Lot 241

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Description:

Bowdoin College President Researches Copperas and Sends Catalog to New York Newspaper Publisher

[BOWDOIN COLLEGE.] Two interesting items from an early president of Bowdoin College. 1820-1837, Brunswick, Maine. Catalog lacks cover and has some staining; manuscript has some edge tears and general aging.

Comprises:

1) William Allen, Autograph Document, Report on Copperas Works at Strafford, Vermont, 1820. 3 pp., 5" x 8".

“Copperas works at Strafford Vermont, 12 miles from Dartmouth College. / The ore is found on the side of a large hill or mountain; the quantity apparently inexhaustible.”

“The price during the war [War of 1812] was 10 Dol. Per ton. May 1820 only 3 Dol; the copperas is put into a store or cellar for future sale. If no change in price the works cease after this year. The establishment is most conveniently arranged, as the descent of a hill allows the solution to pass from a higher to a lower vat, &c. and saves great labor.”

Copperas is iron sulfate, and mines in Vermont’s thirty-mile-long “Copper Belt” produced millions of pounds of copper in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Copperas was used to make other chemicals, including sulfuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids. It was particularly important in the dyeing industry and for blackening wood and leather. It could also be used to disinfect outhouses and sewers and to purify water.

2) Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Bowdoin College, and the Medical School of Maine. 1837-8. [Brunswick, ME:] Joseph Griffin, 1837. 24 pp., 4.75" x 7.125". Autograph Inscription Signed: “To Sr. James Gordon Bennett Editor of the New York Herald / From one who admires his paper and wishes it success. / Wm Allen Prest. of the College”.

"Candidates for admission into the Freshman Class are required to write Latin grammatically, and to be well versed in Geography, Arithmetic, six sections in Smyth’s Algebra, Cicero’s Select Orations, the Bucolics, Georgics, and Aeneid of Virgil, Sallust, the Gospels of the Greek Testament, and Jacob’s Greek Reader. They must produce certificates of their good moral character.”

The catalog lists 136 college students by class and 78 medical students. James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872) began publishing The Morning Herald in New York City in 1835. By 1845, it was the most popular and profitable newspaper in the nation.

William Allen (1784-1868) was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College in 1802. He served as a regent and assistant librarian of Harvard from 1804 to 1810, when he took over his father’s parish in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1817, he became president of the short-lived Darmouth University in 1817. When it dissolved, he became the third president of Bowdoin College in 1820 and served with one brief interruption (1831-1832) until 1839. During his tenure, Allen helped establish the Medical School of Maine at Bowdoin College. He retired to Northampton, Massachusetts in 1839. He compiled and edited three editions of the American Biographical and Historical Dictionary between 1809 and 1857.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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May 26, 2021 10:30 AM EDT
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