Christopher Mildeberger, who was of the family once owning the land on a part of which the Fifth Avenue Hotel now stands, used a small pictorial book-plate.
William Constable came of a family owning large tracts of land near the city of Utica, and he used a book-plate evidently made by an engraver who was not an expert. Myles Cooper, who was the second President of King's College (now Columbia), used a very handsome Chippendale book-plate. The story of the hasty flight he was obliged to make through a window of the college buildings to escape rough handling at the hands of those who were infuriated at his Loyalist inclinations, is well authenticated. Among other families of New York using bookplates in the earlier days were the Cuttings, the Cuylers, the De Peysters, the De Witts, the Duanes, the Fishes, the Fraunces, the Goelets, the Gracies, the Harisons, the Hoffmans, the Jaunceys, the Jays, the Kips, and the Kissams. Among them, too, were such names as Ogden, Paulding, descendants of the captor of Major Andre, Pierce, Pintard, Popham, Roome, Rutgers, Schuyier, Sedgwiek, Smith, Stewart, Stone, Ten Broeck, Tomlinson, Van Berkel, Van Buren, Van Ness, Varick, Wall, Watkins, Wetmore, Wisner, Wynkoop, and Yates. The collector who desires to make a specialty of the early plates of the city and state of New York has a rich field to work in, and one that in historical interest almost surpasses any other our country offers, As one looks back to those old families and visits the old manor-houses, he can picture the scenes there enacted, can hear the hum of voices, see the bright faces of the ladies and richly colored velvets of the gentlemen, hear the clink of the glasses, see the smoke rising from fragrant cigars towards the beams of the ceiling, and may, now and then, see the Continental uniform, hear the harsh word of command, and witness the march of troops, the skirmish, or the battle itself. The study of the times and the people brought to mind by a good collection of book-plates will carry the enthusiastic student into many lines of research, will unravel some difficult things, will lead him into many unsuspected pleasant spots, and cannot fail to increase his interest in the history of his country, whatever it may happen to be.
Just off the coast of Connecticut, and lying in a snug position, is Gardiner's Island, once known as the Isle of Wight. In a graveyard of New London may be seen a stone bearing the following inscription: "Here lyeth buried ye body of his excellency John Gardiner, Third Lord of ye Isle of Wight. He was born April igth 1661 and departed this life June 25th 1738."
It was in the year 1686 that this island was set off to old Lion Gardiner, the founder of this most interesting estate, by Governor Dongan of New York. Lion Gardiner came to America under the patronage of Lord Saye and Sele and the younger John Winthrop, for whom he was to build a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River; and he it was who gave to this first stronghold erected in New England, outside of Boston, the name of Saybrook. The old manor-house on Gardiner's Island, as it is now called, remains to this day, and the few visitors who get to it are shown the relics of long-ago times, including uniforms, furniture, and the various small possessions which are usually included in such lists of memorabilia. The graveyard, with its table monuments bearing the Gardiner arms cut in the stone, the old weather-beaten windmill, the house itself behind its closed gates, the open space called " the Common," where the sheep graze, and, indeed, all the surroundings, speak with force to the historical student. One of the treasures kept with great care is the Geneva Bible (1599) in which is the record of the coming of old Lion Gardiner. Several of the lords used book-plates, and they are of the greatest interest to the collector, possessing the charm of those old times when this American lordship was maintained in the style it deserved.
Samuel Bard, eminent physician, author of medical works of value, and a skilful horticulturist, used a book-plate in the Chippendale style. His life was an eventful one, and shows him to have been an interesting man. He was educated in Edinburgh, and, on his passage thither from this country in 1761, he was captured by the French; and after five months was released through the efforts of Dr. Franklin, He organized a medical school upon his return to New York, which was united to King's College, and he ultimately became dean of the faculty. He married his cousin, had a lucrative practice, was President of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and while the seat of government was in New York he was the family physician of General Washington. Going up to Connecticut next, the collector will find in that land of steady habits many interesting book-plates used by the good people who gave the state its good name. Of the men who fought in the Revolution, there was John Chester, who commanded the elite corps at the battle of Bunker Hill, and whose home was in Wethersfield; Jacob Sargeant, who was a noted maker of watches and tall clocks, and who was one of the last of the " gentlemen of the old school." He was seen upon the streets of Hartford, in which city was his home, attired in breeches and hose long after their use was generally discontinued. Alsop, the wit and poet who lived down the river at Middletown; Deacon Bull, who was perhaps the busiest man in the village of Farmington; Goodwin, who was at one time the publisher of the Hartford Courant, the oldest newspaper in our country; Isaiah Alien of Enfield, who used a simple device engraved by a relative; Ingersoll of New Haven; Jarvis of the bishop's family; Lord of East Haddam; Musgrave of New Haven; Reed of East Windsor; Thomas Robbins, whose library served as the foundation and beginning of the library of the Connecticut Historical Society; Waldo, the "fighting parson " who suffered such cruelties while confined in the New York Sugar House; and Oliver Wolcott, sometime Governor of the state, and long before that a signer of the Declaration,— are among the names to which the book-plate hunter attaches importance. Beside the plates of individuals, Connecticut is rich in the plates of early libraries which the industrious inhabitants contrived to support. Among these, the plate of the Theological Institute with its representation of an old pulpit; the East Windsor Literary Association; the three plates of the Farmington Library, and the smaller but no less pleasing library interior used by the Village Library of the same town ; the Guilford Library plate, very probably engraved by Doolittle; the old engraved label of the Hartford Library Company, and the Social Library of Wethersfield, which is signed by Doolittle,—are perhaps the best. Besides these, there are the exceedingly interesting plates of Yale College Library, and the curious plates used by the various literary and social societies supported by the students and the alumni, the Brothers in Unity, and the Linonian Society.
In the year 1686 the city of Boston had four book-sellers, and from the old records it appears that they were men of some wealth and position in society ; while the most successful of them all, Mr, Usher, left an estate of some ^20,000. When we read that New York had but one book-shop in 1719, we feel that the literary ascendency of Boston is no new thing, no empty claim, and as the collector of book-plates gathers together the plates of the book-owners of Boston and other towns in the state of Massachusetts, he finds that they equal those of New York in number, and surpass them in at least one point of interest. The plates of the aristocratic New Yorkers were engraved by Maverick, who was an importation from England; while the wealthy and book-loving people of Boston and vicinity employed such engravers as Nathaniel Hurd and Paul Revere, who were not only self-taught in the art of engraving on copper, but were native-born Americans, To the collector of book-plates, these examples of the early American engravers are of surpassing interest. It is true that in comparison with some of the plates by Maverick they suffer, and that they have not the excellence of finish noticed in the plates done by the professional copper-plate engravers of London, which were used by many American families, particularly in the states and cities south of New York.


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