Description
The first Edinburgh edition of The Journal Of A Two-Months Tour; With A View Of Promoting Religion Among The Frontier Inhabitants of Pennsylvania by Charles Beatty, published in Edinburgh in 1798.
Quarto, [4], 56pp, [2]. Quarter blue morocco, marbled boards, title in gilt on spine, decorative raised bands. Gray endpapers. Label removed from spine, leaving small blemish.
(Field 1875) (Thomson 73) (Sabin 4149)
A scarce work, last appearing at auction in 1949.
This journal was produced by Rev. Charles Beatty, who was appointed by the Synolds of New York and Philadelphia to explore the western frontier. Beatty and his interpreter left Fort Pitt in 1766 to explore the religious traditions of native tribes throughout the southeastern Ohio region. His journal produced one of the best records of Shawnee and Delaware tribes and their attacks against frontier settlements.
The first edition of this work was published in London in 1768 by William Davenhill and George Pearch. The issue from Edinburgh was reprinted by the Brainerd’s Journal of a Mission among the Indians in 1798, with “some copies struck off separately with title page.” From Sabin: “This journal, though chiefly of a religious cast, is enlivened with many agreeable notes and circumstances relating to the manners and customs of the Delaware Indians, who, from certain similar customs and some traditions among them, the author conjectures to be the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel.” (Sabin 4149)
