Frances A. Henshaw's Book of Penmanship Executed at the Middlebury Female Academy April 29, 1828.
Pub Reference:
None found.
Pub Note:
Exquisite hand drawn maps of the states. Notwithstanding the title, this is a geography book hand drawn by a very promising student. It includes descriptions of Astronomical Geography, the Ptolemaic, Brahean and Copernican Systems, Comets, Great Circles, Equator, Meridian, Horizon, Colures, Tropics, Polar Circles, Zones, Climates, Latitude and Longitude, a section titled America, and 19 maps of the states with a descriptive page for each. The maps are copied from the 1805 edition of Carey's American Pocket Atlas, except for Ohio, which is from Arrowsmith and Lewis' Atlas, 1812, and Indiana, from an unknown source. The text is copied from Morse's Geography Made Easy, probably 1807, 11th edition, but certainly before the 12th edition (which was changed substantially); the text describing the maps is original. The only mystery is why she used such out of date sources if, in fact, she made this book in 1828. The penmanship is remarkable both in the execution of the maps and text. One of a kind. At the bottom of the title page: "presented to her son T.A. Post - Feb 4th 1872." Emma Willard led the Middlebury Female Academy from 1807-9, see DAB.
