Thursday, July 4, 2013

1774 Almanac with Early American Accounts and Images of Cook’s First Voyage



[Almanac.]   [Cook, James.]    [West, Benjamin.]    Bickerstaff's Boston Almanack, for the Year of our Redemption 1774...  [1773.]   Boston: Printed and sold by Mills and Hicks.   32 pp, [1] folded plate.   Ex-library with perforated ownership imprint on second leaf and small, rubber-stamped marking in the margins of several pages.  Dog-eared, edge-worn and water-stained. String tied.  Folding plate, which has been professionally conserved, is separated from balance of almanac.

This almanac is highly sought after for its folded engraving -- the upper half of the plate portrays "The Head of Otegoowgoow, Son of a New-Zealand Chief" and "The Head of a Chief of New-Zealand, both tataowed according to their Custom" while the lower shows "A Representation of a War Canoe of New-Zealand..."  These are among the first images from Captain Cook's first voyage printed in America.  Rivington's edition of Hawkesworth's  A New Voyage Around the World, in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770 and 1771..., published in New York in 1774, is considered the first American edition of Cook's first voyage (Beddie, Bibliography of Captain James Cook).  The present almanac was published in Boston in October, 1773 according to an advertisement in the October 18, 1773 issue of the Boston Post-Boy newspaper listing it as "This day published."  The almanac's images thus preceded the appearance of Rivington's work and are certainly among the very earliest (if not the earliest) American images from Cook's first voyage. 



Curiously, the New Zealand engraving exists as both a woodcut and a copperplate.  The advertisement in the Boston Post-Boy refers to the engravings as "all engraved on copper."  The ESTC record indicates that both plates are "signed by Joseph Callender [the engraver]."  The two plates are readily distinguishable by the how the signature appears: in the copperplate, "Jos. Callender, Sculp. Boston" appears at the lower right below the image; in the woodcut version -- offered with the present almanac -- Callender's "signature" consists of the letters "J C" barely distinguishable in the lower right of the image itself.  Why two versions of the plate exist is not known.  Perhaps the copperplate broke during production and a woodcut was the quickest way to complete production. Or, conversely, there may have been a delay in producing the copperplate and a woodcut version was hastily prepared for the initial production of the almanac.  Whatever the reason for the existence of two plates, both are extremely scarce in the trade. 


In addition to the early images from Cook's first voyage, the almanac includes two excerpts from the accounts of the voyage: (1)  “An Account of the Natives of New-Zealand from a Journal of a Voyage to the South-Sea in his Majesty's ship the Endeavor, faithfully transcribed Papers of the late Sidney Parkinson, Draughtsman to Joseph Banks, Esq; on his late Expedition round the World...” (1 1/2 pages) and (2)  “An Account of the Inhabitants of Otaheite [Tahiti], another new discovered Island in the South-Sea; comprehending many curious Particulars relative to their Manners and domestic Life: --- Collected from Dr. Hawkesworth's Compilation of the Voyages to the Southern Hemisphere” (1 1/2 pages).  These are undoubtedly among the first accounts of Cook’s discoveries that would have been available to most Americans.

Besides the early Pacific exploration reports, the almanac features an engraving that features likenesses of Kings George II and George III, accompanied by an ode to George III and an account of his "direct lineal descent."

Evans, American Bibliography: 13074.  Drake, Almanacs of the United States: 3230.  O'Neal, Early American Almanacs: 885 (lacking plate). Stowell, Early American Almanacs: p. 250 (illustration of the two kings).  Reilly, A Dictionary of Colonial American Printers' Ornaments & Illustrations: 1051, 1052, 1053, 1591,1593.    [Item no. 3537.]   


Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Harbottle Dorr's Newspaper Collection Featured in Maine Auction

From 1765 to 1776, Boston shopkeeper Harbottle Dorr assembled a comprehensive collection of Boston newspapers. Not only did he acquire and preserve a copy of one (or sometimes two) of the weekly newspapers issued in Boston during the entire twelve-year period, but he extensively annotated, cross-referenced and indexed them. The result was an important and unique chronicle of the political upheaval in America from the Stamp Act crisis to the early years of the American Revolution. Dorr had the newspapers bound in four volumes, all of which have survived. The first three volumes, from 1765 to 1771, now reside in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The fourth volume, from 1772 to 1776, is currently owned by the Bangor Museum and History Center in Bangor, Maine. This fourth volume will be auctioned on the Museum's behalf at James D. Julia, Inc.'s auction on August 26, 2011.


Volume IV of Harbottle Dorr's newspaper opus consists of more than 1,000 pages of newsprint with newspapers from the beginning of 1772 through the end of 1776. From January, 1772 through April, 1775 (the beginning of the siege of Boston), Dorr accumulated, preserved and indexed the weekly issues of The Boston Gazette. With printing in Boston disrupted by the siege, he resorted to Salem, Cambridge or other Boston papers until the conclusion of 1776. Among the newspapers in Volume IV is the July 18, 1776 issue of the Continental Journal and Weekly Advertiser with a very early printing of the Declaration of Independence. Dorr also appended several important non-newspaper imprints to this volume, including four Boston Massacre sermons.



An excellent essay on Dorr and his newspaper collection appears in Bernard Bailyn's Faces of Revolution (Knopf, 1990). Bailyn also published "The Index and Commentaries of Harbottle Dorr," Proceedings of The Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume LXXXV (1973), 21-35.


The fourth volume of Dorr's newspaper archive is currently owned by the Bangor Museum and History Center, as the Bangor Historical Society is now known. The volume was donated to the Bangor Historical Society by Bangor resident Dr. Thomas Coe in 1915. Dr. Coe had purchased it from a bookseller for $200. According to Curator Dana Lippitt, the Bangor Museum and History Center's decision to deaccession the Dorr newspaper collection was based on a number of factors, including the very limited connection of the Dorr volume to the Museum's primary mission (preserving the history of the Bangor region), the difficulty of properly caring for the volume and the difficult financial climate created by the recession.


The Dorr newspapers will be offered by auctioneer James D. Julia, Inc.of Fairfield, Maine at his summer antiques and fine art auction on August 24-26, 2011. The lot has been estimated -- perhaps modestly -- at $150,000 to $300,000.


Harbottle Dorr's great labor survives as a unique and personal perspective on the coming of the American Revolution as narrated through the newspapers of the day. Soon we will know the next chapter of this signature piece of Americana.


Images courtesy of James D. Julia, Inc.

Original post date: Aug. 3, 2011