Hamilton, Doctor Alexander. Hamilton's Itinerarium, being a Narrative of a Journey from Annapolis, Maryland, through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire from May to September, 1744; Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D., Professor of History at Harvard University. Saint Louis, Missouri: William K. Bixby, 1907. Printed Only for Private Distribution. [7803]
Half calf with brown cloth boards, 6 3/4 x 9 1/2 inches, light rubbing to binding, inscribed by the publisher on the ffep, printed on Holland paper, deckled page edges, frontispiece portrait of Hamilton, folding map. xxvii., 263 clean pp., interspersed with unnumbered facsimile leaves of Hamilton's journal, in English. Very good. Hardcover.
One of 487 copies printed, this copy unnumbered. The first appearance in print of this fascinating travelogue, printed from the original manuscript purchased by Bixby from a London bookshop.
This copy belonged to Arthur Hungerford Pollen (1866-1937), an English journalist and writer on naval affairs who designed the Argo Clock, the first electronically powered mechanical analogue computer for use as a naval fire-control system.
The publisher, William K. Bixby (who signed this copy), made a fortune in the railroad industry. He became a great patron of the arts in St. Louis, was an avid collector of rare books and manuscripts, was elected member of the American Antiquarian Society, was president of the Missouri Historical Society, was head of the Fine Arts Commission for the 1904 World's Fair, &c., &c., and was prominent for his charitable contributions.
Not in either of Roberts' reference works on Revival or Whitefield, although Hamilton mentions his dislike of Whitefield and the "New Lights."
Howes H125.
Dr. Alexander Hamilton (1712-1756), b. in or near Edinburgh, Scotland; d. Annapolis, Maryland. His father, Dr. William Hamilton, was professor of divinity and principal of the University of Edinburgh; Alexander was raised as a member of the Scottish gentry. He emigrated to Maryland colony to practice medicine at Annapolis. He was a prominent member of society and established The Tuesday Club in 1745.
His Itinerarium is a valuable source of American colonial customs, and historian Leo Lemay called it "the best single portrait of men and manners, or rural and urban life, of the wide range of society and scenery in colonial America"; and Eleain Breslaw notes it's record of "the relatively primitive social milieu of the New World. He faced unfamiliar and challenging social institutions: the labor system that relied on black slaves, extraordinarily fluid social statuses, distasteful business methods, unpleasant conversational quirks, as well as variant habits of dress, food, and drink."
The editor, Hart, notes, "Among the numerous journals and narratives of travel during the Colonial period, few are so lively and so full of good-humored comment on people and customs as the Itinerarium of Dr. Hamilton, which now for the first time has become known..." and says the doctor was a lover of nature, mildly interested in government, always interested in science, and comments on medicine and medical men. His greatest interest was in men and manners, "and a special merit of the Itinerarium is the light shed upon the social life of the time by an intelligent observer admitted to the best society of the places that he visited, and at the same time taking note of the life of the plain people among whom he passed...The Indians especially attracted his attention and he met all sorts from the naked wretches fishing for oysters on Long Island Sound, to 'King George,' the owner of 20,000 or 30,0000 acres near Stonington."
