CABOT.-Genealogical information of this name wanted by the undersigned, to aid in a genealogy now preparing. Communications will be thankfully received and acknowledged. WM. P. CABOT, Boston, Mass. SIR HENRY VANE.-"I went on Wednesday last to Maystone to the nowe Mayor," but "Sr Francis Barnham, whose malice, was it not in howrely machination busyed against one or other, hee could not live; his plott being, as I discover, to sett upp there younge Sr Henry Vane, Mr Treasurer's sonne, a courtyer as well as his father nowe, though lately, as you Knowe, Governour at New England; and I thinke you will accompt it unneighborly in younge Sir Henry Vane to embrace the motion (when he knew I was pre ingaged) as malititious in Barnham to offer it; but Mr. Treasurer pleaseth himselfe in this revenge on mee, for my profession at the last election to you." (Sir John Sedley to Sir Edward Deering, of co. Kent, Oct. 5, 1640).—Camden Society, pp. 12-14. The editor appends a note: "Sir Francis sat in this parliament" and "so was probably manoeuvring for himself." J. W. T. WARD AND WOODBRIDGE (ante, vol. xxiii. p. 475).—Rev. Ephraim W. Allen, of Haverhill, Mass., informs me that the date of the death of Mrs. Mary (Ward) Woodbridge is found on the town records of Haverhill, corresponding to that on the tombstone at Bristol, R. I., copied by Mr. Woodbridge, of Little Falls (not Glen Falls), N. Y., and printed in the REGISTER. The record containing this date is copied by Rev. Mr. Allen as follows: "Mr John Ward & Mrs Alice; Edmunds. Elizabeth borne April 1: 1647: Died Aprill: 29: 1714. In the letter in which he sent the above copy of the record, Rev. Mr. Allen writes: "The date of the marriage is not given. Nor was it probably known, by the person who made the record of marriage, what the name of Mr. Ward's wife was; for the name Edmunds' is, apparently, by a different hand from that which wrote the words preceding it. You will notice the semicolon after Alice,' as though the writer supposed her surname to have been Alice. The entries appear to have been made by persons living at the several dates." A recent discovery, by Col. Chester, of London, of the record of the marriage license of Rev. John Ward, shows that the surname of Mrs. Alice Ward was really Edmunds, as given on the Haverhill records, and that she was the daughter of Nicholas Edmunds, of Alkham in Kent. The marriage allegation is dated May 24, 1636, and represents Mr. Ward to be "of the parish of Hadleigh ad Castrum in the County of Kent, Clarke, and a batchelour aged about 26 years," and Alice Edmunds to be a "spinster, aged about 24 years." License was requested by Mr. Ward "to be married in the parish church of St. Leonard in Foster lane, London." The register of this church previous to 1666 was destroyed with the church in the great fire of that year. See Historical Magazine, 2d S. vol. v. p. 129. Rev. Mr. Allen, in the letter before quoted, copies the following entry from the first pages of the records of the First Church of Haverhill: 64 "John Ward, first minister in Haverhill was settled in 1641, Obiit Decr 27: 1693, Etat. 88." He writes that this entry was apparently made "by some one at the close of the last century or the beginning of this. It is not an original entry. Mr. Ward," he adds, left no church records so far as I know. The first book of records of the First Church, now before me and numbered No. 1,' was begun by Mr. Rolfe, Mr. Ward's colleague and successor.' "" The age of Rev. Mr. Ward on the Haverhill church records agrees with the date of his birth, Nov. 5, 1606, given by Mather in his Magnalia, bk iii. ch. 31, sect. 2, and may have been derived from that book, but it does not agree with his age in his marriage allegation. It is uncertain which is correct. J. W. D. SPOONER.-Ebenezer Spooner, b. Oct. 26, 1718, son of Thomas and Sarah (Nelson) Spooner, of Plymouth, married Mary Morton, of Middleboro'. What was the date of the marriage? What was the date of birth of Mary Morton, and who were her parents and grand-parents? 8. NUCOME-NEWCOME-NEWCOMEN-NEWCOMB-NEWCOMBE. [From York County Court Records, paper covered Book, in Probate Office at Alfred, Maine, page 31.] This Deed maid the twenteth day of mrch 1649 | betwen Thomas weathers one the one prt & | Elias Nucome one the other pty witnesth that | I the sd Tho. weathers for & in Consideration | of the sume of sixty fiue pounds sterling | sufficienly pd & satisfyed vnto me by the sd | Elias Nucome & other Considerations me therevnto | especialy mouing haue bargened sould Infefed | & Confyrmed vnto the sd Elias Nucomen his heyrs | & assinges for euer the moyety or one halfe of the Iland Comonly knowne by the name of Capt | ffrancis Champnes Iland att the mouth of Pascattawaie Riuer wher John Heard latly | dwelled wth all the mich meddowes vpland wood & underwood ther to belonging wth all aminueties | & priueleges ther to appertaynig to the onely vse ] & behougt of the sd Elias nucomen his heyres & wow heroff here to set my hancome le heyday & year abou specifyed Singed sealed & deld | in the presence of wm James & | Alexsander Joane | [From same book, page 99.] Letters of Administration of the goods of mr Cads | Edwards granted to Edwards his brother in the | behalf of the widdow of the sd Cads Edwards | m, Elias Nucomen & mr Arthur Frost bound for the sd Edwards to giue Accoumpt • mr John Edwards mr Elias Nucomnen & Arthur | Frost did bynd them selues in a Recognisence of one hunderth pounds wch they doe acknolege | to Pform, the Administrators acknolegeds | before me this 10th Xcembr [16,51] Edw Godfrey Ellias Newcomen [flourish.]] [From the same records, volume and page not noted.] Octo 15 1650 Elias Newcomen chosen Constable for Isles of Shoales. [I shall be much obliged for additional facts respecting the Elias Newcome or Newcomen named in the foregoing, or for information respecting any probable sources where such facts may be obtained. JOHN BEARSE NEWCOMB.] Elgin, Ill., Jan. 12, 1870. POPE, THOMAS, AND FAMILY.-Where did Thomas Pope (of Plymouth 1631) come from to this country, and when, and in what ship? When did Ann (Fallowell) Pope his first wife die? When did Sarah, his second wife, die? Maiden names of the wives of Seth Pope, first? Birth, marriage and death of Isaac Pope, son of Thomas? BIBLIOGRAPHY.-A volume of " Gleanings," by Mr. CHARLES BRIDGER, of London, 10 Great Coram St., will contain matters of American interest; something fresh about the Dudley pedigree, much that is new about William Brewster, and Simon Bradstreet, and many others. J. W. T. FOXCROFT.-Rev. Samuel Foxcroft, who was graduated from Harvard College, 1754, was for many years the settled minister of New-Gloucester, where his descendants now reside. He died March, 1807, aged 72. He was the only son of Rev. Thomas Foxcroft, for many years minister of the First Church in Boston, and the author of a large number of works, chiefly in pamphlet form. THE FIRST QUARTO BIBLE IN AMERICA.-In 1779 Isaac Collins projected his great enterprise, the greatest one at that time in the publishing business in America; which formed a new era in, and endurably identified his name with the history of American printing. This was the issue of 5000 copies of a Quarto Family Bible, the first edition of a Quarto Family Bible in the United States, and which for accuracy and superior typography elicited the admiration of every one who examined it. To insure this accuracy, the proofs were read eleven times, that in spelling and punctuation no error should pass undetected. Such was the accuracy of this edition, that it early became the standard in typography with bible societies and biblical scholars generally.-Blake's Biographical Dictionary. Article, Isaac Collins. ABOUT OLD BIBLES." A curiosity is owned by Mrs. Sheldon Bassett of North Hector, N. Y. It is a family Bible, printed in the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the title page bears the following inscription:- Imprinted in London by the Deputies of Christopher Barker, printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, 1590.' Mrs. Bassett's maiden name was Rusco. By an endorsement on the fly-leaf of the Bible it appears to have belonged to Nathaniel Ruscoe in May, 1677. The original cost of this Bible was about equal to $144 of our currency." The Bible referred to is what is commonly known as the "Breeches Bible," of which a great many editions were printed towards the close of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. It is called the Breeches Bible from the rendering given to the 7th verse of the III. chapter of Genesis, viz. : "Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed figge tree leaves together and made themselves breeches." This seems to prove, if it proves anything, that the first woman wore that garment which has since been exclusively claimed as belonging to man. The advocates of woman's rights should look to this. I have in my possession a copy of the same Bible, and having the same title, with the imprint of 1599, printed twenty-one years before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and twenty-eight years before the founding of our Hub. The late Mr. George Livermore of Cambridge owned another copy of the same edition and date, and I have heard of other copies owned in the United States. My copy I purchased in New York, at a second-hand bookstore, about ten years since, for the small sum of two dollars and a half. Supposing that sum, $24, to have been the original price of the Bible in 1599, and to have then been placed at compound interest, and thus been doubled every twelve years, it represented, in 1863, $10,485,760, and will in 1875 represent double that sum. You can inform your readers that much as I value it, I shall be glad to dispose of it at a reduction from this nominal value. In 1847 I purchased at a sale of books Down East an old Bible in fine preservation, printed in Latin, A.D. 1524, then 323 years old, for which I gave but three dollars. It was of the ordinary duodecimo size, and printed in fine but clear type, and on good strong paper. From the marginal notes in different handwritings upon it, it had evidently passed through many hands. I presented it to a friend who valued such rarities, and in whose family it probably still remains. A friend at the time (1847) calculated its compound interest value as 382,177,974 dollars 34 cts. 8 mills— (I am glad he was so particular about the mills). Many individuals can attest from sad experience that a sum at compound interest, doubles itself every twelve years, or in a rather less time; but few, I think, appreciate what a sum their small debts will run up to if carried on for a century or centuries.-(Transcript, May 30, 1868.) P. THE OLDEST NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENTS.-Considerable discussion has been going on in English periodicals respecting the date of the earliest newspaper advertisements. Mr. J. H. Fennell, writing to correct the errors of another person, says: "In my collection of curious old newspapers I have several numbers of Mercurius Civicus, or London's Intelligencer, printed and sold in the Old Bailey in 1643. In the number dated August 11, 1643, the fourth part of Prynne's work on the Sovereign Power of Parliaments is advertised. In the number dated October 23, 1643, is an advertisement of Prynne's work entitled the Doom of Cowardice and Treachery. I may add that this old newspaper, Mercurius Civicus, is not only remarkable as containing the earliest instances of newspaper advertisements, but as being the earliest illustrated newspaper, each number containing a woodcut portrait of the heroes of the day, when the civil wars were going on throughout the kingdom, in the troublous times of King Charles I." For twenty years after the above dates, advertisements, or "notifications," as they were called, were very few and far between for several years, until we approach the era of the London Gazette. Here, for some time, they assumed no very definite form, consisting merely of a short official notice in italics at the end of each Gazette, and not headed with the title of "Advertisement." One of the first called by this name in this paper is contained in the number for May 6, 1667. It is sufficiently remarkable to deserve resuscitation, and runs as follows: "An advertisement. We are, by his majesty's command, to give notice, that by reason of the great heats which are growing on, there will be no further touching for the evil till Michaelmas next, and, accordingly, all persons concerned are to forbear their addresses till that time." In Chambers's Journal, in an article entitled "Early Newspaper Advertisements," we read: "Charging for advertisements commenced at a very early period. A few at first might have been inserted gratuitously, but the revenue flowing from this source was so obvious a consideration that the practice soon began of charging a fixed sum for each. In the Mercurius Librarius, a booksellers' paper, it is stated that To show that the publishers design the public advantage of trade, they will expect but sixpence for inserting any book, nor but twelve pence for any advertisement relating to the trade, unless it be excessive long.' The next intimation as to price is in the Jockey's Intelligencer, which charged one shilling for each, and sixpence for renewing. The Observator, in 1704, charged one shilling for eight lines: and the Country Gentleman's Courant, in 1706, inserted advertisements at twopence per line. The Public Advertiser charged, for a length of time, two shillings for each insertion."—(Transcript, Oct. 19, 1867.) THE CHESHIRE JEFFERSON CHEESE,-A recent number of Littell's Liviny Age contains an interesting article by Elihu Burritt, on the great cheese which the people of Cheshire, Mass., made for Thomas Jefferson. Elder John Leland was a great pulpit politician in those days, and preached to the people of Cheshire such stirring Jeffersonian democracy that for generations they never voted anything but a straight democratic ticket. When Jefferson was chosen president, after a contest of tremendous excitement, Elder John Leland proposed that his flock should celebrate the victory by making for the new chief magistrate the biggest cheese the world had ever seen. Every man and woman who owned a cow was to give for this cheese all the milk yielded on a certain day-only no Federal cow must contribute a drop. A huge cider press was fitted up to make it in, and on the appointed day the whole country turned out with pails and tubs of curd, the girls and women in their best gowns and ribbons, and the men in their Sunday coats and clean shirt-collars. The cheese was put to press with prayer, and hymn-singing, and great solemnity. When it was well dried it weighed sixteen hundred pounds, and as it could not be trusted on wheels, it waited till mid-winter, when it was placed on a sleigh and Elder John Leland drove with it all the way to Washington. (There was more snow, you see, in those times than there is now.) It was a journey of three weeks. All the country had heard of the big cheese and came out to look at it as the elder drove along. When he got to Washington Mr. Jefferson received him in state, made a speech, and in the presence of the heads of departments, foreign ministers and other distinguished persons, cut the cheese and served some of it around with bread. Then he sent a wedge of it home to the makers, and when it arrived they also ate it in state. We are further informed that the cheese was very good. THE LAST OF THE NARRAGANSETTS.-A correspondent of the Providence Erening Press gives quite an interesting account of a recent visit to the remains of the once powerful Indian tribe, the Narragansetts, now found in Rhode Island. They are chiefly confined to the town of Charlestown, and own about one-seventh of the whole territory of that town. In 1833 there were living in the town 199 Narragansetts, besides about 50 who were living elsewhere. Only seven of these were pure Narragansetts, and only fourteen were even half bloods. The others were mixed bloods and mongrels, with a large infusion of negro blood in their veins. At present there are only about a hundred Indians of all kinds in the town, and only one pure blood among them all. The men are chiefly farmers, fishermen and stone masons; and those who are industrious get a good living. But idleness and shiftlessness are dominant characteristics; and their lands, which were originally good, are much exhausted and quite unproductive. A considerable quantity of the land is owned by the tribe in common, say about a thousand acres; and the private lands of the Indians exceed a thousand acres. As long as the state allowed it, the Indians continued to sell their private lands for trifling sums, often for whiskey; but now no Indian can sell his land without the consent of the state. Yet this poor remnant of this mighty tribe of Narragansett Indians, who once claimed the entire country along the bay to which they have given their name, are doomed to inevitable and speedy extinction. INDEXES.-"Lord Campbell" [late Chancellor of England] is said to have "considered a good index so essential to every book, that he once proposed to deprive every British author who published a book without one of the privilege of copyright." Whether this was true or not, of Lord Campbell, it is a constant source of regret that our law of copyright is defective in this respect. ED. THE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, by F. S. Drake, a work of great labor and research, and upon which he has been engaged for thirteen years, is now ready for publication; and if sufficient encouragement is offered, will doubtles be forthcoming. AMERICAN PRISONERS AMONG THE ALGERINES.-There is in the library of the N. E. HISTORIC, GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, a small volume, presented by Jonathan French, of Boston, in 1869, entitled "History of the war between the United States and Tripoli and other Barbary Powers, to which is prefixed a Geographical, Religious, and Political History of the Barbary States in general. Printed at the Salem Gazette Office, 1806." Such is the title in full of the book, and the copyright is entered in the name of Cushing and Appleton. It appears to have been, "The gift of the author to Jno. Pickering Jr. Nov. 29, 1806," who has written on the title page " By Stephen C. Blyth of Salem." In another handwriting on the cover is this memorandum, "87. bought at the sale of Mr. Pickerings Library Sept. 1846. G.F.G.," and on the next fly leaf in the same handwriting is "Rare not mentioned by Rich." This book gives the following as the return of Americans in captivity at Algiers, March 15, 1791, with the ransom demanded : : The following from the same book is a correct list of the Americans who died of plague at Algiers, Jan. 1, to August 1, 1794: 16471 2044 18362 5.6 Sequins." TRIBUTE TO ALGIERS, ETC.-In the Salem Gazette of April 10, 1798, I note the following, showing the spirit in which we conducted our foreign relations in those days of our infancy and weakness, and exhibiting a few instances of the annoyance our merchant marine was subjected to by French privateers, which led to the quasi war with France that followed. "Philadelphia, Mar. 20.-On Saturday was launched the Algerine Schooner Skjoldbrand, to carry 18 four pounders and 10 swivels. "Same day was launched at Kensington a fine ship of 700 tons burthen, the property of Mr Anthony Butler: this vessel is chartered by the United States for a voyage to VOL. XXIV. 18* |