The Hamlin Family Bible
Hamlin family Bible on display at Folger Manifold Greatness exhibition. 2011.
It was a particular treat to be able to include a Bible from my own family in the Family Bibles case of the Folger Manifold Greatness exhibition. My fellow exhibition curator Steve Galbraith, exhibition manager Caryn Lazzuri, and I had been looking for a nineteenth-century Bible to represent the later history of family Bibles, when publishers provided pre-printed genealogical pages. We also thought it would be good to use an American Bible, continuing our transatlantic story.
Around the same time, after my father’s death in January 2011, I came across an old Bible in my parents’ home in New Haven. It was an old, somewhat worse-for-wear, King James Bible, printed in Boston in 1841 by B.B. Mussey. A battered plastic wrapper around it still had a mailing label attached, addressed to Louise Hamlin, known to me in childhood as “Cousin Louise.” On looking through the Bible, I found some family history recorded on blank leaves between the Old Testament and the New, one of the places often used for this purpose. The information related to, and was presumably written by, my great-great-great grandfather, Hannibal Hamlin.
Campaign banner. 1860. Library of Congress.
Hannibal Hamlin is actually of more than family interest, since he served as Vice-President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, during the first term of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Hamlin entered politics in his home state of Maine, where he was a member of the House of Representatives. Hamlin later served as U.S. representative, U.S. senator, and Governor of Maine, before becoming Vice President. He started out as a Democrat, but in a move that caused considerable shock in Washington, he crossed the floor of the Senate in 1856 to join the new Republican Party as a protest against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Hamlin was a life-long opponent of slavery, which was part of the reason he was dropped from the ticket for Lincoln’s second presidential campaign.
In the Bible, Hamlin records his two marriages, first to Sarah Jane Emery. Sarah Jane died in 1855; Hamlin must have liked the family, since he married her sister Ellen Vesta Emery the next year. The births of Hamlin’s children are also recorded in the Bible. Charles and Cyrus were the most important historically, both serving as officers during the Civil War. Cyrus championed the enlistment of African-American troops, and led a brigade of black soldiers at the Siege of Port Hudson. On retirement he was awarded the honorary rank of brevet major general. He died of yellow fever in 1867. Charles fought at Gettsyburg, and retired with the honorary rank of brevet brigadier general. Charles and his sister, Sarah, were at Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot.
Charles had a number of children. One of them, Cyrus, was my great-grandfather. Another, Charles Eugene, was the father of Louise, to whom the Family Bible was passed down, along with much other family memorabilia. I still have Hamlin’s baby rattle, the walking sticks that got him around Washington, his copy of Byron’s works, and lots of pictures. Charles Eugene also wrote a biography of the vice president. I’m lucky to have so much information about my family history, but like so many American and British families, I have some of that information stored in the old family Bible.
Hannibal Hamlin, associate professor of English at The Ohio State University, is co-curator of the Manifold Greatness exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Discovering a “Judas Bible”
Bible. English. Authorized. 1613. Folger.
Although I’ve been involved with my share of exhibitions, I’m always somehow surprised by how much work goes into them, from the planning stages through to the installation and de-installation. Indeed, as I write this blog entry, I’m reminded that my colleagues at the Folger are hard at work with the installation, which happens to be one of the most intense parts of the process. Hannibal Hamlin and I are deeply grateful for all of their efforts.
I think the most exciting part of the exhibition planning process is searching for artifacts to illustrate the exhibition’s narrative. Once there is an exhibition outline, it’s time to search the library catalog and hunt through the library vaults. The process is always one of discovery, through which you find amazing items that you may never have known about. Finding such incredible artifacts is always a thrilling moment.
Hannibal and I had a memorable “Ah-Ha!” moment while researching the so-called “Judas Bible.” We had read that some copies of the 1613 folio edition of the King James Bible had a misprint in which “Jesus” was mistakenly set as “Judas” in Matthew 26:36. This misprint read: “Then commeth Judas with them unto a place called Gethsemane.” Substituting Judas for Jesus at this moment in the New Testament was clearly a significant mistake, though considering the similarity in the spelling of their names, one can understand how such a mistake was made.
When Hannibal and I pulled the Folger’s copy of the 1613 edition and opened it to Matthew 26:36, we saw “Then commeth Jesus.” At first glance, anyway. To our great delight a second glance revealed that “Jesus” was actually printed onto a cancel slip that was glued over “Judas.” This was a fairly common way of making corrections in early modern books. Hannibal and I were looking at a “Judas Bible.” If you look closely at the image above, you can see the “J” of “Judas” peeking out from behind the “J” of “Jesus.”
The Folger’s “Judas Bible” will appear in the Folger’s Manifold Greatness exhibition alongside the “Wicked Bible” in a case called “Misprints and Misfortunes: Printing the King James Bible.”
Steven Galbraith, Curator of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at Rochester Institute of Technology, is co-curator of the Manifold Greatness exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
The Debut!
The Manifold Greatness traveling exhibition panels made their debut this past Sunday at Shakespeare’s Birthday Open House, an annual Folger tradition. It was incredible to see all fourteen panels on display in the library’s New Reading Room. We were truly amazed by the number of visitors who read each panel closely and had questions for Hannibal and me (I should say mostly Hannibal, because I was manning the Folger’s replica wooden printing press for most of the day).
We were very encouraged. I even saw a couple of people taking notes. As a friend commented, this is surely a sign of good things to come.
Steven Galbraith, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Books, is co-curator of the Manifold Greatness exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Praise for Manifold Greatness, the book
Named “Pick of the Day” on the Bookshop page of the London Times last Friday, Manifold Greatness: The Making of the King James Bible also got a nice review from the Times earlier in the week, on April 9, which described it as: “the beautifully presented and scrupulously edited Manifold Greatness… erudite but never dull,” memorably adding, “Go thou forth and buy it!’” (Update: Sorry, we couldn’t include the direct link here, given the Times site’s restricted paid access.)
Just out from Bodleian Library Publishing, Manifold Greatness is a richly illustrated, accessible account of the creation and afterlife of the King James Bible, told through chapters written by leading scholars who include the curators of the Bodleian and Folger Manifold Greatness exhibitions.
Chapters include the context for the translation, its impact in England, and its reception and cultural influence in America, from the 1600s to the present day. There’s also a chapter on rare KJB-related materials at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Images range from rare early English Bibles to the Algonquin Bible of 1663, Harper’s Illuminated Bible of 1846, and much more.
The book’s editors are Helen Moore and Julian Reid. Contributors include Moore and Reid, Valentine Cunningham, Steven Galbraith, Hannibal Hamlin, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Peter McCullough, Judith Maltby, Christopher Rowland, and Elizabeth Solopova.
