J.10
Mather’s Ecclesiastical hist. of N. England.
fol.
1815 Catalogue, page 24. no. 73, as above.
MATHER,
Cotton.
Magnalia Christi Americana: or, the Ecclesiastical History of New-England, from its First Planting in the Year 1620, unto
the Year of our Lord, 1698. In Seven Books . . . By the Reverend and Learned Cotton Mather, M.A. and Pastor of the North Church in Boston, New-England.
London: Printed for
Thomas Parkhurst,
MDCCII. [1702.]
F7 .M41
First Edition. Folio. 7 books, together 399 leaves, double page map; separate title and separate pagination for each of the seven
books, the pagination beginning at 1 with the exception of book IV which is paged 125-222; book III ends on page 238; text
printed in double columns; A
6 and the last leaf have lists of books printed for
Tho. Parkhurst, the first line of the former
Richard Baxter’s Catholic Theology, Plain
and of the latter
Discourses and Sermons on several Divine
; this copy is without the two leaves of errata which were printed and
added later.
Sabin 46392.
Church 806.
Holmes,
Cotton Mather 213-A.
Rebound in half morocco by the Library of Congress in 1902. Initialled by Jefferson at sigs. Ii and Ttt. Minor corrections
which occur in ink and include the insertion of a syllable cut away by the binder are not by Jefferson.
This book was at one time missing; it is on the manuscript list of books missing from the Library of Congress made after 1815.
Cotton Mather was the editor and to a great extent the author of the
Magnalia, the most famous book written in Colonial New England. The work was begun in 1693 and finished in 1697, when it was taken
to England to be printed.
[452]
11
Morton’s N. England’s memorial.
12
mo.
1815 Catalogue, page 24. no. 2, Morton’s New England’s Memorial, 12mo.
MORTON,
Nathaniel.
New Englands Memorial: or, a brief Relation of the most Memorable and Remarkable Passages of the Providence of God, manifested
to the Planters of New-England in America: with special Reference to the first Colony thereof, called New-Plimouth . . . Published
for the use and benefit of present and future Generations by Nathaniel Morton, Secretary to the Court for the Jurisdiction of New-Plimouth . . .
Boston: Reprinted [by
John Allen] for
Daniel Henchman,
1721.
F68 .M885
Sm. 8vo. 130 leaves.
Sabin 51013.
Evans 2266.
This edition not in Church.
Jefferson copied a passage from this work, pages 93 to 99, in a letter to John Adams, written from Monticello on December
28, 1812. Adams had written to Jefferson on October 12 a long letter beginning: “I have a Curiosity to learn something of the Character Life and death of a Gentleman, whose name was Wollaston, who came from
England with a Company of a few dozens of Persons in the Year 1622 . . . As I have not found any Account of him after his
departure from his little flock, in any History or record of New England, I should be very much obliged to you, for any information
you can give me, of any notice that remains of him in Virginia . . .”
Adams explains that his curiosity has been stimulated by the purchase by John Quincy Adams of “
three” pamphlets:
Wood’s Prospect Wonder working Providence . . .
and
The New English Canaan . . . by Thomas Morton
.
Jefferson in his reply first comments on several histories of the American colonies, namely those of Hutchinson,
