Jun 05, 2008 - Sale 2148

Sale 2148 - Lot 5

Price Realized: $ 3,360
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE REV. SAMSON OCCOM, A PROMINENT MOHEGAN (AMERICAN INDIANS.) Buell, Samuel. The Excellence and Importance of the Saving Knowledge of the Lord . . . : A Sermon, Preached at East-Hampton, August 29, 1759; at the Ordination of Mr. Samson Occum, a Missionary among the Indians. xvi, viii, 38 pages. 8vo, early 20th-century full morocco gilt, period style; browning and minor foxing, unevenly trimmed to 186 mm just grazing the bottom lines of 2 footnotes, minor chipping on final 2 leaves with no loss of text, lacks blank rear flyleaf; signatures of early owners Josiah Hitchcock on half-title and Benjamin Goold on title and elsewhere, bookplate of Robert A. Gardiner on front pastedown. New York, 1761

Additional Details

The Rev. Samson Occom (1723-1792) was a Mohegan who became a missionary among the Montauks of Long Island and was ordained as a Presbyterian clergyman in 1759. He also raised funds which were instrumental in the founding of Dartmouth College.

This work includes Buell's long biographical sketch of Occom, which begins: "To make use of Mr. Occum's own Phraseology, He was brought up a Heathen till he entered upon the eighteenth Year of his Age : At which Age, he began to seek after an increasing Acquaintance with the English Tongue; and to labour after being indoctrinated in the Christian Religion." This copy had been the property of prominent East Hampton book collector Robert A. Gardiner (1863-1919). We find no other copies offered for sale since 1933. Evans 8808, Sabin 8984.


with--another work by Buell: A Faithful Narrative of the Remarkable Revival of Religion in the Congregation of Easthampton, on Long-Island. Illustrated with a frontispiece of Buell, 1/4 calf, worn, in a 1/4 morocco slipcover. Sag Harbor, NY, 1808. Sabin 8983.