A. Merril Smoak, Jr., Miscellaneous Hymnals & Tunebooks, &c.

by Haaswurth Books February 6, 2023

The Hymn Book and Tunebook Collection of A. Merril Smoak, Jr., DWS.

Miscellaneous

A Hymn on Creation. New-York: Printed and Sold by Mahlon Day, 1824. [8979]

No wrapper, crude sewn repair at fold, small 8 cm (3 1/8 x 2 inches). 16 pp., with 14 small wood engravings, last leaf torn and missing 1/2 inch at bottom, affecting one line of the recto. Good. Pamphlet.

The printer's address is "At the New Juvenile Book-Store, no. 372, Pearl-street."

Mahlon Day (1790-1854), b. Morristown, NJ; d. at sea in the sinking of the SS Arctic off the coast of Newfoundland. Day was an Orthodox Quaker and traveled with Joseph John Gurney in his ministry chronicling in his diary their trip through the West Indies and the Caribbean in 1839-40. His press produced many tracts for New York Yearly and Monthly Meetings. He was a trustee of the African Free School and a manager of the New York Institution for the Blind.

"Mahlon Day was one of two printers who dominated the New York City children's book publishing scene in the early 19th century (the other being Samuel Wood). Day published entertaining and educational books that, like most others of his time, focus on piety, virtue, and morality." - New-York Historical Society website.

A Hymn on Creation. New-York: Printed and Sold by Mahlon Day | Stereotyped by James Conner, New-York, ca. 1830. [8978]

Printed yellow wrapper, crude sewn repair at fold, small 9.5 cm (3 5/8 x 2 1/4 inches). 16 pp., complete, with 15 small wood engravings, publisher's advert of back with different address - 374 Pearl St. Tattered edges to back of wrapper. Good. Pamphlet.

The printer's address is "At the New Juvenile Book-Store, no. 376, Pearl-street." We know from a different imprint of his that he was at this address in 1828, and further research has him at this address between 1825 and 1833.

[Bay Psalm Book] Appel, Richard G. The Music of the Bay Psalm Book, 9th Edition 1698 (I.S.A.M. Monographs: Number 5). New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, 1975. First Edition. ISBN: 9780914678045. [9483]

White covers with blue titles, 8 1/2 x 7 inches, former owner's ink name stamp on first & last pages, 44 otherwise clean pp. Very good. Paperback.

"In the present monograph will be found (1) a discussion of the music of the Bay Psalm Book, including a literal translation of the 'admonition' in the first edition; (2) facsimiles of the 1698 edition's tune supplement (and its prefatory remarks,) with edited transcriptions on facing pages; and (3) a bibliography of literature on the Bay Psalm Book." - Foreword.

[Bay Psalm Book] The Crowninshield - Stevens - Brinley - Vanderbilt - Whitney Copy of The Bay Psalm Book (Auction Catalogue); To Be Sold by Direction of the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Trust. New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., 1947. First Edition. [9479]

Blue printed wrapper, 10 1/4 x 7 inches, newspaper clipping regarding the sale taped inside front, cello tape has yellowed. Six b/w plates of the text & binding of the book being auctioned, auction terms, 12 pp. of text, complete. Very good. Wraps.

Includes the complete description of this copy of "The Bay Psalm Book," and descriptions of every extant copy of the 1640 edition. The book sold for $151,000, and was purchased by A. S. W. Rosenbach.

[Bay Psalm Book] Foote, Henry Wilder. An Account of the Bay Psalm Book (The Papers of the Hymn Society VII). Springfield, Ohio: The Hymn Society of America, Inc., 1940. First Edition. [9481]

Staple-bound pamphlet, 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, 18 clean pp. Very good. Pamphlet.
This pamphlet is based upon a chapter in Dr. Foote's Three Centuries of American Hymnody. A study of the first edition of 1640.

Crane, John. A Discourse, delivered at Upton, March 15, 1810, at Grafton, April 12, 1810, and at Sutton, (N. P.) March 13, 1811. At Public Meetings of a Number of Singers, who had been improving themselves in Sacred Music; Published at the Particular Request of the Singers in Sutton, North-Parish. Sutton, (Mass.): Printed by Sewall Goodridge, 1811. First Edition. [8977]

Removed, no wrapper, recent stab-sewn string re-enforcement at fold. 8 1/2 x 5 inches, small hole in first two leaves affecting some letters, 16 pp. Printed in old font with the long "s". Good. Pamphlet.

A discourse on James 5:13, "Is any merry? let him sing psalms." The author does not seem to us to be limiting the definition of "psalms" to the Psalms in the Bible, but includes Christian hymns as well. He speaks to the singers of their duties and dangers based upon Biblical examples and exhortations.

John Crane, D.D. (1756 -1836), b. Norton, MA. Crane graduated at Harvard College in 1780, and in 1782 began preaching at Northbridge, Mass., remaining there as pastor until his death in 1836.

Miller, William. Manuscript Shape-Note Music Book and Ledger. Richland, Pennsylvania: 1843. [9392]

Plain blue paper over card, oblong 6 1/2 x 8 inches, about 70 pp. some pages removed, others partly cut away. Shape-note music on the first 18 pp., account ledger on the other pages. Good. Stiff wraps.

William Miller lived in Richland Township, Bucks Co., Pennsylvania. A note on the back of the book may indicate that he was born in 1798. The manuscript book has 18 pp. of music in shape notes with German titles. It also has about 50 pp. of financial transactions in English. The dates within are from 1843. One note for a purchase of calfskin shoes in 1843 indicates that at the time he had a wife and "little daughter." One entry indicates that Abraham Geissinger was his brother-in-law.

Miller was involved in a surprising variety of occupations. He taught "poor children" in the township of Milford and billed the county; he also did carpentry work, sold apple "sider", cut wood, felled trees for road work, mowed grass, sold mutton, sold pigs, plowed fields, sold beef, made shingles, &c.

Some of the names in the book are Samuel Paywell, John Joseph, Abraham Benner, Rhuben Winch, Henry Trumbow, John Cromen, Jacob Deilz, Samuel Musselman, John Strunk, John Shelley, David Cresman, Peter Theisser, Israel Charles, George Zuck, Deter Geissinger, John Stoneback, Elisabeth Bilger, Elisabeth Miller, Jesse Moyer, Abraham Haas, Samuel Taylor.

[Pickering, David]. Hymn Book for the Use of Universalists and Restorationists Sabbath Schools. Providence, R. I.: Published and Sold by Samuel W. Wheeler, 1834. Third Edition. [8972]

Printed yellow wrapper, wrapper stiffened by being pasted to end papers, presumably as issued. 11 cm (4 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches), "Universalists and" on front inked over with black ink. Ink stamp, "Medway Sab. School Lib." on ffep. 64 pp., complete, text very good. With a plain envelope, as found. Very good. Pamphlet.

OCLC with no locations. We find other reference to a copy held by the Boston Public Library. Frank Robertson's Early American Universalist Religious Education Materials at pacificuudotorg has the author as the Rev. David Pickering.

This rare item represents a short period of Universalist history in New England. In 1831 a small group of ministers and laymen left the General Convention of American Universalists over disagreement with Hosea Ballou's position that there is no punishment for sin after death. He taught that all of the woes of sin are experienced in this life, and that all who die will be saved. His cousin, Adin Ballou, promoted the idea that there is limited punishment for sin for some after death, ultimately leading to a restoration to God. Hence the name of this group was the Massachusetts Association of Universal Restorationists. The group dissolved by 1841 over differences between hardliners and moderates and by the pressing demands of other interests, such as abolitionism, temperance and utopian socialism.

"Adin's break with Universalism was part of a resurgence of the Restorationist controversy. In 1830, preaching in Medway, Massachusetts, he gave a pro-future punishment sermon, 'The Inestimable Value of Souls.' His hearers so liked the sermon that they sent it to Boston to be printed on the press of the Universalist periodical, the Trumpet and Universalist Magazine. When the Trumpet's editor, Thomas Whittemore, a disciple of Hosea Ballou, read the sermon, he instituted a campaign to have Adin Ballou removed from the Milford pulpit. Under fire in the denominational press and in his church, Ballou joined the Providence Association, recently founded by Pickering as a haven for Restorationists...In 1831 Adin Ballou, David Pickering, Paul Dean, and a small group of other ministers formed a new denomination..." - Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography.

Notice how this little hymnal ties the above together: It was owned by the Medway congregation where Adin Ballou preached his controversial sermon, it was published in Providence, R. I., the refuge of the Restorationists, and it was compiled by David Pickering, one of the leaders of the Restorationists and the founder of the Providence Association. The hard feelings that developed between the two groups is represented by the blacking out of "Universalists" on the front of the wrapper.

82 selections with an index of first lines, words only.

David Pickering (1788-1859), b. probably at Richmond, NH - his family moved there from Salem, MA., about that time. He was converted to the Free Will Baptist faith when about 17 years of age, and changed to the Universalists under the influence of the preaching of Paul Dean soon after. In 1809 he was ordained and installed over a Universalist congregation in Barnard, VT. He served in three other New England congregations before settling at Hudson, NY, from 1818-1823. He may have suffered a nervous breakdown after the death of his first wife from tuberculosis (1816).

"In late 1822 six Universalist ministers, calling themselves Restorationists, endorsed a manifesto which implied that 'ultra' Universalists, like Hosea Ballou, were not Christian insofar as they denied a period of punishment in the afterlife before final restoration to God. Among the six were Pickering's mentor Paul Dean. On the subject of the afterlife Pickering's position was then midway between the extremes of the contending parties....As these negotiations were going on, Pickering was beginning a new pastorate with the recently organized First Universalist Society in Providence, Rhode Island, his longest and most productive settlement." - ibid.

The publisher was Samuel Warren Wheeler (1790-1857), of Providence, Rhode Island. Wheeler also published Lectures in Defence of Divine Revelation, delivered at the Universalist Chapel, in Providence, R. I., by David Pickering (1830). A letter of his to William Lloyd Garrison informing him of some New England views on slavery (1854) is held by the Boston Public Library.

Swan, Bradford F. Some Thoughts on the Bay Psalm Book of 1640, with a Census of Copies (The Yale University Gazette, January 1948). [New Haven, CT]: Yale University Library, 1947. First Edition. [9478]

Blue wrapper, 10 x 6 3/4 inches, some wear to the wrapper edges, pages numbered (2), (51)-98, one plate, complete. Text is clean. Very good. Wraps.

The article by Swan is pages (51)-76. Gives the description and provenance of all known copies of the 1640 edition of the "Bay Psalm Book."

Also, laid in is the prospectus and order slip for the facsimile reprint of the Bay Psalm Book, by Wilberforce Eames, published by Dodd, Mead & Company, 1904.

Winship, George Parker. An Odd Lot of New England Puritan Personalities: With Some Observations on the Bay Psalm Book. Portland, Maine: The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1942. First Edition. [9473]

Brown card wrapper with a printed applied title label to front, stab-sewn folds, 8 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches, folded piece of chain-laid paper watermarked "Fabriano (Italy)" laid in. Frontispiece reproduced illustration of Richard Mather, several plates of facsimiles, (25) clean pp. Fine. Wrapper.

"This Keepsake number fourteen has been set in Linotype Janson with Linotype special italic. Five hundred copies have been printed by the Southworth-Anthoensen Press, Portland, Maine, in the month of March, 1942." - colophon.

An interesting treatment of the production of the "Bay Psalm Book," and comparison of several extant early copies.

George Parker Winship (1871-1952), a native of Massachusetts, graduated at Harvard in 1893. He was the librarian of the John Carter Brown Library (1895) and when the library was donated to Brown University (1904) Winship was appointed to continue as librarian at Brown, which he did until 1915. At that time he became librarian of the Widener Library at Havard.

"The career of historian, bibliographer, and librarian George Parker Winship (1871–1952) combined curatorship and scholarship to a degree that seems remarkable today. As librarian and curator at Brown and later at Harvard, he championed the primacy of the role of rare books in American higher education. As a connoisseur and printer, he played an active role in promulgating enthusiasm for fine printing among collectors and readers in the early twentieth century. Through his teaching at Harvard College, he inspired a generation of bibliophiles." - Harvard University Press.

Wolcott, T. A Selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, for those who wish to praise God. Portland, [Me]: Rinted [sic] by A. & J. Shirley, 1817. [8976]

Plain oatmeal wrapper with crude sewing over the fold, "By Daniel L. Celley" written on front, 15.25 cm (6 x 3 3/4 inches). 36 pp., text complete. All leaves tattered with a tear in the middle of the fore-edge (see pics). Small slip laid in, "Lent by Capt. D. P. Celley". Fair. Pamphlet.

Words only, no music. 27 evangelical hymns by such authors as John Newton, Joseph Swain, and John A. Granade, and many that are unattributed. Granade was a Southern author, and several of the hymns seem to have a Southern origin. This little hymnal is not recorded at hymnary.org.

The Penn State University library catalogue attributes this to Talcott Wolcott (1772-1825), b. East Windsor, CT; d. Hartford, CT. "He moved to Hartford about the year 1806; was Justice of the Peace." - Wolcott, Chandler, The Family of Henry Wolcott, One of the First Settlers of Windsor, Connecticut (1912), p. 169. There was also a Talcott Wolcott (probably the same person) involved with establishing two steam boat companies in Hartford, 1818 and 1824.