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Henry Ainsworth (1571-ca.1623). Annotations Upon the Book of
Psalmes. Amsterdam ?, 1617.
This copy of Henry Ainsworth's Annotations Upon the Book of
Psalmes, probably printed in Amsterdam in 1617, made two trips
across the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower. Inscriptions in the
volume record that one of the Mayflower passengers, tailor Isaac
Allerton, presented it to another, surgeon Giles Heale, in February
1621, soon after the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts Bay. The
inscription misleadingly names the site as "Verginia." The
signature of "Mary Hele" (a relative of Giles Heale who had
remained in England) on the book's flyleaf indicates that she was in
possession of the volume twelve months after Heale inscribed it. The
recipient must have sent it back to England when the Mayflower
returned in the spring of 1621.
Sometime during the 1890s this volume was advertised for sale in
London. A generous benefactor, whose name is not now known, saw the
advertisement and reference to the inscription and purchased the volume
for presentation to the Virginia State Library under the mistaken
impression that it had been in Virginia before.
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