Harvard educated George Bancroft  (1800-1899) is often described as an educator, historian and statesman.  Some have hailed him the 'Father of American History' yet today his classic work is largely unknown.  George Athan Billias, in a Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, (Vol. 111, Part 2, 2001) article "George Bancroft: Master Historian" discusses Bancroft's neglect but reveals not everyone shared Andrews' opinion.  "Daniel Boorstin wrote that to learn what the period 'adds up to,' one must turn to Bancroft."  And, Edmund Morgan (writing in Birth of the Republic, 1763-1789) "claimed that Bancroft knew 'the sources better than any one has since'."  Billias, a professor emeritus at Clark University, presents a balanced view of Bancroft and underscores the need for him to be judged in context.

But is there a place for Bancroft to be taught in middle, high or college history courses today?  Surely there are any number of ways for creative teachers to re-introduce the History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent to students.  Comparing the sections on Bancroft's hero George Washington, or his excrutiating detail on the start of the American Revolution to more recent publications could provide a start.  Reading Bancroft as an example of 19th century nationalism also offers lots of intriguing possibilities. Fortunately, many volumes of his History are available online so access is easy.  But if you can get hold of one of his beautifully bound earlier editions, and can provide students a chance to appreciate the workmanship of the volumes themselves, so much the better.

George Bancroft's Papers may be found at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University Library.


'An Old Bible'

Oldbible_4What immediately gets your attention when opening the VGW Library & Archives copy of The Genealogies Recorded in the Sacred Scriptures According to Every Family and Tribe... by John Speed [Rare BS 569 .A4 1625], is the number of well known, early New England family names recorded on the endpapers and family information recorded within. This rare 1625 edition was donated to our library by the Wadsworth Family in 1982 but the documentation indicates connections to earlier Wadsworth, and also Glenson, Salmon, Stansill, Stoddard, Tappan, Pierce, and Cowles families. 

The earliest notes indicate John Glenson and Christopher and Thomas Wadsworth landed in Boston on September 16, 1632 on the ‘Lion’.  Wadsworth and Glenson family births are recorded for 1629 and 1633.  Thomas Stansill family birth records for 1722 and 1724 are included.  It is noted that Lewis Tappan Stoddard, born in 1807 in Northampton, MA presented the Bible to his uncle, John Pierce (1773-1849) of Brookline, MA, on April 11, 1833, and that his son, John Tappan Pierce, of Genesco, IL, sold it to S.W. Cowles in July, 1882.  An S.W. Cowles Bookplate lists his address at 891 Main St. Hartford, Conn. and handwritten are the dates 1882-1887.  It  is believed that the Bible passed again into the Wadsworth family from Cowles. An article entitled ‘An Old Bible’ which appeared in the Nov. 1, 1883 Hartford Courant, details much of the Bible’s provenance, and is affixed to the endpaper.

John_pierce_bookplateJohn Pierce’s bookplate appears as well.  Pierce was minister of the First Parish Church in Brookline, Massachusetts from 1797 to 1849 and looms large in much of Brookline’s early history.  According to the History of the Town of Brookline by John Gould Curtis, Pierce played an integral part in many of the civic and educational activities of the Town, and delivered some important speeches.  He was called upon to speak at Brookline’s memorial service for George Washington on February 22, 1800 and delivered a discourse at the 1805 Centennial for the Town.  Intensely interested in all things having to do with Brookline’s progress, it was once noted by another minister, "As I understand it, Dr. Pierce is Brookline, and Brookline is Dr. Pierce." 

Pierce married Lucy Tappan of Northampton, MA in 1802.  Her brothers, Arthur (1786-1865) and Lewis Tappan (1788-1873) were noted philanthropists and abolitionists and for a time Lewis lived in Brookline.  In fact, John Pierce officiated at the marriage of Lewis Tappan and Susan Aspinwall in the parlor of the Aspinwall home in Brookline in 1813. 

The Bible itself is of interest on several counts.  It contains engraved genealogical charts of prominent families from scripture, interesting old engravings and a map of ancient Palestine and Egypt.  According to Alister McGraph's In the Beginninng: the Story of the King James Bible and how it changed a Nation, a Language and a Culture [BS 186 .M33 2001], mapmaker and entrepreneur John Speed negotiated a special arrangement with King James I in 1610 to include these additional pages thus providing extra income for himself and the crown for each bible sold. 

Additional resources:

Dr. John Pierce's papers are held at the Massachusetts Historical Society.  See Lewis Tappan's papers at the Library of Congress; additional Tappan family material may be found at Oberlin College.  More on Lewis Tappan's anti-slavery activities may be found here and in:

Wyatt-Brown, Bertram.  Lewis Tappan and the evangelical war against slavery.  Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1969.


The Jonathan Poor Mural

El_poor_wall_overall_from_the_sid_2Gracing one wall of the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives is a mural that appears to have been created expressly for the space. Upon closer inspection, however, one sees its age and learns it began on the dining room wall of the Silas Burbank home in Mt. Vernon, Maine.

The peaceful scene, signed 'J D Poor 1830' was created by Jonathan Poor (1802-1845) of Sebago, Maine.  When Poor was 16 he began traveling with his more well-known uncle, Rufus Porter, (1792-1884).  He started as Porter's portrait painting assistant but around 1824 they switched from portraits to landscapes and found a market for painting murals in houses and taverns in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  Poor became known as one of Porter's most productive apprentices and has murals attributed to him throughout rural Maine, N.H., Groton, MA, and a fireboard at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.

The mural was discovered in 1967, deteriorating under layers of wallpaper. Thus began a series of activities to save, conserve, remove and preserve the mural. A new, specially-made paint was applied to match the fading 178 year old colors and to help prevent further peeling. A dedicated group of volunteers worked together to save this treasure.

El_poor_wall_detail_with_signatureJonathan Poor's work is thought to closely resemble his uncle's and they often worked together. In fact, as reported in a letter from a great-granddaughter, "Jonathan and Rufus visited relatives in Vienna and Mt. Vernon while they painted, as they had plenty of them to stay with as they worked."  A small detail of our mural also suggests Jonathan Poor and Rufus Porter worked together: the man with a hat in the sailboat is a Porter signature.

More about Rufus Porter (and some mention of Jonathan Poor) may be found in:  Lipman, Jean. Rufus Porter: Yankee Pioneer.  N.Y.: Clarkson N. Potter, 1968.  (ND237 .P8135 L48 1968)  The author's thorough research about Porter and his work, including a detailed list of murals, helped his rediscovery in the 1960's.  Lipman revised the work as Rufus Porter Rediscovered: Artist, Inventor, Journalist, 1792-1884 (ND237 .P8135 L56 1980) and included more information about his many other interests and inventions, including that as founder and first editor of Scientific American.  See also The Rufus Porter School of Wall Mural Painting, (A/V ND237 .P8135 R8 2000) a videotape that tours 10 New Hampshire homes with outstanding original and restored murals by Porter (and Poor).

Click here for information on where to find many Rufus Porter murals today.  And, if you're traveling in Maine this summer, the Rufus Porter Museum in Bridgton is on the Maine Folk Art Trail.

The Jonathan Poor Mural, 2007.048, was acquired through the generosity of Judy and John William McNaughton, 33°,  Dorothy A. and Albert H. Richardson,  Supreme Council, 33°, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, USA,  Trustees of the Supreme Council Benevolent Fund,  The Webber Memorial Fund and Scottish Rite Masons in the fifteen states of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.            

Photography by David Bohl.