Ordination sermons, 1785-1870 / collected by Eliphalet Pearson and bound together in a single volume. Publishers and authors vary.

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Abbot, Ephraim, 1779-1870. Ordination sermons, 1785-1870 / collected by Eliphalet Pearson and bound together in a single volume. Publishers and authors vary.

Ordination sermons, 1785-1870 / collected by Eliphalet Pearson and bound together in a single volume. Publishers and authors vary.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/764448396

Of particular note is the Timothy Hilliard sermon printed by John Mycall. The first page of text, as well as page [37], features a woodcut initial and woodcut headpiece. John Mycall, the publisher, "adopted a French approach to his typographic style, as opposed to the English look of most early American books. He liberally used printers' fleurons and decorative headpieces in the French style." What's more, the first headpiece has been printed in red ink, while the ornamented initial has been printed in dark blue. Mycall "in this rare example presents the reader with the first multicolor printing in America, appropriately enough in the Franco-American tricolor of red, white, and blue." Needless to say, this is a paramount landmark in the history of American typography -- never before had color existed in print on American soil (or colonial soil, for that matter). Rev. Timothy Hilliard (1746-1790), the Harvard alum who delivered the sermon here printed, spent a brief period as the pastor at Cambridge; he was popularly known as a compassionate and learned preacher. Of all of his sermons, only five of them were ever published -- this one having been issued only the year before his death. In 1694, there were two parishes in Newbury, Massachusetts, some 35 miles north of Cambridge. As the population grew, settlers at the mouth of the Merrimack withdrew from the City of Newbury to become Newburyport. So, in 1722, these settlers established the Third Parish of Newbury, which later became the First Religious Society of Newburyport. John Lowell, a 22-year-old Harvard graduate, became the parish's first pastor. When Lowell died in 1767, Thomas Cary (1745-1808), another graduate of Harvard, became the parish's second pastor. In 1788, however, Rev. Cary fell ill. To ease the burden of responsibility, the parishioners installed John Andrews, yet another Harvard graduate, as an associate professor -- or "Colleague-Pastor", as he is here referred to. Rev. Hilliard then preached this sermon on the occasion of Rev. Cary's ordination on December 10, 1788. The print run must have been very small (especially for a typographic experiment such as multicolor printing), and those who possessed the ability to read the text must not have been many. Not one copy has been sold at auction in the last fifty years. A magnificent example of typographical progress in America.

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