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It is well known that the Bay Psalm Book (a New England Puritan Psalter) was the first book published in British North America (1640). One of the editors of this work was John Eliot (1604-1690), the famous “Apostle to the Indians,” who also wrote Communion of churches, or, The divine management of gospel-churches by the ordinance of councils constituted in order according to the Scriptures as also the way of bringing all Christian parishes to be particular Reforming Congregationall Churches, humbly proposed as ... a means of uniting those two holy and eminent parties the Presbyterians and the Congregationals (1665), a work which has led some to propose that Eliot was a Presbyterian at heart.*
Whether or not he is rightly classified as a Presbyterian or a Congregationalist, or something in-between, there are some notable examples apart from the Bay Psalm Book which constitute Presbyterian landmarks in American literature.
Pennsylvania was the home of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, whose publication of so many Presbyterian works from the 1730s forward we have discussed previously here.
The first Presbyterian book published in the South was by Old Side minister John Thomson (1690-1753): An Explication of the Shorter Catechism (1749, Williamsburg, Virginia).
John Thomson’s exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism was the first Presbyterian book published in the American South.
In 1765, layman John Redick (whose dates are not known and who is not yet on Log College Press) authored the first book published in Baltimore, Maryland: A Detection of the Conduct and Proceedings of Messrs. Annan and Henderson, Members of the Associate Presbytery’s Whole Sitting at Oxford Meeting-House, April 18th, Anno Domini 1764, Together with Their Abettors; Wherein is Contained Some Remarks. Printed by Nicholas Hasselbach, only one copy is known to exist. It came into the possession of George W. McCreary, librarian of the Maryland Historical Society, who reprinted 300 copies of it in 1903, under the title The First Book Printed in Baltimore Town, with a history of the printer and the book, one of which is in the possession of this writer. The book is an account of a financial transaction between Redick and Hugh Scott, a blacksmith, which later led to ecclesiastical charges.
The first book published in Baltimore was by a Presbyterian layman.
The first book published in Kentucky was by Presbyterian minister Adam Rankin (1755-1827): A Process of the Transilvania Presbytery (1793). We have previously given an account of this work here.
The first book published in Kentucky was by Presbyterian minister Adam Rankin.
The first book of poetry published in Georgia was by Presbyterian minister Samuel Jones Cassels (1806-1853): Providence and Other Poems (1838).
The first book of poems published in Georgia was by Presbyterian minister Samuel J. Cassels.
This brief survey of Presbyterian landmarks in American literature is just a cursory look at some noteworthy highlights and is far from complete, just merely scratching the surface of this intriguing topic. But it suggests the importance of Presbyterian literature in the colonial era and in the early days of the American republic. It is natural that books and Presbyterians go hand-in-hand, and these landmarks provide a snapshot of this truism in early American history.
* William Henry Roberts wrote, “Eliot was a Presbyterian by conviction, and the splendid service which he rendered from 1637 to 1690, in the conversion and education of the heathen on our shores, made him the forerunner, not only in the general work of American foreign missions, but also in the labors of the Presbyterian Church for the conversion of the heathen world. His was the first voice of an American Presbyterian crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ye ready the way of the Lord’” (“The Part Which American Presbyterians Have Had in Foreign Missions in the Past,” in David McConaughy, ed., The World-Call of Men To-Day: Addresses and Proceedings of the Men’s Missionary Convention, Held in Philadelphia, February 11-13, 1908 (1908), p. 84).
