| 8. The Boston Earthquake of 1727 | |
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La Sainte Bible: qui contient l'Ancien et le Nouveau Testament. C'est à dire, l'ancienne et la nouvelle alliance. Le tout reveu & conféré sur les Textes Hébreux & Grecs, par les pasteurs & professeurs de l'Eglise de Genève... A Amsterdam: Dans l'Imprimerie de P. & J. Blaeu, 1687. [R.B.R. backlog: AGF3872] Although there had been a number of French Bible translations, it was the one published first in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1588, that became known as the standard French translation. Theodore Beza (1519-1605), the great Protestant theologian and successor to the reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) as leader of the church in Geneva, headed a committee of pastors that translated and published this edition. This copy appears to have been owned by Andrew Sigourney (d. 1748), a member of an important French Huguenot family that emigrated to Massachusetts in 1686. Its other owners included his descendants, Wirt Dexter (1832-1890), a prominent Chicago lawyer, and the industrialist, inventor, and great Harvard benefactor, Gordon McKay (1821-1903). McKay records discovering an interesting handwritten record in this copy: "Memo. This page had a piece of thick paper pasted over it to conceal the writing below. On the 24 May 1891 I wet the paper and took it. I see nothing in the writing that should have been covered. Gordon McKayBelow this notice is a record of the Boston earthquake of 1744. |
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This online exhibit was prepared in 1998.
Copyright ©1998-2005 by the President & Fellows of Harvard College
Address corrections or comments to Clifford
Wunderlich.
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