FORTY YEARS OF PIONEER LIFE: MEMOIR OF JOHN MASON PECK D.D. Edited from His Journals and Correspondence

Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1864. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1864. First edition. 8 x 5 1/4 inches: pp. 360. Green, textured cloth boards with faded gilt lettering. Lithograph frontis of Mr. Peck.

A couple of small spots on boards. Wear, and rubbing to extremities, but still quite solidly bound Previous owner's penciled name to title page. Some soiling and foxing on pages. Otherwise text is unmarked. Binding sound.

All for the sake of the Mission, herein are selected transcriptions from the voluminous and thorough half-century of recollections and correspondence kept by the remarkable man of faith, John Mason Peck, interlaced throughout with commentary and elucidation by the editor. When he came there were not a score of Baptist churches, and when he left, just under 2000 had been established. His "outpostings" and influence were well-known in New York State, in St. Louis and other towns in Missouri and Illinois.

Pioneer Explorer, who had contact with numerous Native-Americans. Reverend Peck was well-known in many "different but nearly related fields of evangelical enterprise -- preaching the gospel, establishing churches, Sunday-schools, Bible and tract societies, educational institutions to train preachers and teachers of common-schools. all the while working "to surround, and supplement and sustain it all by desireable civilizing and humane instrumentalities; encouraging a better class settlers to follow his 'Guide for Emigrants' and make permanent homes and thriving communities in the fertile Western Valley, or, as he finally insisted it should be called, the Great Central Valley of North America, to make them temperate, Sabbath-keeping, and free..." (from Preface).