Customs and Fashions in Old New EnglandEarle, Alice Morse
History
Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Earle, Alice Morse
New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
Connecticut folk seemed to be particularly given to this slipshod
fashion of promiscuous and unlicensed book-borrowing, if we can trust
the apparent proof given by Connecticut newspapers in their many
advertisements of lost books. In some notices it is darkly hinted that
"specifications of books long lent have been given" (to the sheriff
perhaps); and again, a meek suggestion that the owner wishes to read a
long missing volume and would be grateful for an opportunity to do so.
One ungallant soul advertised for "the she-person that borrowed Mr.
Thos. Browns Works from a gentleman she is well acquainted with."
There was not the redeeming excuse for non-return sometimes given by
like "desuming deadheads" nowadays, that the owner's name had been
forgotten, for the inscription "Perley Morse, His Book," or "Catey
Bradford, Her Book," or whatever the name might be, was quickly and
repeatedly written by each colonial owner as soon as the book was
acquired.
Frequently also the dates and places of residence appear. Even the very
dates of ownership and the quaint old names are interesting. Bathsheba
Spalding, Noca Emmons, Elam Noyes, Titherming Layton, Engrossed Bump,
Sally Box, Tilly Minching, Zerushaddi Key, Comfort Vine--these are a few
of the odd signatures I have found in old books.
Readers also had a pleasant habit of leaving a sign-manual on the last
page of a book, thus: "Timothy Pitkin perlegit A.D. 1765," "Cotton Smith
perlegit 1740." A clear-speaking lesson are such records to this
generation--a lesson of patience and diligence. How we venerate, with
what awe we regard the name of Timothy Pitkin, and know that he lived to
read through that vast folio--the first ever printed in America--the
"Complete Body of Divinity," a folio of over nine hundred
double-columned, compactly printed pages! And yet, why should not
Timothy Pitkin live through reading it when Samuel Willard lived through
writing it? Entries of dates in old Bibles frequently show that those
sainted old Christians had read entirely through that holy book ten
times in regular order.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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