FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN THE SENECA LANGUAGE AT BUFFALO CREEK (1843): AN EXTRAORDINARILY RARE MISSION PRESS IMPRINT

ONLY A HANDFUL OF COPIES KNOWN, WITH JUST ONE EVER AT AUCTION

[attr. Asher Wright, translator]. Gaa Nah Shoh: Ne De O Waah'sa O'nyoh Gwah Na'wen Ni'Yuh. Do Syo Wa [Buffalo Creek Reservation, Erie County, New York]: Seneca Mission Press, 1843. 

EXCEEDINGLY RARE. Only 1 copy has ever sold at auction, in 1920 in the sale of the Library of Henry F. De Puy, Part III (Anderson Galleries, Sale No. 1490).  OCLC locates 3 copies held in libraries (note: the publication location is mistakenly attributed to Ohio). Pilling identifies three (3) additional copies at the Boston Athenaeum, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the private collection of Maj. J.W. Powell.

12mo, 136 pages. Contemporary sheep. FIRST EDITION. Pilling, Iroquoian Languages, p. 176. 

Preface to English readers (pp. iii-vi) and index in English (pp. 125-136), else entirely in the Seneca language. 

Asher Wright (1803-1875) was a Quaker missionary who worked with the Seneca Nation from 1831 until his death. Asher and his wife, Laura Maria Sheldon (1809-1886) moved to the Buffalo Creek Reservation in western New York in 1833. Asher and Laura devoted themselves to the Seneca language and produced numerous translations of religious works as well as bilingual schoolbooks and primers.

Sometime before 1841, Wright obtained a printing press (possibly a Cap Ramage Press) and accented type from Boston. He received more type from the missionary board, and in 184,2 Benjamin Van Duzee was hired as a printer. In the first year, the press issued A Spelling Book in the Seneca Language with English Definitions, which compiled Wright's linguistic efforts developing a Seneca alphabet and phonetic system. This was followed by the 1843 hymnal, offered here, the first religious work published at the press. 

Around the time of this publication, the United States ratified a new treaty with the Seneca, leading to the dissolution of the Buffalo Creek Reservation. The Seneca did, however, retain their other reservations. The Wrights, printer Van Duzee, and the majority of the Buffalo Creek Seneca relocated to the Cattaraugus Reservation. The Seneca Mission Press was re-established. 

Refrences

Jack T. Ericson. "The Seneca Mission Press." Western New York Heritage. (Fall 2005). 

James Constantine Pilling. Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1888.