(WAR OF 1812) The Primer or Office of the B Virgin Mary

Sale 2310 - Lot 278

Price Realized: $ 1,920

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000

PRAYER BOOK "GOT AT THE STORMING OF FORT NIAGARA" (WAR OF 1812.) The Primer or Office of the B. Virgin Mary. 8vo, contemporary calf, worn and largely disbound, with contemporary cloth cover; worn throughout, with frontispiece and title page detached and laid down on early paper, likely lacking some leaves, and numerous early inscriptions throughout. Dublin: R. Cross, circa 1803, with inscriptions through 1873

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This Catholic hymn and prayer book was captured by a British soldier at the Battle of Fort Niagara. Garrett FitzGerald was a color sergeant of the 100th Regiment of Foot from Dublin, the regiment that led the legendary surgical strike on Fort Niagara which killed or captured more than 400 Americans while suffering only 3 fatalities. It was one of the great British victories of the war. Inscribed in this volume on facing blank pages are "G. FitzGerald, Color Sergt 100th or late 99th Regiment," and "Garrett FitzGerald's book, got at the storming of Fort Niagara, United States of America, the morning of 19th December 1813."
After the war, Sergeant Fitzgerald received a land grant in Richmond, Ontario near Ottawa (as did many of his compatriots). His family's births, marriages, and deaths through 1873 are recorded in this volume on 5 blank leaves, as well as manuscript prayers. This book is not pretty, but it has been through a war. A remarkable artifact of an important battle.