The binding of this book is made of otterskin, with decorations characteristic of Eastern Woodland Indians. It covers a Hebrew and Chaldean (i.e., Aramaic) dictionary owned by David Brainerd (1718–1747). Brainerd became a missionary after he was expelled from Yale University for making controversial religious statements. He preached for four years among Native Americans in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey before dying in the home of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), third president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Gift of Mrs. William F. H. Edwards. Edwards Collection, Rare Book Division.
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After Joseph Smith (1805–1844), the founder of the Mormon faith, was killed by a mob in 1844, Brigham Young took over the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To escape anti-Mormon persecution, he led a vanguard westward, reaching the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. During the journey, he wrote this letter to his fourth wife, Harriet Cook Young (1824–1898), whom he had secretly married and left in Nauvoo, Illinois, urging her to come west. She arrived in Salt Lake City in September 1848. Gift of Edith Young Booth. Brigham Young Collection, Manuscripts Division.
Phillis Wheatley was named for the slave ship Phillis that brought her from Gambia, West Africa, to Boston in 1761, and the Wheatley family who purchased her. At 12 years old, educated by her mistress, she began publishing poems and elegies in newspapers. She was freed after the publication of her book. Her depiction in this frontispiece is the only surviving work by the African-American slave artist Scipio Moorhead (b. ca. 1750). Gift of Sidney Lapidus, Class of 1959. Rare Book Division.