Visitors today

This morning we had home schoolers visit the Bullis Room.  We are doing a class on Core Library Skills at the Macedon Public Library and  we wanted the students to be aware that many libraries have special places where additional information can be found on a research topic.  The Bullis Room is such a place and is an excellent resource for primary source information.  The student's initial comments were about the smell - smelled like old books and a bit of smoke.  (We had a fire in 2001 and the smell does linger a little.)  They were shown some of the great illustrations in Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and Forests of the State of New York (c1899) and the Notes on Tulip species by W.R. Dykes (1930).  Some pulled items off the shelves to peruse.  The biggest hits were the Atlas of Wayne County (1874)  and a bound copy of the Macedon Newsgatherer from the 1890's on loan to the Bullis Room.  The students enjoyed looking for the roads their homes were on - a few of those roads did not exist in 1874.  And they enjoyed the advertisements and the "people" section of the Newsgatherer.  So if you are researching at your local public library remember that there may be other resources that aren't quite evident on your initial search. Ask your librarian to help you.  And if you are researching in the Macedon, NY, area, please be sure to look at our listing in the OWWL.org catalog in the advanced search (limiting to Bullis Room).  The Bullis collection of books is so wide and varied that there is sure to be something that would provide a wee bit of information.

War of 1812

Yesterday we received notice of a Bicentennial Symposium on the War of 1812 in Oswego NY .  And we started wondering what materials we might have in the Bullis Book Collection that were on that topic.  To our surprise there were several.  They will be on display in our Bullis display case.  One of them includes the transcript of Major-General James Wilkinson's trial on charges of neglect of duty and unofficer-like conduct.  He has included that in his 3 volume Memoirs of my own times.  Another is Thomas Wilson's The Biography of American Military and Naval Heroes.  In this little two volume set you will find the biography of the "Hero of Lake Erie", Captain Oliver Hazard Perry.  Theodore Roosevelt has written two volumes titled The Naval War of 1812.  Willis J. Abbot has a wonderful book titled The Naval History of the United States with 150 illustrations.  The above photo is from that book. Lieut.-General Winfield Scott had a long military career which is written about in Mansfield's The Life and Military Services of Lieut.-General Winfield Scot.  There's a great drawing of him tearing down the British flag at Fort George.  In Lossing's A Centennial Edition of the History of the United States(1876) we have an engraving of Perry on Lake Erie.  In another of Lossing's books, The Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 (1868), we find more info on Major-General James Wilkinson , lots of engravings, and good information.  In another book, Mastery Units in American History (1936) by Maurice B. Rovner, we find a really concise explanation of the War of 1812.  We also found that the student who owned this book had class on Monday morning and that "Washington said to stay out of all permanent alliances" (a pencil notation on the title page.)  A tourism book by Silliman, A Gallop Among American Scenery (1881), takes us to the Battle of Lundy's Lane.  It appears that General Scott was there.
 So if you would care to visit these will all be on display, along with the invitation to the Symposium and "The War of 1812: A Bicentennial Resource List" by Preston Pierce, the Regional Archivist for the Rochester (NY) Regional Library Council. 

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

A few weeks ago we had some fun one afternoon looking at this sale bill we found among some documents that recently arrived in the Bullis Room. Especially interesting to us was the list of merchandise for auction and the little details such as terms of sale.

We were also interested to see that auctions (excluding those online) continue to be about the same today as they were way back in 1867. 

Can we conclude, from this, that some things never change? (We'd like to think so.)

Hope you enjoy the photo of the sale bill. The real article is in the Bullis Room, if you'd like a closer look.

LOOKING BACK

2011 was another busy year for us here in the Bullis Room. Repairing and restoring books, organizing, researching (and searching), displaying, presenting, traveling, monitoring, planning...and reading.

As we've noted before, reading is a "problem" for us volunteers. This room is filled with such interesting stuff that it's difficult to remain focused on a particular task. We walk in the room with a goal in mind, but when we see a stack of letters written by a Bullis family member lying on the shelf - or some interesting books strewn around on the table top - we stop to take a quick look, which sometimes stretches into hours. And we often leave with our original goal unattained.

So as we look back we remember all of the projects we planned but never completed (such as making a timeline of John Lapham Bullis's life and typing transcripts of some newly-obtained letters).  That's the bad news, so to speak. The good news is we can have another go at all these projects in 2012.

Happy New Year!

SUBJECT: RELIGION

Since several religions are celebrating special days this month, we searched the Bullis book data base for books on this subject. Here are five books that caught our eye as we scrolled through the list:

Rays of Light from All Lands; the bibles and beliefs of mankind. Scriptures, faiths, and systems of every age, race and nation, a complete story of all churches and communions;notable utterances by foremost representatives of all faiths. Editors: Rev. E. C. Towne, Rev. A. J. Canfield, and George J. Hagar, published c1895.

Ten Great Religions, by James Freeman Clarke, published c1871 and 1887.

The Light of the World; a brief comparative study of Christianity and non-Christian religions, by Robert E. Speer, published c1911.

Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers, written by Elbert Hubbard (done into a printed book by Roycrofters at their Shop), published 1908.

Church and state in the United States; or, The American idea of religious liberty and its practical effects, with official documents, by Philip Schaff, published in 1888.

There are many more books on a variety of religions in the collection. If you're researching a specific topic or just reading for general information, we invite you to stop by the Bullis Room.

PRESSED FLOWERS FROM THE HOLY LAND

The complete title is PRESSED FLOWERS FROM THE HOLY LAND GATHERED AND PRESSED IN PALESTINE,  and it was authored by Harvey B. Greene with an introduction by
Rev. Smith Baker, D.D.

We recently rediscovered this little book of pressed flowers tucked away on a shelf here in the Bullis Room and were amazed at the relatively good condition of the cover and the pressed flowers inside. You can see for yourself from these photos.

And here's a photo of a pressed Lily of the Valley, one of many scarlet flowers Mr. Greene found in the Holy Land.

The author also included pressed papyrus, in the shape of a cross, which is still in excellent condition in spite of its century-plus age.

And in case you are wondering if the author really did gather and press these plants in Palestine, the book includes this statement from the consulate:

"Consulate of the United States

Jerusalem, Palestine

February 12, 1898

I take great pleasure in stating that Mr. H. B. Greene has spent three springs, in gathering and pressing the flowers of Palestine, during which time he made with the assistance of native helpers, large collections of the wild flowers, and I feel sure that these flowers he now offers for sale really grew in the Christ Land."
(Signature)

Which leaves us with nothing more to say except that this little book is a real treasure.

SNIPE SHOOTING

Yesterday we were rummaging through some items on a shelf and found a worn journal that contained pages of almost-illegible writing (due to nineteenth-century penmanship combined with natural fading).  Some of the pages also contained newspaper clippings from sportsmen's publications, which caused us to again marvel at the Bullis family's dedication to recycling rather than repurchasing.

However, a clipping from FIELD SPORTS titled "Snipe Shooting" caused us to pause and take a second look. We couldn't find a date on the article, but two other clippings designated 1871, so we assumed that this article was about 140 years old, as well.  Written by January Searle, it informed readers that "...the snipe is a very difficult bird to kill and if the young sportsman brings one down in twenty shots, he may think of himself no worse off than others...." At this point, we paused to wonder: Is this article "for real" or is it a tongue-in-cheek reference to that age-old practical joke called snipe hunting? We do not know the answer to this. Please let us hear from you, if you do.