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Hurd did not engrave as many plates as Maverick did, but his
career was much shorter, as he died in 1777, while Maverick
lived some thirty years longer. But all the work which Hurd
did showed him fitted by nature to excel in the line of work
his enterprise led him to take up, and, had he been spared to
continue the development of the art of the book-plate, he
would undoubtedly have made many which would have stood the
most careful comparisons. At the present time, the collector
knows nearly fifty plates which were made by him; and among
his customers were such men as Theodore Atkinson, who was a
person of no small importance in the colony of New Hampshire,
holding various offices which the Revolution deprived him of,
and who at his death left £200 to his church, the interest
to be spent for bread to be given to the poor; Francis Dana,
a statesman and jurist of distinction, who served his country
in many offices, and was Secretary of Legation when Mr. Adams
went to Paris in 1779, and who was a founder of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, and whose son, Richard Henry
Dana, the essayist and poet, was a member of the club which
started the North American Review. Francis Dana married a
daughter of William Ellery, and Ellery Street in Boston was
so named to commemorate her family. And there were Dr. Samuel
Danforth, who practised until he was eighty years of age, and
whose judgment was so highly thought of that in every
difficult medical case he was appealed to with the feeling
that his opinion reached the limit of human skill; Philip
Dumeresque, who was one of the founders of old Trinity Church
in Boston, yet in whose home on Summer Street Peter Pelham,
who is known to-day as the earliest engraver we have any
account of in New England, taught not only writing and
arithmetic, but dancing; Benjamin Greene, a wealthy Boston
merchant; Robert Hale of Beverly, a leading man in the
province, and commander of a regiment under Pepperell at
Louisburg; Harvard College, for which Hurd made several
plates; the Rev. William Hooper, father of the signer of the
Declaration, from North Carolina; Hon. Jonathan Jackson, who
dined with General Washington upon the occasion of that visit
to Boston when Governor Hancock acted with rudeness to the President, and
who at the table discussed the matter, freely condemning the
Governor for his action; Robert Jenkins, who collected the
money to buy the chime of bells which hung in the steeple of
Christ Church, Boston; Peter R, Livingston, of the family for
whom Maverick made several plates; John Lowell, who inserted
in the " Bill of Rights " the phrase " all men are born free
and equal, " with the express purpose of suppressing slavery;
Joshua Spooner, whose plate must have been intended to convey
a pun on the owner's name, as it shows two doves billing and
cooing; Andrew Tyler, a goldsmith of Boston; and the
Wentworths of New Hampshire. Such interest, however, clusters about the name of Paul Revere, the stanch patriot of Massachusetts, that the few book-plates he made are esteemed of the highest importance, ranking in the collector's regard next to the plate of General Washington. There are four plates which bear the signature of Revere as engraver, and one of them, the Epes Sargent, is quite rare. The others belonged to Gardiner Chandler, David Greene, and William Wetmore, all members of families whose names are well known in Massachusetts, although these individual owners may not themselves have earned enduring fame. There is another plate, bearing the name Paul Revere, which was Revere's own, and which was in all probability his own handiwork, although it is not signed. This little group of five plates, with one or two others which are sometimes attributed to him, complete the list of known book-plates by this celebrated man. He attained a rough proficiency in the art of engraving on copper, and his bookplates are engraved with more care and finish than were the cartoons and historical scenes from his graver. In connection with the Epes Sargent plate there is an interesting story: For a long time only one copy of this plate was known, and, as it bore the signature of Revere and was considered unique, it was practically above valuation. Early in the year 1895 I had a letter from a portrait painter living in the city of Providence, R.I., asking if the book-plate of Epes Sargent, engraved by Paul Revere, had any value. Realizing at once the importance of the "find," and feeling that the plate should bring as much as possible, I communicated the news to a book auctioneer of Boston, who, after some correspondence with the writer of the letter of inquiry, bought the two volumes, with the plates in them, for something like thirty-five dollars. The painter, upon this happy conclusion of the matter, wrote me, saying he was pleased to have received so much for the plates, which some years before had cost him ten cents, and which he had bought simply because he admired Copley's portrait of Revere, and, happening one day in an old bookstore in Boston to come across these two volumes containing examples of the work of Revere, was inclined to own them. One of the plates now adorns the collection of a Boston book-plate enthusiast, while the other, which was put up at auction, brought the handsome sum of seventy-five dollars. This is now owned by a lady collector who has one of the finest collections of really good plates in the country. But when we have collected all the plates made by Revere or Hurd, the list of notable plates in Massachusetts is by no means exhausted. A few names will be recognized at once as of distinguished per-ons and families. There was John Adams, the sec-md President of the United States; John Quincy Adams, the sixth President; members of the Apthorp family — East Apthorp, the Episcopal divine, who was a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (which itself ad a curious pictorial plate), and who occupied a very elegant house which was dubbed "the palace of one of the humble successors of the Apostles " ; Joseph Barrell, the rich Boston merchant and pioneer in the northwest coast trade ; Jonathan Belcher, Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, 1730-1741 ; Hon. James Bowdoin, the benefactor of the college which bears his name ; Stephen Cleveland, whose pictorial plate showing a British man-of-war under full sail is very unusual and very pleasing, and who is said to have received the first commission in the United States Navy; Hector Coffin of Boston, a descendant of old Sir Isaac Coffin, and coming from the Pine Coffin family of England (of so suggestive a name); Richard Cranch, brother-in-law of John Adams, who lived in Braintree; Samuel Dexter, the Secretary of War, and later Secretary of the Treasury; Joseph Dudley, the Governor of the Colony of Massachusetts, whose plate bore the date 1702, and which is the earliest dated plate in America thus far discovered; Jeremiah Dummer, a goldsmith and father of the Governor; Rev. William Emerson, father of Ralph Waldo Emerson; Jeremiah Everts, father of the senator; Edward Everett, scholar and orator; Edward Augustus Holyoke, the eminent physician and surgeon, whose abilities did not fail at an advanced age; John Jeffries, another physician and surgeon, and one who rendered service to the British and was the man who recognized the body of General Warren at the battle of Bunker Hill; Minot, the historian; Timothy Newell, who used an elaborate wood-cut which was printed by Isaiah Thomas, and which represented the patriotic feelings of its owner in the military accoutrements displayed in the ornamentation; Andrew Oliver, eldest son of the famous stamp distributor under Hutchinson, and whose house was mobbed and he himself hung in effigy; James Otis, wrhose daughter Mercy married Jarnes Warren, sometime President of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, and his son of the same name, who was so distinguished an orator and patriot; Sir William Pepperell, grandson of the first Sir William, who assumed his name and was created a baronet Oct. 29, 1774, and whose vast estates were confiscated because of the intense loyalism of the family. This Sir William married Elizabeth Royal and died without leaving heirs, by which means the name became extinct in this country, the family being represented by Sparhawks, Huttons, Tylers, Snows, and others. A granddaughter of Sir William married a Colonel Williams, and upon her death the Colonel consoled himself with a second wife, and she dying before very long, a third consort was taken. The following spicy record of these matrimonial ventures was written by some witty friend: " Colonel Williams married his first wife, Miss Miriam Tyler, for good sense, and got it; his second wife, Miss Wells, for love and beauty, and had it; and his third wife, Aunt Hannah Dickinson, for good qualities, and got horribly cheated." Thomas Handasyd Perkins was a rich merchant of Boston, who used an armorial plate; and, among others whose plates are interesting, on account of the prominence of their owners in one way or another, should be mentioned: Samuel Phillips, founder of the Academy at Andover which bears his name; Josiah Quincy, the Mayor of Boston in whose administration several important public works were completed; Isaac Royall, benefactor of Harvard College (afterwards of Antigua); Thomas O. Selfridge, who killed Charles Austin on State Street in Boston, in 1806, and who was defended at his trial by Samuel Dexter and Christopher Gore, and was acquitted, it being explained by some one that the cause of the dispute in which the two were engaged was owing to a misunderstanding about " seven roast pigs and ten bushels of green peas." The real cause was a political disagreement. For a long time this Monday of August was known in Boston as " Bloody Monday." James Swan, who was a member of the " Boston Tea Party," used an interesting pictorial book-plate which gave a clue to his Scotch descent, and John Barnard Swett of Newburyport used a plate which was full of emblems which no one could mistake, indicating the disciple of AEsculapius. As the early printers of Massachusetts hold a prominent place in the history of the state, the plate of Isaiah Thomas is one that the collector is glad to add to his list. Continued on this page |