[ADAMS, John (1735-1826)] -- [BIBLE, in English]. The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments. New York: Collins and Co., 1814. JOHN ADAMS'S GRANDDAUGHTER'S BIBLE, WITH A PARTIAL PRESENTATION NOTE PRESUMABLY IN ADAMS'S HAND.
Sold for $25,200
4to. Illustrated plates. (Spotting and browning throughout, a few leaves with small repairs.) Contemporary red morocco gilt, covers with Greek key roll-tooled border, "Caroline Amelia DeWint" gilt-stamped on upper cover (neatly rebacked to style, a few other repairs, overall rubbing and wear). Provenance: Caroline Amelia DeWint (binding, presentation inscription, see below).
JOHN ADAMS'S GRANDDAUGHTER'S BIBLE, WITH A PARTIAL PRESENTATION NOTE PRESUMABLY IN ADAMS'S HAND.
The presentation note, accomplished on a front flyleaf, records the gift of the Bible from Adams to his granddaughter, Caroline Amelia DeWint: "John [Adams presents this sacred volume to his grand-daughter, Caroline] Amelia [de Wint, the only daughter of his beloved child, Abigail Smith, with] his bles[sing and affectionate advice to attend to the] examples of exalted piety and devine charity than [to the ingenious] disputations of learned men concerning texts of doubtful [or deficient] interpretation or metaphysical disquisitions on doctrinal points too profound perhaps for any understand merely human ever to decide or comprehend; but which, strange to tell, instead of producing peace and goodwill to men have deluged the Christian World in innocent blood. Quincy. July 28, 1815" A portion of the sheet bearing the inscription has been torn away, with portions of the first five lines supplied in facsimile.
[Bound in:] 8pp. family marriage, birth and death records written in several hands (a few leaves with marginal chipping and repairs). Death records include notes about the deaths of John Adams ("My honored grandfather John Adams departed this life on the 4th of July 1826 at Quincy Massachusetts at the age of 90"), Abigail Adams, and John Quincy Adams. Also included is an account of the death of Caroline Amelia De Windt, who drowned in the Hudson River on 28 July 1852 during the fire on the American side paddle wheel steamboat Henry Clay. Also drowned in the disaster was Mrs. DeWindt's son-in-law, Andrew Jackson Downing, a landscape architect from Newburgh New York, who was designing the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution at the time of his death, and who "was cool and collected and his last moments were spent in doing his utmost to save the lives of his fellow passengers."