University of Virginia Library

The Amazing Career of Andrew Barclay, Scottish Bookbinder, of Boston
by
Hannah D. French

Andrew Barclay was phenomenal among American bookbinders of the eighteenth century—a craftsman who signed his work. The bookbinders in Colonial America were an obscure lot. Their work was utilitarian and primitive as might be expected. More often than not they combined the business of binding with that of bookselling, and sometimes with publishing. No native binder is known to have signed his work. The two exceptions to this rule of anonymity, in this country, were both emigrant binders: Andrew Barclay from Scotland,[1] working in Boston, and Samuel Taylor from Berwick-upon-Tweed, at the Scottish border line of England, working in Philadelphia. Both have been known for some time by the elaborate, engraved trade cards or labels with which they marked their work.

Barclay's trade label is more elaborate and somewhat more widely known than Taylor's. It has been found in place within the covers of five volumes whereas Taylor's is presently known in three. Barclay's label exists in two different versions, both reproduced in Bookbinding in America.[2] A third simple, typographic label, discovered in the course of research for that work is less interesting, and has never been reproduced. The larger of the two pictorial labels which Barclay used was presumably designed for use within folio volumes and carries more detail than the smaller. Within a Chippendale cartouche bearing the initials A. B. in a shield at the top center, and his address, "Three

Kings in Cornhill, Boston," at the base, is a rectangular engraving within a ruled frame. In the upper portion is an engraving of a bookbinder in the costume of the 1760's at work at the plough and press, surrounded by bound volumes, with folios numbered 1—4 and 5—8 on either side at the front. Below is the legend, "Books Bound and Sold, Gilt or plain, by Andrew Barclay, Next Door but one to the sign of the Three Kings." Three Kings is squeezed into the lower right-hand corner as though it were the catchword for the address in the cartouche directly beneath. This larger label exists apart from the books it once adorned in copies in the American Antiquarian Society and in the New York Public Library. Not long ago it was found inside the front cover of the John Carter Brown copy of Tans'ur's The Royal Melody Completed, together with the smaller Barclay label, unseparated from it. The two labels cover the entire endpaper of this oblong music book and they were obviously printed from the same copper plate. Indubitably the prints were usually cut apart for use separately in folios and in smaller volumes, since the larger label is almost twice the size of the smaller. The label of Samuel Taylor, Book-Binder & Stationer, the Corner of Market & Water Street, Philadelphia, is also engraved within a Chippendale border and has its own charm though it is simpler.[3] Instead of being ornamented with the shop interior as Barclay's is, its sole decoration is the shop sign of a book in hand enclosed in the cartouche at the top. Several Taylor labels have come to light within the covers of a book.[4] A copy which has been removed from the book it once adorned is found in the same collection in the American Antiquarian Society that contains the Barclay label. Mr. Wroth described them, over twenty years ago, as "sufficiently rare to be looked at twice, or even, less elegantly, to be gaped at," and he added, "I have never come upon a volume with the label of Samuel Taylor in position."[5]

These unique examples of bookbinders' labels give a glimpse of unexpected elegance which has not been found in such labels before or since. They appear to have been made in Boston and in Philadelphia about 1765 or 1766. Clearly they were suggested by the eighteenth-century trade cards which had been common in the mother country

and were used extensively in the American colonies.[6] They were smaller, however, and were not printed on card stock. The printed bookbinders' tickets which superseded them early in the nineteenth century were prosaic identification by comparison, having none of the intrinsic charm of the pictorial engravings. Unfortunately, in spite of their distinction the labels were unsigned so that it is impossible to tell with certainty who engraved them. The engraver of Andrew Barclay's shop interior was tentatively identified as Thomas Johnston (1708-1767), engraver in Boston, when the copy belonging to the late Victor Hugo Paltsits was exhibited in the New York Public Library in 1928.[7] This identification was made largely on the basis of Johnston's having engraved the music for A New Version of the Psalms, by Brady and Tate, published in Boston in 1755. Stauffer dates the known Johnston plates between 1727 and 1763 and states that he "did his best work as a heraldic engraver. . . ."[8] An examination of the Johnston print of the fort at Crown Point shows considerable similarity in the descriptive lettering for this picture which had been advertised for sale in the Boston Gazette, June 7, 1762, and the Barclay label. It is entirely possible that Thomas Johnston did engrave the interior of Barclay's shop for his label, but, lacking the authority of a signature, other engravers of the period may be considered too. Two younger engravers worked not far away from Andrew Barclay's shop "at the North Side of the Three Kings" in Cornhill,—Nathaniel Hurd and Paul Revere. Nathaniel Hurd not only worked near at hand but he shared common political beliefs with Barclay, as we shall see later. Paul Revere had also engraved hymn tunes and was producing trade cards in the Chippendale style somewhat later than Thomas Johnston.[9] Barclay's shop was first advertised in 1765 so that his plate was probably not done before that date, and very likely a year or two later. His simple, typographic label which resembled the bookplates used in the Colonies some fifty years earlier may well have preceded the more elaborate engraving. It is impossible to tell from the one example which was turned up in the Massachusetts Historical Society, back in 1938. The binding on Mellen's Fifteen Discourses upon Doctrinal Connected Subjects, printed in Boston by Edes and Gill, in 1765, was simple and undistinguished. Inside the front cover this hitherto unknown label bore the familiar legend, "Bound by Andrew Barclay, Next Door but one to the Sign of the Three Kings in Cornhill," this time in type ornamented only by a narrow typographical border. It was a plain ticket for a plain binding, albeit one of good workmanship. Though it might have been used because of the simplicity of the binding it adorned it seems more likely to have been the only label Barclay then owned since his engraved label was used on plain bindings also. The search for the prototype and for the identity of the engravers of these labels which were in turn identifications might go on so long as to prevent the study of the binders they identify if no arbitrary stop were put. By now Andrew Barclay had emerged as an eighteenth-century binder of parts, perhaps the only one in Boston who could be studied in connection with work which was unmistakably his. He and his bindings have been pursued during the past fifteen years or more. Sometimes the search has been exhilarating and sometimes discouraging. There are still lacunae but they may never be filled. Meanwhile the story is amazing.

Barclay is one of the many bookmen who combined binding with bookselling. Isaiah Thomas recollected him as primarily a binder: "1764. Andrew Barclay, 'at the Bible in Cornhill,' from Scotland, was bred to binding, and followed that business several years after he arrived in Boston. He sold a few books."[10] On the other hand, Evans refers to him as a bookseller only, and gives his earlier address, "second door north of Three Kings in Cornhill."[11] Evans lists seven imprints containing the name of Andrew Barclay, dated between 1765 and 1775. Barclay's name appears in the imprint of twelve known titles.[12] Six of the books printed for him were for children: Samuel Davies's Little Children Invited to Jesus Christ; Tom Thumb's Play-Book, To Teach Children Their Letters as Soon as They Can Speak; The New Book of Knowledge; The Friar and Boy, or, The Young Piper's Pleasant Pastime; and the inevitable copies of The New England Primer Improved, and of Watts's Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children. The first three titles were printed by Zechariah Fowle, and the first two were doubtless set in type by Isaiah Thomas who was serving the last year of his apprenticeship with Fowle in 1765. Although Evans does not locate a copy of Tom Thumb, he provides

the note, "Thomas says he printed the above for Barclay when an apprentice to Zechariah Fowle."[13] It is interesting to find that this young binder and bookseller from Scotland was publishing children's books contemporaneously with the Newberys in England, and in connection with Isaiah Thomas who was to issue children's books from his own presses much later in his career.

Other titles published by Barclay were Ames's Astronomical Diary, printed for him by a fellow Scot, William McAlpine, in 1766 and again in 1768, and editions of Brady and Tate's New Version of the Psalms of David, published in 1769, 1771, and in 1773. The last edition was printed for Barclay by Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks, of which more later. In 1774, a fifteen-page pamphlet by Samuel Clarke, called, A Short Relation, Concerning a Dream Which the Author had on the Eighteenth Day of September in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Nine. With Some Remarks on the Late Comet, was printed. Very few copies of these publications have been located and even if they had been it is unlikely that they would appear in fine bindings as they were hardly fitting subjects for the binder's skill. Children's books, almanacs, and pamphlets like these would be bound, presumably, in unornamented sheepskin or in stitched blue paper covers. Only one of the lot, Brady and Tate's Psalm book, printed for Barclay by Mills and Hicks in 1773, exists in one copy, at least, which appears to have been bound by Barclay. The copy in the British Museum seems to have had a label inside the front cover which was removed at some time. Furthermore the marks it left give every indication that it was the right size for Barclay's smaller one. The volume is neatly bound in sheep over raised cords. Its only ornamentation is provided by double gold fillets bordering the covers. All edges are gilt, and there are embroidered headbands, refinements which might be expected from the emigrant Scot but are not found in the work of native Boston binders.

Of the five bindings which still carry Barclay's trade card as positive identification of his work not one bears his name in the imprint. Two cover London imprints and the other three contain Boston and New-bury-port printings. Only two carry more decoration than the volume just described. Both of these are gold-tooled panel bindings for A New Version of the Psalms of David. One wants a title page and the other bears the imprint, "Boston: Printed by D. Kneeland, for J. Eliot, at the Tree of Liberty, 1766." The latter is in the New York Public Library, and it contains the smaller of Barclay's labels. The binding

is rather worn as one should expect, for these eighteenth-century Psalm books were heavily used. The material appears to be black morocco. The double panel on the covers consists of the customary double gold fillet bordering the covers, with a narrow, ornamental gold roll forming an inner panel. At the outer corners of the inner panel are four rather large, three-branched fleurons. There is nothing to distinguish the covers from those of an English binding of the period. The spine, however, is typical of Scottish work. It contains six panels made by five raised cords bordered on either side by narrow broken gold fillets. Each panel is divided into four sections by a dotted gold fillet, in the traditional form of the St. Andrew's cross. In each of the panels is placed a small fleur-de-lis ornament, and at the outer ends of the cross in the extreme four corners of the panels there is a small, circular, gilt ornament.

The second gold-tooled binding, now owned by Mr. Thomas Streeter, was described as item number 20 in that same Catalogue No. 376 of Goodspeed's Book Shop which bore the reproduction of the label on its cover. In addition to the copy of the Psalms, without any title page, it contains Watts's Collection of Hymns (1765), and an undated copy of Daniel Bayley's The Psalm-Singer's Assistant. It was catalogued as contemporary calf, gilt back, gilt panels on sides. This volume, too, shows signs of use and the gilt is rubbed out in spots. The spine is identical with the New York volume except that the circular ornament appears not only at the extremities of the St. Andrew's cross on the spine, but also at the point where the two gilt fillets cross, in the center. The inner cover panel is made with a different gold roll, a narrow chain, and it has smaller fleurons at the corners, this time small Scottish thistles surmounted by crowns.

The small ticket appears also within a copy of Tillotson's Sermons, in the American Antiquarian Society, first noticed by Mr. Wroth.[14] The binding, however, hardly bears out the pretensions of the ticket. It is a rather crude binding in plain calf. The five raised bands of the spine are bordered by a double gold fillet, and the red morocco label in panel two is lettered in gold, with the final n of Tillotson left off for lack of room. Of similar interest, the simple, blind-tooled sheepskin binding on the John Carter Brown copy of Tans'ur, already described as having the two Barclay labels uncut within, was brought to the writer's attention by Mr. Wroth, a few years ago. Both the Tillotson and the Tans'ur have London imprints.

The fifth volume to bear a Barclay label is the copy of Mellen's

Fifteen Discourses which contains the simple printed label. This book is sewn on the usual five raised cords, the covering is of sprinkled calf adorned by a double gold fillet line around the covers, unmitred at the corners. The cords on the spine are likewise bordered with double gold fillets, and the second panel contains a red leather label, lettered in gilt. The leather inside the covers is untrimmed. There are plain lining papers, the board edges are blind tooled and all edges are sprinkled red. The six Barclay bindings that have thus far come to light signify that Andrew Barclay was an honest, conscientious worker, presumably "bred to binding" in Scotland, that he brought at least some of his tools from there, that he took an unusual pride in his work and was ambitious to make it widely known, as evidenced by the three different trade cards which he used.

Fortunately Barclay was not dependent upon his own imprints for stock for his shop though Thomas gave that impression when he concluded his brief reminiscence with, "He sold a few books." Previous to the Revolution it was customary for booksellers to import the bulk of their books from Great Britain and Andrew Barclay was no exception to the rule. An undated broadside, A Catalogue of Books,/ Lately imported from Britain;/ And to be Sold by A. Barclay. / Second Door North of the three King's,/ Corn-hill Boston./, lists in three columns more than 140 titles—English and Scottish,—in all subject fields. Among them are: Calvin's Institutions [sic]; Hocus, Pocus; Laugh and be Fat; Ramsay's Poems; Webster's Book-keeping; and Tansurs's [sic] Royal Melody, perhaps the very copy which now reposes in the John Carter Brown Library, complete with the two Barclay labels. At the end of the broadside is a note, "All Sorts of Books bound, gilt or plain, in the neatest Manner by said Barclay. . . . Cash given for Sheepskins fit for Bookbinding, at the same Place. Gentlemen in Town and Country, who please to favour him with their Custom, may depend upon being served with Fidelity and Dispatch."[15]

Barclay's advertisements for binding brought him patrons from the country as indicated by a letter from Joseph Clarke, Northampton, written Jan. 18th, 1774, to Henry Knox, bookseller, in Boston. It begins:

This was written in the year in which Henry Knox, later a General under George Washington, was advertising: The letter gives no clue as to whether Andrew was still at the Second door north of the three Kings or whether he had moved, by this time, to his new address at the Sign of the Gilt Bible. Actually he had moved at the end of 1769 as a newspaper notice records: Presumably this move across the street from the proximity of "The Three Kings" where Thomas Knight sold English and West Indies goods, to a spot nearly opposite the Heart & Crown, home of the Boston Evening-Post, published by T. & J. Fleet, was a good one. At least Barclay could now, for the first time, boast his own sign, "The Gilt Bible." On this important street of the Town House, the Town Pump, and the old Brick Meeting House, there were at least five other booksellers at this period. It was a street of commerce where paper hangings, drugs, millinery, hardware, groceries, wine and beer, tobacco, drygoods and all kinds of clothing could be purchased, at "The Sign of the Crown and Mortar," "The Three Nuns and Comb," "The Button Tree," "The Golden Lyon," "The Black Boy and Butt," and so on. Since this move was made at the end of 1769, the broadside Catalogue of Books should reasonably be dated earlier as it bears the old address. Almost two years later we find Barclay advertising in Isaiah Thomas's patriot newspaper: The next newspaper notice contains the name of Andrew Barclay in a different context. Before going forward with the story it is important to know what there is to know, at this point, of the life of this Scottish emigrant.

To uncover the few facts that could be found about this man's life it was necessary to study him as a member of a group as well as an individual. Thomas recorded that he came to Boston from Scotland. A search of the Boston records where one might hope to find the date of his arrival was disappointing. Unhappily the shipping records containing the names of immigrants are lacking for the years before 1763, and the only information to be found was the marriage intention of Andrew Barclay & Mary Bleigh—Oct. 15, 1761.[20] One John Barclay is recorded as having come over on the Ship Sterling Castle, from Greenock, on April 16, 1766, but there is no further mention of Andrew, not even a record of the marriage he intended.[21] A newspaper notice, nearly two years later, linked the names of John and Andrew Barclay in an interesting way:

Perhaps John Barclay was a younger brother who had left Scotland after favorable reports from Andrew in his new establishment in Cornhill.

Andrew Barclay was one of a group of Scottish bookbinders and booksellers who worked in Boston before the War for Independence. Thomas names eight others: Walter and William MacAlpine, Alexander Carlisle, William Lang, John Hodgson, William Miller, John Mein, and John Fleming. In his brief biographical notice of William

MacAlpine he spells out that printer's pronounced royalist sympathies, recording that he left Boston when it was evacuated by the British army and that he died at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1788. John Mein wrote against the colonies and, he reported, "became extremely odious."[23] Several books had been printed for Barclay by William MacAlpine and at least one by Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks.[24] The latter were not Scots but they were loyalists who also left for Halifax with the British army in March of 1776. It seems quite likely that Andrew Barclay may have joined his countrymen and associates in remaining loyal to Government, and so he did. Although his name is not listed with those of William MacAlpine, Scottish printer, and Nathaniel Hurd, engraver, as "Addressers" to Governor Hutchinson before that gentleman left the country in 1774, he joined them as "protesters" against the Solemn League and Covenant for the non-importation of goods, an act which would have ruined him commercially.[25]

It is not hard to see why Andrew Barclay saw fit to join his neighbors on Cornhill in opposition to the Solemn League and Covenant. Many of the merchants and tradesmen in this busy street dealt almost exclusively in English goods or other importations. Barclay's binding and importations must have furnished the bulk of his income since his American publications were so few and insubstantial. The last book he is known to have published in Boston was a forty-seven page chapbook of Watts's Divine Songs (1775), which sold for only eight coppers. From now on Andrew Barclay, loyalist, was more prominent than Andrew Barclay, bookbinder, although he managed to practice his craft throughout the war.

In his new role as "a protester against the Whigs" Barclay was duly chronicled with new information which led to a life beyond Boston:

This opened up two new phases of Barclay's life, in New York and in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, but contributed little to his Boston career, or the transition to New York. Later a more detailed notice included several important clues: In joining the Loyal North British Volunteers, "said to have been the first volunteer company raised in America," Barclay was associating himself with about seventy others, most of them Scots like himself and many of them in the booktrade.[28] General Howe described the group in his Orderly Book, under date of 29th Octr 1775: Only the officers are named and Andrew Barclay is not among them, but the third Lieutenant was J. Fleeming, a fellow bookseller. At least one member of the Loyal North British Volunteers was also a prominent member of the Scots Charitable Society, twenty of whose twenty-seven members were banished for loyalty.[30] This venerable Society had been formed in 1657 to help the prisoners of Cromwell sent over to New England following the battles of Dunbar and of Worcester and it remains in continuous existence since that date to this day, except for the years of the War for Independence. Andrew Barclay's name appears in the membership record, under date of 1772, with his origin as Kinross, Fifeshire. John Barclay is named under date of 1772 as coming from the same place, with the additional designation of "Keykeeper."[31] Andrew's original home place had at last been discovered and possibly his final home. But what of the years 1776 to 1783 and his New York experience?

During the seven years before the peace in 1783 New York was filled with loyalist refugees from the north and from the south and it was more than doubtful that a Scottish bookbinder from Boston would distinguish himself sufficiently among them to become a part of the written history of that chaotic period. Andrew Barclay carried on his trade of bookselling and bookbinding, however, and continued to advertise in the newspapers. Fortunately there was a loyalist newspaper in New York at this time, published by two Scots, Alexander and James Robertson. In fact, there were four newspapers during the British occupation of New York so that one paper appeared each day. Files of the Royal American Gazette, published by the Robertsons, are not complete but it seemed worthwhile to seek them out in preference to other papers for several reasons. The paper was printed by Scots. The Robertsons were later joined by Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks, not only loyalists from Boston, but printers of one of Andrew Barclay's publications there. Most important of all, the newspaper was continued by the Robertsons in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, after the peace. If Barclay were to advertise at all in a newspaper this would surely be the one.

In the year after he reached New York Andrew Barclay had a shop over a grocery store on Queen Street where he continued to sell and bind books. His advertisement in the newspaper appeared in the form of a long list of books on one page, with further data about his activity on another page, below an advertisement for vinegar, pickles, mushrooms, and catsup, at 25 Queen Street:

Not quite a year later Mr. Barclay was advertising, "Books & Stationary Just Imported, and to be Sold, by Andrew Barclay at No. 25, next door to the Gilt Frying Pan, King [sic] Street," in a double column list.[33] His business seems to have flourished for his shop became Shakespear's Head a few months later.[34] At the same address, he offered books in divinity, law, history, physic, geography, husbandry, novels, and so on, as well as all kinds of stationery supplied, ivory and rake combs, razors, tooth brushes, hair powder, three kinds of spectacles, buckles, silver and gilt sleeve buttons, . . . . Bibles, Testaments, Prayer-books, Spelling Books, Psalters, Primers, Playing Cards, etc., in that order. A gayer store than the Gilt Bible in Boston, surely.

About this time Barclay may have been thinking of leaving New York for he begins to advertise auctions of books at his store, saying that the sales will be continued every Tuesday and Friday evening "during the present Winter."[35] He offers to give ready money for old books or to exchange them for new "upon reasonable terms."[36] The following February he lists for auction, "a collection of Valuable BOOKS, The very best Editions, elegantly bound."[37]

In the spring of 1783 the Gazette printed many accounts of ships carrying refugees to Shelburne, or Port Roseway, as it was called, but there was no mention of Barclay's ship by name. Later accounts, however, indicate that it was in the fleet that left New York in the spring. On May 20 the paper reported, "Friday arrived a vessel from Hallifax, by which we learn that the fleet with about 6000 Refugees, which lately left this city, was safely landed at Port Roseway, after a six days passage."[38] Thus ended the New York sojourn.

The romantic story of the rise and fall of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, a loyalist refuge, has been told often. Shelburne had been settled originally by a dozen Scottish and Irish families presumably attracted by "one of the finest harbours of the Atlantic."[39] It was first called Port Razoir, later corrupted to Port Roseway, and was finally named Shelburne after the refugees arrived there. When it was surveyed by two agents from Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1782, with a view to settling loyalist families there it was an abandoned settlement with only two or three fishermen in residence. The first, or "Spring", fleet set sail from New York on April 26, 1783, and about 4000 settlers arrived in May, 1783. Sailing ships continued to come all that year and were still arriving in January of 1784. Before the end of 1784 Shelburne had no less than 10,000 souls and it became, briefly, a place of business and of fashion. At one time there were no less than three newspapers published in the town, among them the Royal American Gazette of the Robertson brothers. Houses were taken down in New York, transported to Shelburne and re-erected there. The town was said to have been modelled on Philadelphia. By July 11, 1783, the clearing

was advanced and lands were allotted. There were five long parallel streets with others crossing at right angles. "Each associate was given a town lot fronting on one of these streets as well as a water lot facing the harbor, and a fifty acre farm in the country."[40] Slaves who came with the refugees were settled in a neighboring town called Birchtown.

In the end the ambitious plans for Shelburne came to nothing. It was, after all, a small fishing village with almost no means of livelihood for a population of this size, most of whom came from the large towns of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and were not frontiersmen in any sense. In less than a year after the original allotments of land there was so much discontent with them that the Governor and Council found it necessary to appoint agents to assign lands to the settlers, "according to the king's instructions, and to report to the Governor."[41] One of these agents was Valentine Nutter, a bookseller and stationer from New York.

Provisions and sums of money were donated by Quakers of Pennsylvania, "Being informed that a number of their brethren, Loyalists in Nova Scotia who had been driven from the United States on account of their fidelity to Great Britain, were in extreme distress, after the rations allowed by his Majesty's treasury had been withdrawn."[42] It is not altogether surprising to find that the community declined seriously after rations from the Crown and from charitable sources failed. This decline was so great that the population was only 379 in 1816.[43]

Into this community came "Captain Andrew Barclay's company of fifty-five men and women and forty-nine children . . . no less than fifty-seven 'servants', . . ., nearly all slaves."[44] The Robertson brothers were in Barclay's company and they went about the business of publishing the Royal American Gazette in the new location but Andrew Barclay seems never to have advertised in it again. More attention was being given, in the press, to the primary necessities of life than to books. The former bookseller, Valentine Nutter, was advertising beef, codfish, and flour. The only book auction was advertised on February 21, 1785, by Robertson & Rigby, auctioneers in King-street, opposite the British Coffee House.[45] The Port Roseway Gazetteer, published by

the New York printers, T. & J. Swords, between 1784 and 1787, and the Nova Scotia Packet, published by James Humphreys from Philadelphia, from 1785 to 1787, also contain no Barclay references. There is nothing in the scanty records of his life in Shelburne to indicate that Andrew Barclay ever pursued his career of bookbinding and bookselling as a business there though he is designated as a stationer in two separate documents.[45a]

The local records make it clear that "Captain Barclay" had a house in Shelburne as early as September of 1784, as the surveyor of the town noted in his diary, under date of September 19, "Capt. Turnbull came to meet me with a message from Capt. Barclay and others desiring me to meet them at Captain Barclay's house."[46] On May 17, 1784, Andrew Barclay was granted town lot No. 5, North, 60 feet, which carried with it a quitrent of one farthing, payable two years from the date of grant. The grant of water lot No. 88, South Division, was dated eleven days later and noted a quitrent of "One farthing for each lot, on the feast of St. Michael next after the expiration of ten years from date."[47] In June of 1784 Andrew Barclay was appointed by Governor Parr as Collector of the District of the River St. John from Point Labreate to Quaco Head.[48] Meanwhile he continued to acquire land. In 1785 he owned a fifty acre lot on McNutt's Island.[49] A deed, dated 1811, reads, "Stephen Skinner to Andrew Barclay—East Side of Jordan River, three lots—1260 acres more or less and said buildings."[50] In 1819 a grant of 500 acres on Roseway River West was escheated.[51] In the Capitation Tax for the Year, 1794, Andrew Barkley, Farmer, is taxed for three cows and horses. Farmer and landowner he was, and only incidentally still a bookbinder. A receipted bill submitted by Andrew Barclay to Capt. White, under the heading of Barclay Valley, September 9, 1809, includes an item midway, dated August 27, "To Binding Nelison's Memoirs, £0-3-0." The other services are those of a farmer: "To carrying the big wheels to Town. . . . To making 20th Candels &

4 ounces wick. . . .," and for plowing with a man and four oxen.[52] No other record that Andrew Barclay bound a book in Shelburne has come to light.

Of course the bookbinding tools and equipment had been left behind in Boston. Like all the other loyalists who had suffered losses Barclay submitted a claim for recompense from the Crown. In fact, he submitted more than one. His "New Claim," made from Shelburne, 15th April 1786, was rejected on 30th May thereafter. It notes that he arrived in Shelburne in May 1783, "where he has resided ever since." His schedule of losses is modest enough and he explains that, "altho infinitely short of what he really lost from the length of time elapsed he cannot be more particular."[53] The schedule lists Shop Goods of various kinds to the value of £20, Household Furniture valued at £40, and tools at £5, or a total of £65 Sterlg., a considerable scaling down from the £200 reported by Sabine. This claim hardly compares with that of £1800 from William MacAlpine of Boston, and the claim of £2000 from Valentine Nutter of New York. Obviously Andrew Barclay's business was not nearly as large, and the bindings containing his trade card which have turned up thus far may be representative of his entire output and a more elaborate binding in keeping with the label may not have ever existed.

The escheat of his lands in 1819 must have been a climax to a precarious and uncongenial existence in Nova Scotia. An attempt was made to reclaim the escheated lands for his father by James Barclay. In March of 1823 he petitioned the Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Province of Nova Scotia for the return of his father's grant of a five-hundred acre lot on the West side of Roseway River, escheated "about two Years past, for want of the said Andrew Barclay knowing the proper steps to be taken, and not being able through infirmity to get up to Halifax to defend the said Lot."[54] About four months later Andrew Barclay died, "At Shelburne, July 2d, . . . in the 86th year of his age, an old and respectable inhabitant of that place."[55] His estate was appraised at £280.0.6 and among the items listed in his will were a set of bookbinder's stamps, a set of bookbinder's tools, one large and one small press and screw and a glue pot,

all of them doubtless remaining from his New York days.[55a] For forty of his eighty-six years this bookbinder, bookseller, who had clung to his trade throughout the Revolutionary War had lived in this isolated town of diminishing inhabitants earning a living from the soil.

The fifteen or sixteen years Barclay passed in Boston were the high ones of his career. If little is known of the last forty years of his life, in Shelburne, even less is known of his early years in Scotland. He did not come from Kinross and Kinross is not in Fifeshire, the records of the Scots Charitable Society notwithstanding. Nor did he come from Fifeshire. He came from a hamlet called Cleish, near Kinross, the county seat of Kinrossshire and also in that shire. The fourth child and the third son of James Barclay, "litster", at Craigend, and his wife, Marion, he was baptized March 31, 1738.[56] A fourth son, John, was baptized September 21, 1740. Inasmuch as "litster" was the Scottish designation of "dyer" and John Barclay who came to Boston in 1766 pursued that occupation, these must have been the two brothers who emigrated there, Andrew, the bookbinder arriving first at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, and brother John, coming six or seven years later at the age of twenty-six. Presumably Andrew learned his trade of binding in Scotland and was an apprentice there. The records of apprentices in Edinburgh name a James Barclay, "son to Alexr. Barclay, fermorer at Cleish, prentice to George Mosman, bookbinder, 10 December 1690," and no other Barclay.[57] James Barclay and his wife, Marion, neé Anderson, were married the 15th of October 1730. The Cleish registers do not go back of 1700 so they do not permit tracing Andrew's antecedents back of his father. It is tempting to speculate that the James Barclay who was apprenticed to George Mosman, bookbinder, bookseller, and printer to the Church of Scotland, in Edinburgh may have been Andrew Barclay's grandfather and that he might have learned bookbinding from this grandfather who, in turn, had learned the art from one of Edinburgh's distinguished booksellers. There was a bookbinder in Kinross, however, an Elizabeth, or Elspeth, Hutchison whose will was registered November 11th, 1765.[58] If Andrew had been apprenticed to her he might have had more reason to sign the Scots Charitable Society register as being from Kinross. At

any rate, soon after he became of age Andrew Barclay sailed for America, there to practice his craft.

A long search has produced the year of Andrew Barclay's birth in the village of Cleish in Scotland, 1738, the date of his death in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, July 2, 1823, and certain additional biographical data, as well as records of his publications and examples of his bookbinding. Though it is not possible to say with certainty exactly when and to whom he was apprenticed in Scotland, just when or why he came to Boston, or anything about "his family of ten," except for son James, it has emerged that he worked as a bookbinder and bookseller in Boston for at least ten years, between 1765 and 1775, that he looked forward to a career in bookbinding as shown by his label, that he gave up his work in the booktrade after pursuing it during the occupation of New York, that he became a political refugee and passed the last forty years of his life as a farmer and landowner working under difficult conditions in the undeveloped country around Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Despite its gaps this is a more complete picture than can be given for any other bookbinder in the American Colonies.

The examples of Barclay's work in Boston which are presently known, show him to have fulfilled his promise of, "Binding, Lettering, and Gilding done in the neatest and best manner." Whether he did "all Sorts of Binding", or not, it is impossible to judge from six examples. This loyal Scot with the elegant trade card may have turned out handsome folios and quartos in the unique Scottish style. They remain to be discovered.

Notes