The 7" x 4.5" volume is in a tattered state of musty decomposition that testifies to its old age, hard use and exposure to the elements.
If my hypothesis about this book's history is correct, it crossed the ocean to colonial America in the musty hold of a British sailing ship, sat on a shelf in a pioneer farmhouse in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania, and then bumped along many miles in the back of a horse-drawn wagon during the family's westward migration on the wilderness trails over the Allegheny Mountains. The leather spine, burnished by passing through many hands, retains a still-glossy patina.
You can see that at some point in the distant past it was rebound by a person who must have valued it highly. The rebinding was crudely performed by hand-stitching a thickish piece of calf or sheep skin to the now-crumbling cover boards. The binding has broken away from the glued spine and the stitched sections are all but falling out. Inside, the pages are heavily foxed and stained. Both the front title page and endpapers are missing although there is a tantalizing inscription (unfortunately not readable) on a remaining fragment of the rear end paper.
Held in hand, this venerable book exudes an almost palpable aura of history that would lead anyone to speculate about the secrets it contains: Who bought it? When was it purchased? Why was it so important to its owner that it was rebound? Why, among all the possessions that could have been passed down, did this book survive? Clearly, it's time to call in the history detectives and see what clues we can uncover....
The typography employs the Old English "long S" or "medial S" which looks to modern day readers like the letter "f" without the crossbar. The long S went out of usage around the end of the 18th century so, first off, we can safely guess the book was published before 1800.
The type is set in two columns, each headed by a capitalized, two-letter abbreviation of the first topic below. Basically, this part is a geographical dictionary to places and natural features. The pages are not numbered. Here are some sample entries [I supplied the letter "f" where the long S was used]:
- AARHUYS, a city and county of Jutland.
- BARANCO, W. lon. 75.30, lat. 27, a port town of St. Martha, in Terra Firma, fit. on the river Grande, 30 m. S. of the mouth of that river, and 75 mi. N. E. of Carthagena; the fee of a bifhop. America.
- BOSTON, W. lon. 70.25, lat.42.34. the capital of New England, in America, fit. on a peninfula at the bottom of a fine bay, covered by fmall iflands and rocks, and defended by a caftle and platforms of guns which render the approach of an enemy very difficult. It lies in the form of a crefcent about the harbour, and the country beyond rifing gradually, affords a delightful profpect from the fea. There are ten churches in the town of which fix are independents and the number of fouls is computed to be fourteen thoufand, and it is one of the most flourifhing towns of trade in N. America.
- PENSILVANIA, one of the Englifh plantations in America, bounded by the 5 nations of Iroquois in the N. by New-Jersey and New York on the eaft....
As I peruse the geographic entries I see that many of them contain a date reference or other information that places the book in time. For example, each of the British colonies in America are described at some length so we know the book was published before 1776.
- PHILADELPHIA, ...the capital city of Penfilvania in N. America, one of the British Colonies...sit. upon the rivers Delawar and Schoolkill; being a moft beautiful plan of a town....there are about 14 or 1500 houses already built, but there wants a great many more to finifh the plan....
....There is a univ. alfo at Avignon and a court of inquifition is eftablifhed here, but in no other part of France. [In June 1768, the French took poffeffion of it, and have obliged the inhabitants to fwear allegiance to their king.]
Since this sentence was inserted in brackets at the end of the Avignon entry, it appears to be a "late-breaking news" annotation slipped in just before publication.
Bottomline: We now know the book had to be published after June 1768 and before 1776.
Moving on to the Internet, a Google Books search on "Modern Gazetteer" turns up a treasure trove of information. Turns out The Modern Gazetteer was first published in 1746 by a Thomas Salmon (1679-1767) in London and sold for three shillings, six pence (around $40 today). It became highly popular and a total of eleven editions were printed, the last being in 1785. Based on the 1768 date for the Avignon entry, I suspicioned that this book is the 8th edition, published in London in the year 1769, shortly after Salmon's death. Further Internet research turned up a scanned copy of the 8th edition which showed it to be an identical copy of mine. The web version can be read online or downloaded in its entirety here:
The next question I ask myself is, "Why would this book be of any special importance to Moses Curry or his son Joseph"? Assuming the book was bought shortly after publication, circa 1769, Moses would be a Chester County, Pennsylvania carpenter and yeoman farmer in his mid-thirties with a young family (he married circa 1761 based on the birth year of his first-born son).
The British Colonies were in the run-up to the Revolutionary War and knowledge of world events would be essential to understand the forces in play on the world stage. Moses would soon be in the thick of it--the Battle of Brandywine in 1777 was fought and lost by the fledgling U. S. Army only nineteen miles from his farm in New London Township.
Consider the following full title of the book and you will see that it provided a very comprehensive geographical and political summary of the world:
Comparing my volume to the complete, Internet version shows that mine is missing the first section on geography, the descriptions of the major economies of the world (especially England), the review of British parliamentary procedure, as well as the "New Set of Maps". This information would been of great value in teaching the basics of physical and political geography to an uninformed reader. As such it could provide a key to the vast and mysterious world lying beyond the frontier hinterlands of New London Township, Pennsylvania.
Except for the Holy Bible, books were not that common in rural areas and it's understandable that a mini-encyclopedia like this would be highly valued and kept as a reference book. While it helped inform the world view of a man who would ultimately see service in the Chester County Militia during the Revolutionary War, I can also imagine that his eight sons read this book during their formative years.
It's hard to believe that the important maps, basic geography and political sections were simply lost and discarded as the book fell apart from hard use. More likely, this content was intentionally removed as reference material by someone. Moses’ fourth son, Moses(2), who went on to become a surveyor and school teacher, could be a possible culprit. At some point, the remaining pages were rebound and, from the width of the spine, it appears that this rebinding never held the forty-six lost pages.
Moses Curry farmed until the late 1700's on ninety acres in southern Chester County, left to him by his father, Samuel Corry. Moses migrated to western Pennsylvania (Mifflin Township, Allegheny County, PA) at the end of the 18th century with four of his sons including Dr. Joseph. Moses passed away there in 1822. He and son Joseph are buried in the Mifflin Presbyterian Cemetery located at the western end of the Allegheny County Airport's main runway in the Pleasant Hills area south of Pittsburgh.
My summation: The very fact of this book's survival over several generations of Currys suggests it had special sentimental value to its successive holders. Imagine...caring for a book so much that you hand-stitched a piece of animal hide around it to replace its broken spine!
Moving on to the Internet, a Google Books search on "Modern Gazetteer" turns up a treasure trove of information. Turns out The Modern Gazetteer was first published in 1746 by a Thomas Salmon (1679-1767) in London and sold for three shillings, six pence (around $40 today). It became highly popular and a total of eleven editions were printed, the last being in 1785. Based on the 1768 date for the Avignon entry, I suspicioned that this book is the 8th edition, published in London in the year 1769, shortly after Salmon's death. Further Internet research turned up a scanned copy of the 8th edition which showed it to be an identical copy of mine. The web version can be read online or downloaded in its entirety here:
http://tinyurl.com/lyxgh3cSince Dr. Joseph Curry wasn't born until 1778, it is reasonable to conjecture that the book was bought by his father, Moses Curry, who, according to family legend, was "born on the Ocean" sometime in the 1730's. Another hypothesis is that it came down the generations from John Finley to his daughter Jane (Joseph Curry's wife) but I discount that theory since Finley was only ten years old living in Rising Sun, Maryland when the book was published in 1769.
The next question I ask myself is, "Why would this book be of any special importance to Moses Curry or his son Joseph"? Assuming the book was bought shortly after publication, circa 1769, Moses would be a Chester County, Pennsylvania carpenter and yeoman farmer in his mid-thirties with a young family (he married circa 1761 based on the birth year of his first-born son).
The British Colonies were in the run-up to the Revolutionary War and knowledge of world events would be essential to understand the forces in play on the world stage. Moses would soon be in the thick of it--the Battle of Brandywine in 1777 was fought and lost by the fledgling U. S. Army only nineteen miles from his farm in New London Township.
Consider the following full title of the book and you will see that it provided a very comprehensive geographical and political summary of the world:
The Modern Gazetteer: or, A Short View of the Several Nations of the World: Abfolutely necessary for rendering the public news, and other hiftorical occurrences, intelligible and entertaining. : Containing, I. An introduction to Geography; with Directions for the Ufe of the Terreftrial Globe. II. The Situation and Extent of all the Empires, Kingdoms, States, Provinces, and chief Towns, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America: also, a Defcription of the moft confiderable Seas, Lakes, Rivers, and Mountains, all ranged in Alphabetical Order. III. The Produce, Manufactures, Trade, Conftitution, Forces, Revenues, and Religion, of the feveral Countries. IV. The Genealogies and Families of the Emperors, Kings, and Princes, now reigning.
Comparing my volume to the complete, Internet version shows that mine is missing the first section on geography, the descriptions of the major economies of the world (especially England), the review of British parliamentary procedure, as well as the "New Set of Maps". This information would been of great value in teaching the basics of physical and political geography to an uninformed reader. As such it could provide a key to the vast and mysterious world lying beyond the frontier hinterlands of New London Township, Pennsylvania.
Except for the Holy Bible, books were not that common in rural areas and it's understandable that a mini-encyclopedia like this would be highly valued and kept as a reference book. While it helped inform the world view of a man who would ultimately see service in the Chester County Militia during the Revolutionary War, I can also imagine that his eight sons read this book during their formative years.
It's hard to believe that the important maps, basic geography and political sections were simply lost and discarded as the book fell apart from hard use. More likely, this content was intentionally removed as reference material by someone. Moses’ fourth son, Moses(2), who went on to become a surveyor and school teacher, could be a possible culprit. At some point, the remaining pages were rebound and, from the width of the spine, it appears that this rebinding never held the forty-six lost pages.
Moses Curry farmed until the late 1700's on ninety acres in southern Chester County, left to him by his father, Samuel Corry. Moses migrated to western Pennsylvania (Mifflin Township, Allegheny County, PA) at the end of the 18th century with four of his sons including Dr. Joseph. Moses passed away there in 1822. He and son Joseph are buried in the Mifflin Presbyterian Cemetery located at the western end of the Allegheny County Airport's main runway in the Pleasant Hills area south of Pittsburgh.
My summation: The very fact of this book's survival over several generations of Currys suggests it had special sentimental value to its successive holders. Imagine...caring for a book so much that you hand-stitched a piece of animal hide around it to replace its broken spine!
While lacking definitive, chain-of-title proof, it's my current hypothesis that the known Curry line provenance and the 1769 date of publication suggest that Moses Curry, my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, was quite likely the original owner. He could have readily purchased it from one of the High Street booksellers in nearby Philadelphia.
Now suppose you had grown up browsing through your father's treasured copy of The Modern Gazetteer by flickering firelight down on that long-ago farm in eastern Pennsylvania, and, years later, when you are winding up your deceased father's affairs, you come upon that beat-up but well-remembered book among his meager effects--wouldn't you clutch it to your heart for all the special memories it brought to mind?
I like to think that this is what actually occurred. And, when I hold this book and realize that I am mingling my fingerprints with those of uncounted ancestors, I directly connect with that unbroken chain of love and caring of the fathers and the mothers who providentially brought me into this world...and delivered this battered old book into my hands.
Now suppose you had grown up browsing through your father's treasured copy of The Modern Gazetteer by flickering firelight down on that long-ago farm in eastern Pennsylvania, and, years later, when you are winding up your deceased father's affairs, you come upon that beat-up but well-remembered book among his meager effects--wouldn't you clutch it to your heart for all the special memories it brought to mind?
I like to think that this is what actually occurred. And, when I hold this book and realize that I am mingling my fingerprints with those of uncounted ancestors, I directly connect with that unbroken chain of love and caring of the fathers and the mothers who providentially brought me into this world...and delivered this battered old book into my hands.
It's fascinating how such an accidental legacy can reveal itself as a tangible symbol of interconnectivity, linking my 21st century family to a lineage of kindred souls that span our nation’s history from its early formative days to the present.
Someday, in the not too distant future, I will be happy to entrust this book of 250-plus years to my son, Quentin, as evidence of that very same love. He, likewise, will have the privilege and responsibility of passing it on to my beloved grandson, Mason, who is currently the last male of our direct line bearing the Curry surname.
