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(BIBLE IN ENGLISH.)
The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ.
334 pages. 12mo, contemporary plain calf, moderate wear; first gathering coming
loose and a bit worn at fore-edge, minor corner wear throughout, minor foxing; early
owners’ inscriptions on front free endpaper.
“St. Louis: Published by Seward & Hulbert, 1820”
[1,000/1,500]
This is the earliest Bible bearing a west-of-the-Mississippi imprint by 17 years, and is unrecorded in OCLC,
Hills, or Shaw & Shoemaker. It is quite a mystery on many levels. OCLC traces nothing else published
under the Seward & Hulbert imprint, nor anything published by a Seward or Hulbert in St. Louis.
This edition is billed as “The Second American, from the Cambridge Stereotype Edition,” a phrase
used in several American editions from 1813 to 1820 in Albany and Utica, NY (see Hills 246,
316, 361, 389, and 409). The provenance of this copy suggests that it may never have reached St.
Louis. The original owner was William Hayden Doughty (1810-1901), who inscribed it in 1822.
He spent most of his life in Tyrone in western New York. Just below is an inscription by or about his
brother David Ayers Doughty (1804-1886): “David A. Doughty started for Indiana the 20 of June
1838 in his 34 year of his age.” The leaf also bears an inked stamp of William H. Doughty’s grand-
son Ayres Amos Stevens (1882-1964), who lived in Corning, NY near Tyrone until his death.
In short, we don’t really know where this Bible was printed. It may not have been St. Louis, but it is
the earliest Bible bearing an imprint west of the Mississippi, and it is an undeniably rare artifact of
printing for the frontier market.