A Discourse, Delivered at New-Haven, Feb. 22, 1800; On the Character of George Washington, Esq. at the Request of the Citizens.

DWIGHT, Timothy. [George Washington].

Item Number: 133409

New-Haven: Printed by Thomas Green and Son, 1800.

First edition of the President of Yale College’s oration delivered upon the occasion of the death of the first President of the United States. Sabin 21549; Evans 37339. Octavo, bound in three quarters morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles and tooling to the spine, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author Timothy Dwight IV served as the eighth president of Yale College from 1795 to 1817. Dwight was the leader of the evangelical New Divinity faction of Congregationalism—a group closely identified with Connecticut’s emerging commercial elite. Although fiercely opposed by religious moderates, most notably Yale President Ezra Stiles, he was elected to the presidency of Yale on Stiles’s death in 1795. In near fine condition. Name to the title page. Bookplate to the pastedown. A very nice example.

"The father of his country" and the first president of the United States, General George Washington died on December 14th, 1799 and was buried at Mount Vernon in Virginia. In his Last Will and Testament, written only months before his death, Washington left explicit directions for the emancipation of each of his 123 slaves, to be carried out after the death of his wife Martha. Legislature was passed in Virginia toward the end of the American Revolution in 1782 making it legal for slave holders to emancipate their slaves without an special action by the government. In his will, Washington left a detailed slave census as well as stipulations regarding the treatment of the emancipated slaves who were sick and elderly, orphaned children, and the binding of children to masters and mistresses who would provide them with an education. Upon his death, memorial processions were held in every major city and thousands wore mourning clothes for months; Martha Washington was known to have worn a mourning cloak for over a year.