Erroneous Signage on Stuart House, Phillips Academy. It is claimed in Youth From Every Quarter by Frederick S. Allis Jr. that Moses Stuart’s 1813 book, published by Flagg and Gould, was “the first Hebrew grammar to be published in the United States." [1] The same erroneous information had previously been published in Scott H. Paradise’s A History of Printing in Andover, Massachusetts, 1798-1931. Paradise also wrongly claimed: “The new press was fortunate in having the first fonts of Greek and Hebrew type in America.” [2]
One possible source of Paradise’s errors was a misreading of “An Illustrious Town, — Andover” by F.B. Makepeace, published in The New England Magazine and Bay State Monthly in 1886. [3] In discussing William Newcombe’s A Harmony in Greek of the Gospels, first published in Dublin and then reprinted by Flagg and Gould in Andover, Reverend Makepeace said: “This was probably the first book in Greek published here.” Here, meaning Andover, not the United States. He continued: “The first book in Hebrew printed at the Andover Press was Stuart’s Hebrew Grammar. . .” [4] Note: At the Andover Press, not in the United States.
Whatever the cause of the Paradise and Allis errors, the fact is that Judah Monis (1683-1764), North America's first college instructor of Hebrew, at Harvard from 1722 to 1760, was the author of the first Hebrew textbook published in the United States — and indeed, in North America. Bostonian Jonas Green printed 1,000 copies of it in 1735. (So he obviously had the fonts to do it.) Titled Dickdook Leshon Gnebreet, the book was subtitled in English: A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue, being an Essay to bring the Hebrew Grammar into English to facilitate Instruction of all those who are desirous of acquiring a clear idea of this primitive tongue by their own studies. [5] Monis, who had converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1722, sold the book himself out of his Cambridge home, his best customers being Harvard students, since it was a required text for all graduates for some twenty-five years.
Professor's Stuart's daughter Sarah Stuart Robbins published a memoir, Old Andover Days, in 1908. This, too, may be a source of the errors of Paradise and Allis, but I don't think Robbins got her information from the 1886 magazine article. She undoubtedly got it from her family, perhaps a boastful Professor Stuart himself. “A little way down the hill toward Boston . . . stood Shipman’s store," she wrote, speaking of the building that was initially occupied by Mark Newman. ". . . Even the stronghold of trade in the guise of this little country store was in Andover made to pay tribute to the requirements of theology and learning; for in this same building my father had his printing-press." Note: his printing press, even though it wasn't. It belonged to the seminary. "This may seem a strange possession for an Andover professor," she went on; "but when my father began to teach Hebrew, he found that he must write a Hebrew grammar, there being nothing adequate on the subject in the English language. When the grammar was written, because there were no Hebrew characters in American printing-offices, and no printers capable of setting up Hebrew type, he had to solicit contributions, buy a press, and import Hebrew type. He even set up some of the grammar himself, until he could train compositors capable of doing such work." [6]
It's touching that a daughter was so proud of her father and his accomplishments; I wish, though, that she'd had her facts right. Granted, it was a memoir. Supposed history writing is held to a different standard. Unfortunately, Claude M. Fuess repeated the same misinformation in his history of P.A. [7] What is more, a plaque on the former home of the Stuart family, on the P.A. campus, continues to spread the false news. My guess is that it went up around the time of the P.A. bicentennial celebrations in 1978. I have pointed out the error to P.A.'s archivist, and cited for her all the information I have posted here. As of this writing, the plaque remains in place.
______
1. Frederick S. Allis, Jr., Youth From Every Quarter: A Bicentennial History of Phillips Academy (Andover: Phillips Academy; Distributed by the University Press of New England, 1979), 129.
2. The unpaginated Paradise pamphlet is online at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4198088&view=1up&seq=9 Retrieved June 1, 2022.
3. Vol. I, No. 4, 314.
4. Ibid.
5. For more information, see Robert H. Pfeiffer, “The Teaching of Hebrew in Colonial America,” The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 45, No. 4, Tercentenary Issue (April 1955): 363-373.
6. Sarah Stuart Robbins, Old Andover Days (Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1908), 20-22.
7. See An Old New England School (1917).
One possible source of Paradise’s errors was a misreading of “An Illustrious Town, — Andover” by F.B. Makepeace, published in The New England Magazine and Bay State Monthly in 1886. [3] In discussing William Newcombe’s A Harmony in Greek of the Gospels, first published in Dublin and then reprinted by Flagg and Gould in Andover, Reverend Makepeace said: “This was probably the first book in Greek published here.” Here, meaning Andover, not the United States. He continued: “The first book in Hebrew printed at the Andover Press was Stuart’s Hebrew Grammar. . .” [4] Note: At the Andover Press, not in the United States.
Whatever the cause of the Paradise and Allis errors, the fact is that Judah Monis (1683-1764), North America's first college instructor of Hebrew, at Harvard from 1722 to 1760, was the author of the first Hebrew textbook published in the United States — and indeed, in North America. Bostonian Jonas Green printed 1,000 copies of it in 1735. (So he obviously had the fonts to do it.) Titled Dickdook Leshon Gnebreet, the book was subtitled in English: A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue, being an Essay to bring the Hebrew Grammar into English to facilitate Instruction of all those who are desirous of acquiring a clear idea of this primitive tongue by their own studies. [5] Monis, who had converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1722, sold the book himself out of his Cambridge home, his best customers being Harvard students, since it was a required text for all graduates for some twenty-five years.
Professor's Stuart's daughter Sarah Stuart Robbins published a memoir, Old Andover Days, in 1908. This, too, may be a source of the errors of Paradise and Allis, but I don't think Robbins got her information from the 1886 magazine article. She undoubtedly got it from her family, perhaps a boastful Professor Stuart himself. “A little way down the hill toward Boston . . . stood Shipman’s store," she wrote, speaking of the building that was initially occupied by Mark Newman. ". . . Even the stronghold of trade in the guise of this little country store was in Andover made to pay tribute to the requirements of theology and learning; for in this same building my father had his printing-press." Note: his printing press, even though it wasn't. It belonged to the seminary. "This may seem a strange possession for an Andover professor," she went on; "but when my father began to teach Hebrew, he found that he must write a Hebrew grammar, there being nothing adequate on the subject in the English language. When the grammar was written, because there were no Hebrew characters in American printing-offices, and no printers capable of setting up Hebrew type, he had to solicit contributions, buy a press, and import Hebrew type. He even set up some of the grammar himself, until he could train compositors capable of doing such work." [6]
It's touching that a daughter was so proud of her father and his accomplishments; I wish, though, that she'd had her facts right. Granted, it was a memoir. Supposed history writing is held to a different standard. Unfortunately, Claude M. Fuess repeated the same misinformation in his history of P.A. [7] What is more, a plaque on the former home of the Stuart family, on the P.A. campus, continues to spread the false news. My guess is that it went up around the time of the P.A. bicentennial celebrations in 1978. I have pointed out the error to P.A.'s archivist, and cited for her all the information I have posted here. As of this writing, the plaque remains in place.
______
1. Frederick S. Allis, Jr., Youth From Every Quarter: A Bicentennial History of Phillips Academy (Andover: Phillips Academy; Distributed by the University Press of New England, 1979), 129.
2. The unpaginated Paradise pamphlet is online at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4198088&view=1up&seq=9 Retrieved June 1, 2022.
3. Vol. I, No. 4, 314.
4. Ibid.
5. For more information, see Robert H. Pfeiffer, “The Teaching of Hebrew in Colonial America,” The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 45, No. 4, Tercentenary Issue (April 1955): 363-373.
6. Sarah Stuart Robbins, Old Andover Days (Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1908), 20-22.
7. See An Old New England School (1917).
Stuart House, Phillips Academy.
RSS Feed