Testament of Survival: An American Bible and the 1814 Burning of Washington

“Mr Ticknor is particularly the best bibliograph I have met with, and very kindly and opportunely offered me the means of reprocuring some part of the literary treasures which I have ceded to Congress to replace the devastations of British Vandalism at Washington.”

~ Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 10 June 1815

 

The order that resulted in the devastation of the initial congressional library—replaced at some personal cost and anguish with Jefferson’s own—arrived in the city of Washington on August 24, 1814 with Rear Admiral George Cockburn (1772 –1853) and Major General Robert Ross (1766 –1814). As word reached Washington of the impending British arrival, government officials and citizens fled the city. British forces easily marched in, ransacked, and burned the Treasury, the President’s House (the White House), the Navy Yard, the Capitol, and other federal office buildings. However, orders were given not to pillage or destroy civilian property, a command that was largely upheld (with the exception of a few private buildings). Civilian structures were largely ignored, but the seat of government and the contents of federal buildings were set ablaze. The British seizure, occupation, and burning of the United States capital during the War of 1812 left the nascent federal hub in shambles.

While the federal properties and their spoils were being burned, a British officer of the Royal Marines, Nathanael Cole (listed as a captain in the Plymouth Company by the Admiralty Office’s 1813 and 1815 List of Officers), chose to extricate one keepsake for himself, a King James family bible.

It is unclear from where or from whom Cole plundered this particular copy of the Authorized Version (or King James Version) of the bible. Only one book from the original congressional library collection in the Capitol Building is confirmed to have survived the fire: a 1810 federal government account ledger, which, having been taken as a trophy by Admiral Cockburn himself, was returned to the Library of Congress in 1940 as a gift from the collector Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach.

Congressional library catalogs that pre-date the 1814 fire do not include the specific printing of the bible taken by Cole. As the British plundered many federal buildings and offices in addition to the few private buildings, there are several potential sources from which Cole, like Cockburn, may have appropriated the book.

One clue to the bible’s original ownership remains in its binding. While its boards are covered in plain, brown calf, its spine is adorned with a simple gilt stamp decoration that includes a shelf mark – the small number “23” at the spine’s base. If these elements can be matched to other contemporary books with the same binding decoration and numbering, its original library and ownership may be identified. However, it is also probable that Cole removed this bible while the rest of the collection was incinerated, and this book remains the only survivor of its library.

Another indicator of potentially lost provenance includes a fragment of a cut out flyleaf from the front of the book which perhaps suggests that a record of previous ownership was excised after Cole removed the bible. The thin strip of paper left within the binding bears a small manuscript mark which may have inscribed the book’s original, American ownership.

Nathanael Cole subsequently gifted his prize to his sister-in-law, and the bible briefly became the Cole/Dean family bible. Recorded in the family record section bound within the bible are several generations of births, marriages, and deaths within the family.

Despite any efforts to remake the stolen book into a British family bible, its American origins are immutable. This particular copy of the King James bible was printed in Philadelphia in 1807 by Mathew Carey. Born in Dublin to a Catholic family, Carey emigrated to the United States in 1784 and began a printing business. Carey famously published the first Roman Catholic bible in the English in the United States (now known as the “Carey Bible”).

However, by virtue of the U.S. market’s religious demographics, Carey primarily printed Protestant bibles like the one looted during the burning of Washington. By the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Carey had become the first pre-eminent bible printer in the United States. In addition to the bible stolen by Cole, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division holds a copy of the first printing of the Carey Bible as well as other Protestant bibles and sundry works printed by the prolific Carey.

At some point during the Cole/Dean family bible’s British captivity, a paper was attached to the inner front cover with the inscription:

“This Bible was taken at the Battle of Washington in the United States of America on the 25th August A.D. 1814, by Major Nathanael Cole of the Royal Marines, and given to his Sister in Law the wife of John Cole, with which injunctions never to be given out of the Family.”

However, in the many decades following the War of 1812, Anglo-American relations did not remain so contentious. Undeterred by the strict order that the bible never leave the family, the volume was gifted back to the United States and returned to Washington, D.C. in 1957. At this time, a second paper was attached to the inner back cover with the inscription:

“This bible having left the possession of the family of Major Cole, for reasons and by ways unknown to the present owner, is returned to Washington by Commander Harry Bent Royal Navy as a gesture of goodwill and gratitude to the people of the United States of America. September 1957.”

Although the newly constructed U.S. seat of government was burned and left in disarray by the British in 1814, it did not remain in ruin. The federal city was built again, and its collection of books, cultural artifacts, and institutions expanded well beyond what was destroyed. Although pieces of this particular bible and its provenance have been lost or extirpated, like Washington, D.C., it has endured through over 200 years and bears the marks of its history.

Throughout the month of August, this bible taken captive during the burning of Washington will be displayed in the Rare Book Reading Room alongside the only book from the original congressional library collection confirmed to have survived the razing of the Capitol Building.

 

SOURCES

Cockburn, George, Sir, 1772-1853. Sir George Cockburn papers, 1788-1847 (bulk 1800-1820). Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. https://lccn.loc.gov/mm78016295

Jefferson, Thomas, to John Adams. 10 June, 1815. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/mtjbib02206.

Jefferson, Thomas to John Adams, 10 June, 1815. Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-08-02-0425. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 8, 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011, pp. 522–523.]

Library of Congress. Catalogue of the books, maps, and charts, belonging to the library established in the Capitol at the City of Washington The 1812 catalogue of the Library of Congress : a facsimile / introduction by Robert A. Rutland ; indexes by Lynda Corey Claassen. Washington : Library of Congress, 1982. https://lccn.loc.gov/81607118

United States. Department of the Treasury. An account of the receipts and expenditures of the United States for the year 1810. Washington : A. & G. Way, printers, 1812. https://www.loc.gov/item/2013656773/

 

RESOURCES

https://www.nps.gov/stsp/learn/historyculture/invasion-of-washington-dc.htm

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2154034

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2154035

 

Click here to subscribe to Bibliomania and never miss a post