"GOINGS-ON"

We want to give you advance notice on some "goings-on" here in the library that are a high priority for those of us interested in the Bullis Collection. So we suggest you mark your calendars now for these events:

1. Sunday, October 21, 2 PM - Peter Jemison, Manager of the Ganondagan historical site in victor, will make a presentation in MPL's Community Room. He'll be focusing on the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua and the importance of the treaty to the settlement and history of the greater Macedon area.

2. Saturday, November 10, from Noon to 3 PM - "Documenting our Macedon Memories" -  Macedon area residents can bring their historic photos of Wayne County to one of three scanning sessions in the library. The emphasis will be to document information about the photographs, gather family stories, and increase awareness about the photography collection in the Town Historian's office (which is right next door to the Bullis Room).

3. On a Sunday afternoon in February, 2013 - Dr. David Anderson, a noted storyteller and faculty member at Nazareth College, will present "If My Life is but Spared; Austin Steward's Sojourn from Slavery to Freedom."
     Mr. Steward, a former slave who made his home in Farmington and later Rochester, wrote Twenty-two Years a Slave and Forty Years a Free Man, published in 1857. AND, we have a copy of this book in the Bullis Collection.

Hope to see you at these events. And if you'd like to stop by the Bullis Room before or after any of these "goings-on," we'll be there.

THE WEST FROM A CAR WINDOW

Okay - maybe you already knew (we didn't) that the Ford Motor Company shipped its first car on this date in 1903. Well, when we found out we once again went to the collection's data base and searched for "cars." Here's the first hit that caught our attention:

The West from a Car-Window

by Richard Harding Davis

Published by Harper & Brothers in 1903

This work documents a car trip from Texas through Oklahoma and into Colorado. And there are photos and illustrations, too!  In an effort to get you to stop by the Bullis Room and take a look at this book, here's a partial list of the visuals:

A Bucking Broncho

"Remember the Alamo!"

Third Calvary Troopers--Searching a Suspected Revolutionist

The "Holy Moses" Mine

The Cheyenne Type

Big Bull

Oklahoma City on the Day of the Opening

A Kiowa Maiden

The Omnipotent Bugler

The Barracks, Fort Houston

Gateway of the Garden of the Gods, and Pike's Peak

Polo Above the Snow-line at Colorado Springs

Pike's Peak from Colorado Springs

So before you set out on your car trip west this summer, you might like to see what it looked like from a car window over a hundred years ago.  This book's waiting for you in the Bullis Room. Hope to see you soon.

ST. THOMAS MORE, HENRY VIII, and a DENTAL CONGRESS

Last week we searched for books on California and got sidetracked by a reference to St. Thomas More. So this week we looked in the Bullis data bank for books on More and were disappointed that we didn't find a book dedicated exclusively to him. However, because he was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England as well as Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to May 1532, there are references to him in these two Bullis books that chronicle the life of that monarch:

1. Memoirs of Henry the Eighth of England: with the fortunes, fates and character of his six wives, written by Henry William Herbert and published by Miller, Orton & Mulligan in 1855.

2. The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon: the story as told by the imperial ambassadors resident at the court of Henry VIII, written by J. A. Froude and published by C. Scribner's Sons in 1899.

So for you history buffs who are into that period in history, we recommend you take a look at these two volumes.

Now for the "Dental Congress" part of this post's title - our "California" search last week also hit on this book in the collection:

Panama-Pacific Dental Congress, San Francisco, California, August thirtieth to September ninth, nineteen fifteen, authored by Panama-Pacific Dental Congress (1915: San Francisco) and published by The Abbott Press in 1915.

How did this book make its way into the Bullis collection? In fact, how did it make its way to Macedon? As far as we know, there were no dentists in the Bullis family and very few (if any?) in the Macedon area in 1915.  We'll never know the how and why of it, but we do know it is in residence on a shelf in the Bullis Room. So if  you're interested in what was going on in dentistry in the Panama-Pacific area a hundred years ago, this may be just the book for you.

CALIFORNIA, HYDRAULIC MINING, AND ISAAC NEWTON

This week we're posting two books in the collection as a way of remembering two events.

First, on July 7 in 1846, the United States officially annexed what is now California, following the surrender of a Mexican garrison at Monterey.  We searched the Bullis data base for "California" books and found this entry:

A Practical Treatise on Hydraulic Mining in California written by Augustus Jesse Bowie and published by D. Van Nostrand Company in 1889. This book contains a "description of the use and construction of ditches, flumes, wrought-iron pipes, and dams; flow of water on heavy grades, and its applicability, under pressure, to mining."

We're recommending this book to any of you who are interested in California history or hydraulic mining (and currently hydrofracturing). Please feel free to stop by and take a serious look at this book, as it contains maps, diagrams, tables, and detailed drawings that illustrate the finer points of a process that was the forerunner of today's methods.

Second, since Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, a three-volume work setting out his mathematical principles of natural philosophy, was published on July 5, 1687, we again looked in the Bullis records for that work. No hits, but we did find another which we think you'll also find interesting:

The Life of Sir Isaac Newton by David Brewster, published in 1831 by J. and J. Harper.

Principia Mathematica is considered one of the most important works every written. You can take a look at it online and you can find out more about the author when you stop by the Bullis Room and look at Sir David Brewster's book. (As an aside: Sir David was a Scottish physicist, mathematician and astronomer who invented the kaleidoscope and made major improvements to the stereoscope.)

One other date this week caught our attention: On July 26, 1535, St. Thomas More was executed in England for high treason. But that's for another post.

THE GLOBE

On this date in 1613 London's Globe Theatre (which we remember as the site of many of Shakespeare's plays)  burned to the ground. The fire started when a theatrical cannon used in the performance of Henry the Eighth misfired and ignited the wooden beam and thatch structure.

Although the Globe is no more, we still enjoy Shakespeare's work through contemporary performances and print. There are two books on the Bullis Room shelves that we think you'll find interesting, perhaps even illuminating:

1) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: with a full and comprehensive life, a history f the early drama, an introduction to each play, the readings of former editions, glossarial and other notes...) from the works of Collier, Knight, Dyce, Douce, Halliwell, Hunter, Richardson, Verplanck, and Hudson, edited and authored by George Long Duyckinck and published in 1881.

2) Studies in Shakespeare, by Richard Grant White, published in 1885 by Houghton, Mifflin.

The Globe Theatre has been gone almost four hundred years, but Shakespeare's work lives on - thanks to the printed word.

STANDING ROOM ONLY

The Friends of Macedon Public Library's presentation on slave quilts packed the Community Room last night. By packed, we mean that there was standing room only with an attendance count of approximately 85.

Some of us were there as both "Friends of MPL" and "Bullis Room Volunteers" and we were overwhelmed by the show of enthusiasm for this topic. As a result, both groups are now thinking and planning for other programs on related topics.

Our speaker Susan Howard began her presentation by stating that slaves did not come to America--Africans came, then were enslaved. This all started around 1619, but slavery goes back a lot farther than this in other parts of the world.

If you'd like to learn more about the history of slavery overall, we recommend that you take a look at a book in the Bullis Room entitled The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade Ancient and Modern. This book was published in 1857 by J. and H. Miller and authored by William O. Blake. Compiled from authentic materials, it covers "the forms of slavery that prevailed in ancient nations, particularly in Greece and Rome, the African slave trade, and the political history of slavery in the United States.

Remember, you're welcome to stop by the Bullis Room for a "look-see," anytime.

JUNETEEN

Juneteen is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by remembering the  abolition of slavery in Texas in 1865. It is also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day.

To commemorate Juneteen, the Friends of Macedon  Pubic Library is sponsoring "Hidden in Plain View - A Secret Story of Slave Quilts and the Underground Railroad." In this presentation, Susan Howard will share her knowledge of how quilts were used to communicate with slaves who were planning to escape to freedom via the underground railroad.

This free presentation will be held in the library's Community Room at 6:30 PM on June 19. You are  invited and encouraged to attend.

And if you'd like to take a look at the Bullis books on slavery or the Civil War, let us know and we'll be glad to meet with you before the presentation.