Affectionate and remarkably comprehensive, a friendship album compiled at ‘Yale College’ by Elizur T Washburn on what his friend A D Parker describes as ‘your hasty & unexpected departure from College’. Compiled in July 1826 Washburn persuaded 99 members of the 108 members of his graduating class to contribute to the book, and many have contributed with gusto. There are two page letters (see Amos Phelps) as well as the obligatory poetic sentiments and signatures. A lovely example of its kind.
DESCRIPTION:
Octavo half calf over marbled boards with the red morocco label of ‘Elizur T Washburn’ to the upper cover. Spine leather dried out with a long vertical crack although the binding which is delicate but remains intact. Bookseller’s label of ‘Durrie & Peck’ of New Haven to front pastedown and Washburn’s pencil ownership signature opposite. Flyleaf loose along gutter.Engraved title page: ‘Album’
A member of the Yale class of 1826, Elizur T. Washburn has written every classmate’s name in pencil in the upper right hand corner of each page, arranged alphabetically, and attempted to get as many signatures and inscriptions as possible, of the 108 graduates of 1826 (Yale's largest class up to that point). Remarkably enough, Washburn persuaded 99 to sign and/or inscribe his book with a further 6 members of the classes of 1827 & 1828 having added their signatures are the rear.
Notable signatories include Julian M Sturtevant (quoting poet Cowper, ‘A Soul immortal’) later college professor and President of Illinois College; John Glover Adams- Physician, Pres. N.Y. Medical & Surgical Society, Elijah Porter Barrows, Theologian; James Dyer Chapman - Theologian; James Cogswell Fisher - Physician, Died at Battle of Gettysburg; Henry Zachariah Hayner--Lawyer, Lieutenant Army of the Potomac, Died in the Battle of Williamsburgh, David Lowrey Seymour--Politician, Member of U.S. Congress from Troy NY,& Julian Monson Sturtevant, Theologian.
Although he himself died young, Washburn has recorded several deaths of his classmates during the 1820s.
ELIZUR WASHBURN (1805-1831) was the son of Joseph Washburn (Yale College Class of 1793) and Sarah Washburn, born in Farmington CT. After graduation from Yale he taught at the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb and the travelled to the Caribbean, Europe & the Mediterranean before returning home where he died shortly after in 1831. Five letters from Elizur to family members posted from London in 1829 are included in the Joseph Washburn Family Collection at the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale.
