ML Archives and Special Collections

Samuel Stearns, The American herbal, or Materia medica. Wherein the virtues of the mineral, vegetable, and animal productions of North and South America are laid open, so far as they are known; and their uses in the practice of physic and surgery exhibited…, Walpole, NH: D. Carlisle for Thomas and Thomas and the Author, 1801.

This recent addition to Special Collections is considered the first indigenous American herbal, a type of book that lists plants, their properties, and often, as is the case here, their medicinal uses. The American Herbal is also particularly notable for containing remedies used by Native Americans, although the accuracy of Stearns’ use these remedies is questionable. Most entries in the American Herbal (click here for a sample image) include a plant’s common and scientific name, a list of it’s salient features, and common medical uses and preparations.

As the WebMD of their time, herbals like this one would have been popular among the average user looking for home-medicine advice. But our copy also provides evidence of their professional usefulness too. The front paste-down includes an inscription indicating that the book was a presented as a gift from a doctor in Louisville, Kentucky to a doctor in Harrodsburg on November 16th, 1864.

Stearns himself led an interesting life. According to Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography (not necessarily a completely reliable source) Stearns was a Tory, and during the American Revolution he “suffered greatly from persistent attacks of the Sons of Liberty”. Before publishing the new country’s first herbal, he had already published its first nautical almanac and a number of other medical works.

The traveling exhibition Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America will be coming to the Missoula Public Library from December 20th to February 15 (click here for more information). So in honor of the event, here’s a Hamilton-related item from Special Collections: The Hamiltoniad, or The Effects of Discord, written by “a Young Gentleman of Philadelphia” and published on August 3, 1804.

Just a few weeks prior, on July 11, Burr had mortally wounded Hamilton in a duel with pistols. The conflict arose out of a longstanding political rivalry brought to a head by Hamilton’s active campaigning against Burr in the race for the New York governorship. Burr felt that some of Hamilton’s comments were slanderous and challenged him to the duel.

Joseph Hopkins (the “Young Gentleman of Philadelphia”) uses The Hamiltoniad for a number of purposes: mourning Hamilton’s death (”Weep, weep his loss, for he will ne’er return”), combating anti-Federalists (”… That noble FEDERALISM’S slighted cause,/ Again would flourish…”), attacking Burr (”… Oh! B–rr, the fatal, fatal deed!/ Earth shudders at thy wicked daring crime”), and offering a passionate call for an end to dueling (”… The people, high and low, would then detest/ And shun the Duellist as a common pest”). And he manages to do it all in heroic couplets! In addition to the poem, Hopkins also includes an appendix reprinting the fateful correspondence between Burr and Hamilton in the days leading up to the duel as well as Hamilton’s eulogy.

An early owner of this particular copy offered his own assessment of the poem on the volume’s flyleaf (click to view image): “Hamiltoniad: to perpetuate the infamy of Aaron Burr”

Call Number: SpColl: 973.4 H2172ho