BOOK NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Association has received from the editor, Edgar Ewing
Brandon, Dean Emeritus of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio,
a book entitled A Pilgrimage of Liberty: A Contemporary
Account of the Triumphal Tour of General Lafayette Through
the Southern and Western States in 1825, as Reported by the
Local Newspapers.
This volume covers the third period of Lafayette's tour of
the United States from August 15, 1824, to September 8,
1825. The editor says that, on account of the peculiar sig-
nificance and interest of the tour of the South and the West,
he presents this part as the first installment of the work.
Three other volumes covering the first, second, and fourth
periods are in preparation.
The journey of the illustrious Frenchman was a round of
pageantry. Dean Brandon traveled over the route, visited the
houses where Lafayette lodged, traversed the streets over
which the parades passed, and omitted no opportunity for per-
sonal inspection of every detail of the visit. Contemporary
newspapers have been searched for information and furnished
valuable aid. Without doubt a very careful and very extensive
compilation of the progress of the journey has been made. The
book has 487 pages including notes, a bibliography, and ex-
cellent maps of the itinerary.
The first sentence of The
Providence
Oath
of
Allegiance
and
Its
Signers
by Richard Le Baron Bowen is of interest to all
who are on the alert for materials having to do with the past.
"Among the original manuscripts in the library of Frederick
Stanhope Peck, Esquire, of Barrington, Rhode Island, is a 291-
year-old document of great historical importance to Rhode
Island, especially to Providence." This document is the Provi-
dence Oath of Allegiance, 1651-2.
idence only fifteen years after the colony was established and
while Roger Williams was absent in England trying to get
the charter restored, is not recorded in the original Colony
Records nor in the original Providence Town Records. The
historians of Rhode Island apparently missed the importance
and significance of the document and dismissed it with casual
mention if it were mentioned at all.
This small volume is a study of the document and the
men who signed it. Mr. Bowen says, "Knowing the lives
of these men who were actually making its history, we are
able to reconstruct a middle of the seventeenth century picture
of the Town of Providence not found elsewhere." Since this
document has lain unheralded for 291 years, one wonders what
we may be overlooking among our documents and records that
likewise might mirror the early life of our towns and com-
munities.
The University of Texas
The Texas State Historical Association acknowledges receipt
of the following:
Papers in Illinois History, 1941, and Transactions for the
Year, 1941, from the Illinois State Historical Society.
Archives of Maryland, Vol. 59. Proceedings and Acts of the
General Assembly of Maryland, 1764-65. J. Hall Pleasants,
editor. Published by Maryland Historical Society.
David
Dale
Owen,
Pioneer
Geologist
of
the
Middle
West,
by Walter Brookfield Hendrickson. Published by the Indiana
Historical Bureau, Indianapolis, 1943.
Peter
Melendy,
The
Mind
and
the
Soil,
by Luella M. Wright.
This is another volume in the lowa Biographical Series put
out by the State Historical Society of lowa.
Cultural
Story
of
an
American
City,
Cleveland,
Part
I,
1796-1825,
by Elbert Joy Benton. Published by Western Reserve
Historical Society. Several maps and illustrations are included.
The
Centenary
of
the
Cincinnati
Observatory,
18
43
-19
43.
This includes the Addresses and Miscellany relating to the Cen-
tennial Celebration of the First Large Astronomical Observatory
in America. It is published by the Historical and Philosophical
Society of Ohio and The University of Cincinnati, and contains
many illustrations.
The State Historical Society of South Dakota has published
Volume Twenty-one of the Collections
of
the
Materials
of
History.
This volume contains six articles by different authors on sub-
jects connected with the history of South Dakota. Charts and
illustrations are included but there is no index.
How to cite:
"Book Notes and Acknowledgments", Volume 48, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v048/n1/contrib_DIVL2264.html
[Accessed Mon Nov 23 17:00:05 CST 2009]
