Previously Unknown African-American Autobiography and the Author's Family Bible

[African Americana]: [Maryland]: [Jason Family]:

[Carbon Typescript Autobiography of Howard Talbot Jason and His Jason Family Bible, With Informative Manuscript Records on the Family's History and Seven Contemporary Photographs].

[Various locations in Maryland and Delaware: roughly 1867-1905]. Autobiography: [1],1a,34,[1]pp. typescript carbon on yellow paper, marked "COPY" at head of first page. Two pages with long corrected sections stapled to original leaves, occasional emendations in type. Minor edge wear. Very good. Family Bible: various paginations, plus numerous plates, and with seven 19th-century photographs at rear in the "Family Portraits" section. Square folio. Original black leather and gutta percha, stamped in gilt and blind. Some scuffing, edge wear, and soiling to boards. Occasional soiling and wear internally, with some portions of text and portrait pages at rear chipped and/or detached. Rear hinge separated. Good condition. Item #12728

An amazing collection consisting of a carbon typescript of a previously unknown and unpublished autobiography, a family Bible with manuscript notations, and original photographs memorializing Howard Talbot Jason and his family. The Jasons were a prominent African American family in Maryland and Delaware in the 19th and 20th centuries whose members included prominent ministers, physicians, and educators. Howard Talbot Jason (1867-1955) was educated at the oldest HBCU in the country, Pennsylvania's Lincoln University and worked as an educator, Presbyterian missionary, and minister.

Much more will now be known about Howard Talbot Jason due to the present typescript autobiography. From contextual clues, the work was evidently transcribed by his daughter Grace Jason Perry, likely from Howard's handwritten original, which may still reside within the Jason family or, more likely, has been lost to history. Howard's autobiography begins with his birth in Easton, Maryland and some background information on his slave-born father, William. Sadly, Howard had "no particular remembrance" of his mother, who died when he was six. He then details some events of his childhood, his early working life as a waiter, fisherman, laborer, and barber, his education at "a school for colored boys, not far from my town of Hockessin, Delaware" and Lincoln University, and his time serving as a missionary in Puerto Rico (where, among other things, he experiences "Jim Crowism"). In fact, Howard's autobiography is mostly concerned with his time at Lincoln and his missionary work in Puerto Rico, when his account concludes unfinished and in mid-sentence on page 34. A few notes from his daughter Grace are typed out on the last page, as she has "not been able to figure out just where this belongs in Dad's autobiography." The work covers Howard Talbot Jason's life from birth to about 1905, constituting roughly the first half of his life. We know of no other extant copies of this autobiography, though we cannot count out the possibility that other examples may reside with Jason family descendants. In any case, the emergence of this work provides a phenomenal new understanding of an important African American figure in Maryland and Delaware.

The autobiography is accompanied by an informative family Bible kept by various members of the prominent Jason family, namely Howard Talbot Jason. The Bible was gifted to Howard Talbot Jason in 1894 by his father William Jason, evidenced by the gift inscription on the front flyleaf. Three pages between the Old and New Testaments, listing details of marriages, births, and deaths provide critical information on the Jason family, beginning with the marriage of William Jason (1831-1929) and Mary E. Wing (1839-1873) on December 16, 1858. Three other marriages are recorded between 1883 and 1894. The "Births" page records the birthdays of nine members of the Jason family between 1831 and 1872. The next page records the deaths of ten Jason family members between 1866 and 1955, the latter being the death of the aforementioned Howard Talbot Jason. The Jasons lived around Easton and Trappe, Maryland, and later in other locations in Delaware and Pennsylvania.

In addition to the life details of the various Jason family members, the Bible also houses seven 19th-century photographs in the rear. This includes six CDVs and one tintype featuring five men and two women, almost certainly picturing Jason family members. Most are housed securely inside oval windows but two display photographic studio information, both from Philadelphia photographers. One of the photographs seems to picture William C. Jason, Sr. (1859-1943). He appears to be the most notable among the family members here. William C. Jason, Sr. was a barber and printer in his youth, then later a Methodist minister, educator, and second president of Delaware's State College for Colored Students, now known as Delaware State University. He is also the namesake of Jason Beach, a formerly-segregated stretch of recreational shoreline for African Americans, located in Trap Pond State Park outside Laurel, Delaware, where there is a historical marker about him.

The Bible was apparently retained by a member of the family after Howard Talbot Jason, who provides an additional notation in more modern blue ballpoint ink beneath the original gift inscription, stating that "Howard Talbot Jason also had three brothers named William, Ernest, and Alonzo." This same family member also laid in a note about various siblings of Lena Bertha Wright Jason, dated in 1989 (a substantial collection of her personal papers reside at Harvard). Family Bibles retained by African-American families in the 19th and 20th centuries are rarely encountered in the marketplace. And though marked as a copy, it is possible, even likely that the typescript of Howard Talbot Jason's life is a unique survival of an as-yet-unknown African American autobiography.

Price: $7,500