RETURN 13 OLD BOOKS TO HARVARD LIBRARY

Thirteen volumes which had belonged to the Harvard Library in 1632 yesterday were restored to the Library after an absence of 240 years. The presentation was made in the Widener Room by Chief Justice Riege of Massachusetts and the gift was accepted by President Lowell.

In 1682 the College Library received from Sir John Mayhard "eight chests of books valued at 400 pounds". Among these naturally were many duplicates, and the Corporation promptly authorized the sale of "double books". Cotton Mather of the class of 1678, just out of College, keen to gather a collected of books which eventually exceeded in size and importance every other colonial library of the time, purchased 96 of these duplicates. Most of these books remained in the possession of his son, Samuel, and the latter's daughter, Hannah, well into the nineteenth century, when they passed into the possession of the American Antiquarian Society. It is this Society which yesterday gave them over to the Harvard Library.