Holmes, Elkanah. A Church Covenant; including a Summary of the Fundamental Doctrines of the Gospel (with 11 hymns); Compiled by Elkanah Holmes, And unanimously adopted by the First Baptist Church Baltimore. Baltimore: Printed by William Warner, 1818. [8480]
Full leather with good outer hinges, gilt lines to spine, binding worn with small chips at both ends, corners worn through, 4 x 6 1/2 inches. There is a diagonal crease to both top and bottom covers. Damp stains throughout, dark towards both ends, light in the center of the book. The book opens stiffly. Ffep inscribed in brown ink, "Presented by Eld. Scott, Black Rock, May 1835, to Hezekiah West." 84 pp., text complete; one p. with printing error, last free end paper torn with loss, notes in pencil on some pages critical of the book. Good.
Shaw & Shoemaker. 44634. This edition with 7 WorldCat locations. First published in New York, 1797. Includes 11 hymns "from the most celebrated singers in Israel" bound in at the end.
The hymns are from Watts, Stennett, Rippon, Beddome, Doddridge, and Madan.
Elkanah Holmes (1744-1832), b. probably at Canterbury, New Hampshire; d. Bedford, New York. Baptist missionary and pastor. At 16 years of age Holmes served in the British Army during the Seven Years' War. He served as a fighting chaplain in the New Jersey militia during the War for Independence, and was a pastor in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. He was one of the earliest Baptist missionaries to the Six Indian Nations of Western New York and Canada. During this period he developed relationships with the Seneca Chief Red Jacket.
"Holmes was located in Canada during the War of 1812 and played the role of an American patriot. His Calvinist views are reflected in his A Church Covenant, Including a Summary of the Fundamental Doctrines of the Gospel (1818). - Leonard, Dictionary of the Baptists in America.
"After a military career during which he took part in the British captures of Fort Carillon (near Ticonderoga, N.Y.) in 1759 and Havana, Cuba, in 1762, Elkanah Holmes was baptized around 1770 and ordained to the Baptist ministry about four years later. An ardent republican, he served in the American revolution as a chaplain and combatant with a New Jersey regiment. Following the war he held a number of pastorates, the last and most notable being on Staten Island, N.Y., where in 1786 he was instrumental in establishing the first Baptist church. In 1791 he was one of the founders and the first moderator of the New York Baptist Association. Six years later he published A church covenant, embodying a strict Calvinism and the principle of “close communion,” for the use of Baptist churches." - J. W. Grant, Dictionary of Canadian Biography online.
With a signed provenance card from the collection of A. Merril Smoak, Jr., DWS.