American Book-Plates

The Thomas Johnston plate by Maverick is a fine example of this style. Maverick was the most prolific worker in the Ribbon and Wreath, while Callender and Rollinson also used it very largely. The Prosper Wetmore plate by Maverick, the John Sullivan by Callender, and the Horatio Shepherd Moat by Rollinson, are all excellent examples.

PICTORIAL AND ALLEGORICAL BOOK-PLATES, AND PLATES OF COLLEGES LIBRARIES, AND SOCIETIES.,

DESIGNS which are wholly pictorial or which are meant to convey meaning by their symbolism are not very numerous with us. This style of design is no better suited to the plates of public libraries, schools, and societies, than to those of individuals, but nearly all of our early examples of this style are found to belong to the former class.

One of the early personal plates of this kind is that of James Parker, who was a collector of curios, medals, and books. He was a conductor on the old Western Railroad, and ran the first train between Worcester and Springfield. This plate is fully described in the List.

Of an entirely different style is the plate engraved by Harris for Henry Andrews. This is pictorial, introducing classical features, but hardly rising to the height of allegory. The plate of Bloomfield McIlvaine is also pictorial, and probably allegorical, as the figure seems to represent History. In the Samuel Parker plate we have

allegory with a label to identify it; for the bank on which the muse of History reclines is labelled Clio. A very peculiar pictorial plate is that of Edward Pennington, which seems to represent an overflowing reservoir.

The plates of McMurtrie, Kip, Mann, Russell, Swett and Hooper are good examples of the class. Examples could be given at greater length, but as all are carefully described in the List, the reader is referred to it.

The most interesting of the old society and

library plates are the three of the New York Society Library, the two of the libraries in Farmington, Conn., and that of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

In the plates of the Society Library allegory is rampant. Minerva appears in all of them, and in the two by Maverick is the principal figure. In both of these she appears to an American Indian, whose attitude shows his deep appreciation of the benefits of education as offered by the resplendent goddess. In one case she is represented as having just arrived from Olympus, and is still encircled by clouds; in the other, she seems quite at home in the alcove of the library, and has taken a suitable volume from the shelf for the use of the savage. In the plate by Gallaudet for this library the allegory is extended, and other prominent inhabitants of the abode of the celestials are present. The arts and sciences which the books of the library treat of are represented by implements and symbols easily recognized.

The plate of the Monthly Library in Farmington also uses allegory. The designer and engraver of this plate was Martin Bull, an old deacon in the village, who was quite an interesting man. He was a goldsmith, a maker of silver buttons, and spoons; a manufacturer of saltpetre when needed by the army, a conductor of church music, town treasurer for eight years, clerk of probate for thirty-nine years, a strong patriot, and a writer of long and appallingly solemn letters to the youth of the village when

at college. The library was founded in 1795, – about as soon as our soldier-citizens could settle down into reading stay-at-homes, – and was conducted upon the plan of monthly exchanges. On the first Sabbath of the month all members would assemble in the evening and pass in their books and receive others, the choice being auctioned off. Two dollars and a half a month was thus realized, and the meeting was the event of the month to the sturdy inhabitants of the quiet town, to say nothing of the younger folk, to whom it must have afforded coveted opportunities for pleasant meetings, and quiet walks along the lanes. On the first day of the new century, January, 1801, the library changed its name to that which appears upon the book-plate, and on which the good deacon exhibited a specimen of his highest art. Previously to this date it had gone under the name of “The Library in the First Society in Farmington,” and its first book-plate, probably engraved by the good deacon, had the simple name with no pictorial accessories.

Contemporaneously with this, another library called the Village Library, was in operation, and continued until 1826, when it was merged with a third. This library also had a book-plate, but it was undoubtedly beyond the powers of the engraver of its forerunners. In this we see the interior of a room, in which a young lady patron of the library is storing her mind with those choice axioms which, if put in practice, far exceed the attractiveness of mere personal beauty; so says the couplet beneath the picture.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll:Charms strike the sense, but merit wins the soul.

The plate of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts is also pictorial, and represents a ship of the Society, with its missionary, approaching the shore of savage America: this plate is dated 1704, and is very curious and interesting. The society grew from the efforts of one Rev. Thomas Bray, who established thirty-nine parochial libraries in the American Colonies for the purpose of propagating the doctrines

of the Church. In 1698, King’s Chapel, Boston, received some two hundred books from this society, which were described as “an arsenal of sound theological, ecclesiastical, and political doctrines for the Ministers of His Majesty’s Chapel.” For the prevention of loss or embezzlement, and that they might be known wherever

found, “in every book, on the inside cover shall be these words, ‘Sub auspiciis Wilhelmi III,’ and also the Library to which they belong, thus ‘E Bibliotheca Bostoniana.’ ” This must have been in addition to the plate we are considering, as no words descriptive of particular ownership are given: possibly this plate was used in all the books belonging to the society, and the supplementary one was for use in each individual library.

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College plates are as a general thing very plain, but the plates used by the societies supported by the students and the alumni, are often very elaborate. The early societies in Harvard and in Yale had curious and very interesting examples of the allegorical and symbolic plate.

The Hasty Pudding Society and the Porcellian Club of Harvard College, the Linonian Society and the Brothers in Unity of Yale College, are examples. In Dartmouth College, the Social Friends Society, and in the smaller colleges numerous other fraternities and societies, used plates of simpler style.

The books of the Library of Harvard College were marked with plates by Hurd and Bowen, as noted in the list; on these plates, the gifts of various benefactors are recorded, with the class to which they belonged, conditions regarding the gift of the books, or a statement of the fund from whose income the money for the books is derived.

The plate of the Library of Congress is an engraved label having the name and spaces for

entries surrounded by a border of oak leaves and acorns: the design is very neat, and is old in appearance.

A very beautiful plate is used by some Orphan Asylum, which does not give its full name upon its plate. In this a beautiful picture of the Christ blessing the little ones is given; the line “Forasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto Me,” is given under the vignette.

In the plate of the Library of the New York State Agricultural Society, which was incorporated in 1832, Ceres is seen in the field; behind her the sheaves of wheat extend in rows; one arm clasps a cornucopia, and with the hand of the other she extends a wreath.

In a great many instances the plates of libraries had no pictorial features, or indeed anything at all ornamental, being but the printed rules governing the users of the books. Two examples of this kind of plate are given below.

This VOLUMEbelongs toPRICHARD’SCirculating Library,Containing nearly Two Thousand Volumes,In Market Street, Baltimore, whereLADIES OR GENTLEMENmay becomeREADERSBy subscribing for one Month, three Months or byAgreement for a single Book. Said Prichard has also avery great Variety of NEW and OLD BOOKS for SaleHe, likewise,Gives Ready Money for New and Old Books—Union Circulating Library,201 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia

Subscribers to pay in advance, six dollars for a year: three dollars and fifty cents for six months: two dollars for three months: one dollar for one month: each subscriber to have three Duodecimo volumes, or one Octavo and one Duodecimo at a time. A subscriber detaining an Octavo longer than four weeks or a Duodecimo longer than two weeks to pay as a non-subscriber. For each Octavo one eighth of a dollar per week until the end of the fourth week when the rate was doubled. For a Duodecimo one sixteenth of a dollar per week until the end of the second week.

Constant attendance at the Library from Sunrise till 8 o’clock in the evening.

In mentioning a few examples of the plates recently made for societies and libraries, no attempt is made to furnish a complete list, nor even to mention all the attractive plates, but to speak of a few which seem of especial interest.

A pleasing architectural plate is used in Columbia College Library to mark the books of the Avery Architectural Library. This was designed by Russell Sturgis, and is in the form of a memorial window or mortuary mural tablet. The central panel bears the inscription, and the date MDCCCXC is given below.

The plate of the Arnold Arboretum, designed by George Wharton Edwards, is very attractive; the just-rising sun shines upon a white pine which stands within an elliptical frame; the names of the Institution and of the University appear upon ribbons which float from the pine. The plate is dated 1892, and is signed, G. W. E.

The same artist designed the first book-plate of the Grolier Club of New York City. In this, Atlas is seen supporting the arms of the club within a circular frame which bears the name, and the date of the founding of the club, 1884; rich foliations with a pounced background surround this central design. The plate is signed G. W. E.

The Public Library of the old whaling town of New London has a plate which is wholly nautical in construction; the name is given on a wheel which is held by a seaman, while the captain stands by in pea-jacket and rough-weather helmet, giving orders; the sail, which rises behind them, affords space for the number of the book; below the deck on which the mariners stand, are seen harpoons and spears of various sizes and kinds; two dolphins are disporting in the waves. This plate is signed by the name of the artist in full. It is by Mr. Edwards.

The Sutro Library of San Francisco uses a plate which gives a large and interesting picture of the natural resources of the locality, and the enterprises carried on in its vicinity; the motto, Labor omnia vincit, appears on the ribbon which floats in the air.

The Watkinson Library of Hartford uses one of the very few portrait plates in the country; just why this style of plate should not be common is not easy to understand. They are used in Boston and Worcester, as mentioned below, but these instances are all that occur in public libraries. In this plate the portrait of David Watkinson, the founder of the library, is enclosed within an oval frame which bears the name and the date of incorporation, 1858. The plate is signed by the American Bank Note Company, New York, and is an excellent piece of steel engraving.

Almost all of the historical societies use plates in which the arms of the state or city in which they are located, are used. The Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maine Historical Societies have plates of this kind. In the last-named plate an inescutcheon bears four important dates in the history of the state of Maine.

The Rowfant Club of Cleveland uses a small plate representing the corner of a library; the open window admits the fading light of the sun, which is sinking into the sea; the lattice swings idly, and the pile of books on the table proclaim a busy day.

A very striking plate is used by the University Club of Washington. A wall of rough-faced stone is pierced by a small quatrefoil window in which

a book is laid; the date 1891 is stamped upon the side of the book. Below this, Ionic columns support the wall; between them, in a smooth space, is carved the name and city of the club. The plate is signed Hy. Sandham.

In the Boston Public Library a large number of different plates is used for the volumes coming from different legacies or funds, and in very many cases these plates give a portrait of the donor. Thus we find these portraits on the plate used in the books from the Ticknor Fund, the Phillips Fund, and the Franklin Club Fund. The books remaining from the library of Thomas Prince are also marked with a plate which gives his portrait and a picture of the old meeting-house, in which he preached, and in which the books were stored at one time.

Portraits also appear upon the book-plates of the American Antiquarian Society, which gives that of Ginery Twichell; and the Massachusetts Historical Society, which has a plate giving a portrait of James Savage.

The public libraries of to-day do not usually use elaborate plates in their book-covers; simple labels, with perhaps a city or corporation seal, are the common kind.

BOOK-PLATES OF SPECIAL INTEREST

EVERAL reasons can be given for the fact that collectors regard some book-plates as of more value than others. With book-plates, as in other lines of collecting, rarity is a desirable feature, and is a prominent element in deciding values.

All of our early American plates can fairly be called scarce when compared with the foreign examples of the same period, for they outnumber ours, fifty to one; but many among ours are rarer than others. The John Franklin, brother of Benjamin, signed by Turner, is an exceeding rare plate; the Thomas Dering, signed by Hurd, is very rare. The plates of Stephen Cleveland, Samuel Chase, Francis Kinloch, Edward Augustus Holyoke, John Vassal, Lewis De Blois, Lenthal, Apthorp, the John Pintard, by Anderson, and many others are not seen in many collections. The plate of George Washington is the most valuable probably of our plates; and while we know the location of a good many of his books that have the plate within the covers, they are in no way obtainable: this plate is not very common, but more copies of it are owned than of some others.

The libraries of our early days, while of respectable size, were not so large as to require the printing of thousands of book-plates; fire and mob violence have destroyed many books of those old collections and their plates with them. Harvard, Yale, William and Mary, and Princeton

have all suffered the loss of books by fire, while many smaller private libraries have been thus devastated. Mr. John Pintard used to say that he had seen the British soldiers carrying away books from the library of Columbia College to barter for grog, and a similar fate from similar hands overtook many of the books stored in the belfry-chamber of the Old South Church, Boston, while later in our history, worse depredations were committed in the Southern cities by soldiers, who took the liberty which war accords to contestants, to despoil many a building, both public and private, ruining books, records, paintings, and other property of antiquarian and historical value. So that the early American plates, at the first not so very numerous, have been reduced at times by wholesale measures.

A second item of interest to the collector is the signature of the engraver of the plate. Signed plates have a value over those which are not signed. The identification of a plate, or the determination of its age, may be considerably strengthened if the engraver’s name appears upon the copper. Then, too, the name of a famous engraver lends much additional interest to a plate. A book-plate signed by Paul Revere arrests the attention of any observer at once, and establishes a value to the same. Likewise a plate signed by Hurd, Doolittle, Dawkins, Anderson, Maverick, Callender, or Turner is worth much more to the collector than one of equal age but of unknown workmanship.

Dated plates also rank among the more valuable examples. A glance at the chronological list will show how small a number of these we can boast: many of those appearing in the list, too, are simply printed name-labels, which do not rank as high as the more pretentious specimens. Our very earliest dated example is the label of the Rev. John Williams, 1679, the first minister in Deerfield, Mass., and who with his wife and children was carried into captivity by the Indians in 1704. Coming next are the plates of Francis Page, 1703, and William Penn, 1703, but they are both of English make. The plate of Thomas

Prince, who was for forty years the pastor of the Old South Society in Boston, is a simple label dated 1704. The plate of Thomas Dering, signed by Hurd, and dated 1749, is the first American plate by an American engraver that is both signed and dated. The John Burnet, by Dawkins, dated 1754, is next in order; then comes the Greene plate, by Hurd, 1757, the Albany Society Library, 1759, concerning which very little is known, and every few years an example until we come to the opening of the century.

Naturally the artistic quality of a book-plate influences its value; the more elaborate designs are preferred to the plain armorials or the printed labels. Pictorial plates, introducing bits of landscape, interiors of libraries, or allegorical subjects, are sought for, as are plates which are accepted as particularly good types of the different styles. In addition to these technical reasons for valuing one plate more highly than another may be given others which will appear more reasonable perhaps to the general reader. All articles belonging to the noted men of the past have a certain antiquarian value greater than attaches to the kindred belongings of their contemporaries of lesser or no fame. So with book-plates.

A glance at the list will show a goodly number of names which we remember with pride and interest; the names of patriots, orators, lawyers, statesmen, officers of the army, officers of the state and nation, members of Congress, signers of the Declaration, governors, old-time merchants, authors, divines, physicians, and not a few of that plucky number who stood by the King in trying times – the American Loyalists. Quakers, too, as well as royal office-holders, and titled Americans are among those whose book-plates have come down to us.

Of our early Presidents, the plates of George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and John Tyler are known to us. All of these except the last, which is a plain printed label, are armorial.

Members of the Boston Tea Party, of the Constitutional Convention, and of the early Assemblies are among those whose plates we know.

Of royal officers we have: Craven, one of the Lords Proprietors of South Carolina; Elliston, Collector of His Majesty’s Customs at New York; Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania; John Tabor Kempe, Attorney-General under the Crown at New York; and William Penn, Proprietor and Governor of the colony which bore his name.

Owners of large estates, employers of numbers of slaves, merchants whose vessels carried on a trade with remote and prosperous shores, and who established names that have endured, used book-plates which are still known to us. Among these are the plates from the following families, well-known in New England: Ames, Bowdoin, Cabot, Chandler, Chauncey, Coffin, Lodge, Lowell, Minot, Quincy, Sears, Winthrop, Barrell, Greene, Perkins, Swan, Vassall, and Vaughan.

Of those well-known in and about New York may be mentioned, Clinton, Colden, Constable, Cutting, De Peyster, Duer, Ellery, Goelet, Hoffman, Ogden, Paulding, Phillipse, Pintard, Van Cortlandt, and Van Rensselaer. To these should be added the Livingstons, which family had the largest number of book-plates of any we know.

In Philadelphia were the Logans, Morgans, Powels, Banckers, and Hamiltons; while further South, the Lees, Lightfoots, Tayloes, Wormeleys, Pages, Cabels, Tubervilles, Armisteads, Byrds, Blands, Bollings, Dinwiddies, Fitzhughs, Hubards, Magills, and Randolphs used plates and were families of prominence and distinction.

Among the prominent Loyalists are Chalmers, Cooper, Hallowell, Hamilton, Livius, Lloyd, Oliver, and Robinson. Of titled Americans the following used book-plates: Fairfax, Gardiner, Murray of Dunmore, and the Pepperrell families.

Of the early authors we can mention Alsop, Antill, Bozman, Byrd, Dana, Key, Stith, and Abercrombie; of physicians, Assheton, Bond, Beatty, Holyoke, Middleton, and Jeffries; of the statesmen, Bayard, Carmichael, Dana, Duane, Gallatin, Jay, Lewis, Marshall, Norris, and Randolph.

Among the early clergymen can be named Apthorp, Boucher, Williams, Jarvis, and Provoost.

Allen and Thomas, early printers; Aitkin, who made the first American edition of the Holy Bible; and Bartram, the great botanist, used plates, which are described in the list.

Bloomfield, Brearly, Banister, Chester, Eustace, Hale, Mercer, Schuyler, Sullivan, and Varick are among the soldiers of the Revolutionary army; and of the orators we have Otis and Randolph.

Coming now to the signers of the Declaration, we find that we know thus far the plates of eleven of them: John Adams, Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, Thomas Hayward, William Hooper, Francis Hopkinson, Benjamin Rush, Richard Stockton, George Taylor, Oliver Wolcott, and George Wythe.

Surely the book-plates of all these men whose mention stirs patriotic feeling, are of exceeding interest, and worthy to rank with any in point of value and appreciation.

No book-plate, however, is of greater interest to the American collector than that of George Washington, not alone by reason of the prominence of that eminent man, but because of the scarcity of the plate, the high price it brings, and the interesting fact that it is the only American plate which has been deemed worthy of counterfeiting.

A genuine contemporary print of this plate is readily recognized by the connoisseur. The plate has no striking features, but is a regular design in the pure Chippendale style. The arms are displayed upon a shield of the usual shell-like form, and the sprays and rose branches of this style are used in the ornamentation of the sides of the escutcheon. The motto, Exitus acta probat, is given upon its ribbon at the base of the shield, and the name is engraved in script on

the bracket at the bottom of the design. In general appearance the plate is like scores of Chippendale plates of the period.

The interesting question of the probable engraver of the plate has arisen, and in a most readable article from the pen of Mr. R. C. Lichtenstein, in the “Curio,” on the Library of Washington, the following opinion is advanced: “It was his [Washington’s] habit as a general rule to write his name on the right-hand corner of the title-page and place inside his book-plate. It has been a matter of uncertainty as to whether that book-plate was engraved in England or in this country. Washington, like other Virginia gentlemen before the Revolution, was in the habit of ordering goods every year from London; but we have searched the various orders to his agents in London, and examined as far as practicable the items of his household expenses, without finding any such item. The strongest argument that can be said in its favor proving it to be American work is the poor heraldry displayed in its coat-of-arms, general make-up, and drawing. It will be noticed that the engraver has placed a wreath under the crown (an absolute heresy), and this, with the faulty drawing of the raven, makes the whole plate a very slovenly piece of work. No engraver with any knowledge of the fundamental laws of heraldry would be guilty of drawing such a coat-of-arms as this. The arms of Washington engraved on his seal and ring, undoubtedly cut in England, are correctly done. It seems more than probable, if the plate had been done in England that the engraver would not have been guilty of making such blunders. We have seen a great many English plates, but have never noticed one bearing these peculiarities. From its general appearance we should say that the plate was made in America somewhere between the years 1777 and 1781.”