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| The original cover of the Brewster Book and the rebound, restored edition. This page inspired the cover of Caleb Johnson's book |
Last weekend I posted a blog post full of photos from the
reception hosted by the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants at the
Mayflower Society House in Plymouth, Massachusetts where Caleb Johnson revealed
his new book The Brewster Book Manuscript. The official book launch was today at Pilgrim
Hall Museum, where the general public was invited to hear Caleb talk about the
book, and purchase copies.
It was very exciting to see the original manuscript! I watched (and photographed) Donna Curtin of
the Pilgrim Hall Museum unpack the book from a locked box and set it up for temporary
display (that afternoon only) in the Mayflower House. The MSMD has given the manuscript to Pilgrim
Hall on permanent loan. Check out the
last blog post for the photos.
At the reception last weekend, I swore I would not publish
online the new findings Caleb uncovered in his book. Many of you have emailed me and caught me in
person to ask about the new book. But, I
promised I would wait until today, after the public book launch. Here is what I learned!
This little book (about 7.75” x 6”) was a blank book where 7
different authors (seven different handwritings) kept notes on genealogy, Plymouth
settlement, history and other topics (including copies of books and letters)
from the early 1600s predating the 1620 settlement at Plymouth until the late 1800s. There was lots of speculation about the authors,
and it was hoped that since the book was passed along in the Brewster family
perhaps the original author was Mayflower passenger William Brewster himself. It has never been researched or examined by
contemporary scholars.
The book was edited by Caleb Johnson with transcription
assistance from Simon Neale on the bits written in Latin. Some of the genealogies
in the middle of this book had been previously transcribed and published in the
first four volumes of the Mayflower Quarterly. The rest of the manuscript has been largely ignored.
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| Authors Sue Allan, Simon Neale and Caleb Johnson with Deputy Governor Barbara Kelly and Governor Bill Tinney of the Massachusetts Mayflower Society |
The first section of the book, written by a previously
unknown author, included copies of letters from 1618 – 1621, patents to the
Plymouth Colony 1620 – 1621 including a patent from Gorges dated 4 November
1620, letters about Tisquantum written before contact at Plymouth, pages on how
to ship cattle to New England, information about Virginia and New England, and
more copies of letters and the Latin Text (20 pages) taken from a Latin pamphlet
written in Leiden, Holland in 1617 by Friar Tommaso Campanella (1568 – 1639) “The Subjugation of Belgium
by Spain”.
These first items in the first section of the book all point
to some interesting new views of the Pilgrim story. Obviously the Pilgrims knew all about New
England, as well as Virginia, so they were prepared to land in New
England. They knew about Tisquantum
(Squanto) well before he stepped out of the woods and introduced himself to the
settlers in 1621. Did Brewster publish a
copy of Campanella’s pamphlet on his printing press in Leiden? These are interesting new views and new
questions about our Pilgrim ancestors!
And who wrote these entries in the manuscript? After much research and comparisons to known handwriting of Brewster, Winslow, and other Mayflower passengers it was
discovered that the original author who penned the first section of this book
was most likely Edward Winslow. He was a prolific
writer, and many other examples of his penmanship exist, and he was one of the
few passengers who knew Latin. This week Caleb Johnson had some time to examine documents in the Pilgrim Hall Museum, and he found some examples of Brewster that did not match the manuscript.
The second writer was probably William Brewster, grandson of
the Mayflower passenger, who also drew an image of a horse as a young boy. The third writer was Jonathan Brewster, son
of William the passenger – he included an inventory of his father’s books, a
genealogy through 1651, a history of New England copied from Edward Johnson’s book
Wonder Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New England, and
alchemy notes starting about 1657.
Caleb Johnson also revealed that the fourth author was
Benjamin Brewster (third generation) with his own family record, a letter to his
brother-in-law Daniel Wetherell, and an account of a visit to George Geres in
1684. The fifth author was Daniel
Brewster (fourth generation), the sixth was Jabez Fitch (sixth generation), and
the seventh, and last, author was Cordila Walker Fitch (seventh generation
since the Mayflower) writing until October 1899.
The Brewster Book Manuscript will be sold at
the website for the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants https://massmayflower.org and book orders on this webpage:
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| Caleb Johnson's presentation at the Mayflower Society House last weekend |
For the truly curious:
The Brewster Book Manuscript, edited by Caleb
Johnson and Simon Neal, Lulu.com, Raleigh, North Carolina, 2019.
My original blog post (Part One) “Sneak Preview of the New
Brewster Book Manuscript”
Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour in New
England by Captain Edward Johnson, 1654, available to view online at
this link: https://archive.org/details/wonderworkingpr00johngoog/page/n8
Tommaso Campanella at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommaso_Campanella
Part One of this blog post, dated September 15, 2019
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/09/sneak-preview-of-new-brewster-book.html
Thanks to Barbara Lee Foley Kelly for the photos above!
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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Part Two of The Brewster Book
Manuscript book launch”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 22, 2019,
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