Williams, Samuel. A History of the American Revolution: intended as a Reading-Book for Schools. New-Haven: Printed and Published by W. Storer, Jun., 1824. First Edition. [12452]
Tree calf, binding is very good with a red leather title label, label and lines to the spine in gilt, 6 5/8 x 4 1/4 inches, tight. Undated contemporary signature in brown ink on the ffep. [i]-xii, [13]-204 pp.; counted and complete. Six wood-engraved plates, included in the pagination. Very good. Hardcover.
This work first appeared in serialized form when the author was editor of the Rural Magazine at Rutland, Vermont, in 1795. The copy offered to you here is the first edition in book form.
The copyright is 1823 but the imprint and the Preface by the publisher are both dated 1824.
The plates are of Destruction of Tea in Boston Harbor, Nov. 1773; Battle of Bunker's Hill, and Burning of Charlestown - June 17, 1775; Storming of Quebec, and fall of Gen. Montgomery - Dec. 31, 1775; Battle at Trenton - Dec. 26, 1776; Battle at Saratoga, and Fall of Gen. Fraser - Oct. 7, 1777; Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown - Oct. 19, 1781.
"Next to the Bible, the History of the American Revolution is most deservedly entitled to the attention and reverence of the youth of our country. Here they may be made acquainted with the impositions and oppression to which their ancestors were subject, while these United States were colonies dependent on the British crown. Here may be found a detail of the causes which led to the publication of that sacred instrument, the Declaration of Independence. Here is preserved and laid down, a narrative of the privations and hardships which our fathers, the soldiers of the revolution, suffered and endured, to maintain and establish that independence." - Preface, p. v.
The Appendix includes General Order, issued by Gen. Washington, on the Cessation of Hostilities; Address of Congress to General Washington; General Washington's Answer; Farewell Orders of General Washington to the Armies of the United States; Address of General Washington to Congress, on Resigning his Military Commission; The Constitution of the United States; Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, [13 in number].
Samuel Williams, LL.D. (1743-1817), b. Waltham, Massachusetts; d. Rutland, Vermont. A Congregational minister, he graduated from Harvard College (1761), was licensed to preach (1763), and was ordained over the church in Bradford, Massachusetts, in 1765.
"In May 1780, he was installed in the Hollis professorship of mathematics and natural philosophy in Harvard College. He was a member of the Meteorological Society of Mannheim, Germany, and of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia; also of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Massachusetts. In 1786 he went to Penobscot Bay to observe a total eclipse of the sun, in a galley fitted out by the General Court of Massachusetts. The same year the government of Massachusetts appointed him to assist in running the line of jurisdiction between that state and New York. He resigned his professorship in 1788, and removed to Rutland, Vermont, preaching there as a stated supply from January 1789, to October 1795." - M'Clintock & Strong.
"In 1789 Williams relocated to Rutland, Vermont where he preached and he and Judge Williams founded the monthly newspaper Rutland Herald in 1794, publishing until 1804. Later, he published the Rural Magazine from 1795 to 1796. In 1791 he aided in founding the University of Vermont, becoming its first lecturer on natural science and astronomy. Williams authored 1794's Natural and Civil History of Vermont, which cemented his scholarly reputation through its coverage of Vermont's natural history, Native Americans, and settlement by Europeans." - Bill McKern, at findagrave dot com.
