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Read the Whole, and Then Decide! Cothren's History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut…
Woodbury, CT, 1854. Circular, 8.75” x 8.5”, 4 pp. CONDITION: Very good, old folds with some light toning and small separations along folds. An unrecorded circular advertising a “pioneering” history of Woodbury by a distinguished Maine transplant. Announcing a work of “untiring perseverance, onerous labor, and patient research” that occupied all of the author’s leisure time, this circular promotes the first two volumes of William Cothren’s History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut (1854). Cothren drew upon sources in “the archives of the state” as well as “the forgotten files of old papers in the neglected garret of the private citizen.” He declares here that “no territory…in the state, boasts of a prouder historical heritage.” Cothren notes that his “large octavo volume of eight hundred and forty three pages…contains a minute, accurate and complete history of the towns indicated, together with an account of the leading historical events of the state…more than one–third of the volume is devoted to genealogical and statistical matter, interspersed with numerous short biographies…It is embellished with more than four hundred dollars worth of…engravings…[and] one Indian map.” These volumes ultimately led to the publication of an additional volume (in 1879) and are described as having “about as much reading matter as four volumes of Bancroft’s History of the United States.” Accompanying this principal advertisement by Cothren are a series of reviews by Connecticut notables and newspapers assuring potential buyers of the quality of his book. William Cothren (1819–1898) was born in Farmington, Maine and “was a descendant of a soldier of King Philip’s war…a soldier in the French-English war…and a sergeant of the war of 1812. He was prepared for Bowdoin college, and graduated from that institution in 1843. He received the degree of M.A…from Yale university in 1847.” He maintained a successful legal practice in Woodbury CT, was a Freemason, and held “many offices in historical and genealogical societies…His elaborate history of Woodbury, in three volumes, of two hundred and fifty pages, is said to be the pioneer work in scope and completeness, as a full history of a New England town, that has been published.” REFERENCES: “Woodbury’s Historian” in The Morning Journal-Courier (New Haven, Connecticut), March 28, 1898.
Item #8818
Price: $225.00
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