Bay Psalm Book facts for kids
The Bay Psalm Book is a very old and important book of songs from the Bible. Its full name is The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre. It was first printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This makes it the first book ever printed in British North America.
The book contains psalms (songs from the Bible) that were rewritten as poems to be sung. Even though the translations weren't perfect, printing this book was a huge achievement. It happened just 20 years after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Bay Psalm Book was used for over a century.
In 2013, one of the few remaining copies of the first edition was sold for $14.2 million. This set a new record for the most expensive printed book ever sold.
Contents
History of the Bay Psalm Book
How the Bay Psalm Book Started
When the first settlers came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they brought psalm books with them. But they weren't happy with the translations of the psalms from Hebrew. They wanted a version that was closer to the original Bible text.
So, they hired "thirty pious and learned Ministers" to create a new translation. These ministers included important figures like Richard Mather and John Eliot. They finished their new translation, which became the Bay Psalm Book. The tunes used for these new songs were already well-known.
The first printing of the Bay Psalm Book was done by Stephen Day in 1640. About 1,700 copies were printed. It was sold by Hezekiah Usher, who was the first bookseller in British America.
Later Editions and Changes
The third edition of the book, printed in 1651, was greatly changed by Henry Dunster and Richard Lyon. This new version was called The Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs of the Old and New Testament, faithfully translated into English metre. It became very popular and was known as the New England Psalter.
The ninth edition, printed in 1698, was the first to include music. It had 13 tunes from another music book published in London.
Changes in the 1700s
Over time, new ways of singing psalms became popular in England and then in America. In the early 1700s, new psalm versions by writers like Isaac Watts were published. Many churches in New England started using these newer books instead of the Bay Psalm Book.
In 1718, Cotton Mather tried to update the original Bay Psalm Book. Later, in 1752 and 1758, John Barnard and Thomas Prince also made revisions. Thomas Prince was a minister in Boston. He wanted his church to use a more scholarly version of the book. However, Prince's version was not widely accepted by other churches. By 1789, his own church went back to using the version by Isaac Watts.
The Title Page
The title page of the very first edition from 1640 looked like this:
Faithfully
TRANSLATED into ENGLISH
Metre.
Whereunto is prefixed a discourse
declaring not only the lawfullness, but also
the necessity of the heavenly Ordinance
of singing Scripture Psalmes in
the Churches of God.
An Example from the Book
Here is "Psalm 23" from the Bay Psalm Book. It shows the style and how the words were translated:
The Lord to me a shepherd is,
want therefore shall not I:
He in the folds of tender grass,
doth cause me down to lie:
To waters calm me gently leads
restore my soul doth he:
He doth in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake lead me.
Yea, though in valley of death’s shade
I walk, none ill I’ll fear:
Because thou art with me, thy rod,
and staff my comfort are.
For me a table thou hast spread,
in presence of my foes:
Thou dost anoint my head with oil;
my cup it overflows.
Goodness and mercy surely shall
all my days follow me:
And in the Lord’s house I shall dwell
so long as days shall be.
Where are the Copies Now?
Only eleven copies of the first edition of the Bay Psalm Book are still known to exist. Five of these copies are complete. Only one copy is outside the United States.
Here are some of the places where these rare books are kept:
| Owner/Library | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Library of Congress | ||
| Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University | This copy was once owned by the Old South Church in Boston. It was later bought for Yale University in 1947. | |
| Houghton Library, Harvard University | Harvard likely got this copy after its library burned down in 1764. It is missing 10 pages. | |
| John Carter Brown Library, Brown University | This copy originally belonged to Richard Mather, one of the book's first translators. | |
| American Antiquarian Society | This copy is missing its title page and two other pages. It is in its original cover. It was bought for 36 cents in 1804. | |
| New York Public Library | This copy was found in London in 1855. It was missing 12 pages, which were replaced from another copy. | |
| Bodleian Library, University of Oxford | This complete copy was given to the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1735. It is the only copy outside the United States. | |
| Huntington Library | This copy was passed down through a family before being sold to a book store in Boston. It was later bought by Henry E. Huntington in 1911. | |
| Rosenbach Museum & Library | This copy was found in 1933. It was briefly stolen by a student in 1949 as part of a prank. | |
| Old South Church in Boston | This book was given to the Old South Church in 1758 by Thomas Prince. It is kept at the Boston Public Library. | |
| David Rubenstein | This copy was bought in November 2013. It was previously owned by the Old South Church in Boston. |
Auction Records
There are eleven surviving copies of the Bay Psalm Book.
In 1947, one copy of the first edition sold for $151,000. In 2009, an early edition from around 1669–1682 sold for $57,600.
In 2013, a 1640 copy of the Bay Psalm Book was sold at auction by Sotheby's. It was one of two copies owned by Boston's Old South Church. It sold for $14.165 million to American billionaire David Rubenstein. This set a new record for the most expensive printed book ever sold. It beat the previous record set in 2010 by John James Audubon's The Birds of America ($11.5 million). David Rubenstein has loaned the book to the National Museum of American History.
See also
In Spanish: Bay Psalm Book para niños
