Finding Aid: The Fred S. Piper Collection Cary Memorial Library Lexington, Massachusetts August 2012 Finding Aid – Fred. S. Piper Collection Cary Memorial Library About the Collection Title The Fred S. Piper Collection, 1846-2000 Creator Fred Smith Piper (1867-1962) Dates 1846-2000; bulk 1936-1962 Quantity 8 Boxes 40 Linear feet Plus 330+ cataloged books housed separately Processed by Jennifer Prentice, 2012 (Simmons College, GSLIS) Abstract The Fred S. Piper Collection consists of two main components: (1) a cataloged collection of more than 330 published books and bibliographies by, about, or related to nineteenth-century American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862); and (2) uncataloged materials that include additional monographs and bibliographies about Thoreau, as well as related correspondence, periodicals, clippings, images, and ephemera. A small subset of the uncataloged material is focused on the life of Thoreau’s English biographer Henry S. Salt (1851-1939). The collection was donated to Cary Memorial Library in 1961 by Dr. Piper (1867-1962), a Lexington resident, physician, and Thoreau enthusiast. The library continued to add material to the collection until the year 2000. Biographical History Dr. Fred S. Piper (1867-1962), was a native of rural New Hampshire and a long-time resident of Lexington, Massachusetts. He worked briefly as a public school teacher and then at a pharmacy before entering the Boston University School of Medicine in 1887. In 1897 he moved his seven-year family medical practice from Hillsboro, NH, to Lexington, MA. His familiarity with medicinal herbs broadened into a lifelong, avid interest in botany, which led him to study plants at home and abroad and to keep a record of more than 300 wildflowers. He admired the distinguished botanist Asa Gray, whose Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States had encouraged Henry David Thoreau’s interest in botany. Dr. Piper was also a skilled photographer and carpenter and a passionate collector of books on a wide variety of subjects, including philosophy, literature, astronomy, and geology. In addition to his Thoreau collection, he owned a large collection of books by and about Walt Whitman. In 1881 Dr. Piper married Mabel Marion Scott, who gave birth to their daughter, Dorothy Gertrude, in 1893. The couple divorced in 1897, and Dr. Piper married Grace Elise Judkins in 1900. Their son, Randolph Piper, was born in 1906. Dorothy Piper married Walter Herbert Neaves in 1913. g:\piper collection\piper collection finding aid.docx 1 Finding Aid – Fred. S. Piper Collection Cary Memorial Library Some of Dr. Piper’s activities and affiliations included the following: Election to Lexington School Committee, 1902. Instructor in Theory and Practice of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, 1906- 1910. President, Lexington Historical Society, 1909-1910. Member, committee for the revision of the Bi-Centenary Edition (1913) of Charles Hudson’s History of the Town of Lexington. Dr. Piper wrote some of the revised material, prepared all of the illustrations, and supervised the work at the Riverside Press. President, Lexington Field and Garden Club, 1917-1918. Among his activities in Freemasonry: Order of Knighthood in Gethsemane No. 35, Newtonville, Mass, Knight of Malta, January 23, 1906. Scottish Rite degrees in Boston, October 1916. Life membership in Boston Council, Royal and Select Masters, November 18, 1919. Degrees and life membership in Aleppo Temple, AAON Mystic Shrine, December 30, 1919. Associate Medical Examiner, Fourth Middlesex District of Massachusetts, December 28, 1927. In addition to these activities, Dr. Piper was the first Vice President of the Thoreau Society, an international society based in Concord, MA, dedicated to the life, writing, and legacy of Henry David Thoreau. He was elected in 1942, one year after the society’s founding. Publications by Fred S. Piper Piper, Fred S. “Architectural Yesterdays in Lexington: A Fragmentary Account of Some of the Older Buildings and Their Builders.” Read October 13, 1908. Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society, 4 (1912): 114-126. [974.44L L5913p] ------. The Boulder. [LEX ROOM 973.331 P] ------. “Historical Sketch of Simon W. Robinson Lodge.” History of Simon W. Robinson Lodge and Its Temple, 1870-1945. Cambridge, MA: Cosmos, 1945. [LEX ROOM 974.44L P661h] ------. “In Memory of Laura Muzzey Brigham.” Read before the Lexington Historical Society, Lexington, MA, October 12, 1915. [LEX ROOM B B768pii] ------. Lexington Historical Society: A Sketch of Its Origin, Purposes, and Achievements, 1886-1912. [LEX ROOM 974.44L L5913p] ------. Lexington, the Birthplace of American Liberty: A Handbook. Lexington, MA: Lexington Historical Society, 1902. Updated and reprinted by the Lexington Historical Society 1904, 1910, 1915, 1920, 1923, 1928, 1956, 1963, circa 1971.[LEX ROOM 974.44L P661L; WORTHEN 974.44L P661L] ------. Nathaniel Piper of Ipswich, Massachusetts and Some of His Descendants, 1653-1934. Lexington, MA: Privately printed, 1935. [LEX ROOM 929.2 P661pin] g:\piper collection\piper collection finding aid.docx 2 Finding Aid – Fred. S. Piper Collection Cary Memorial Library Publications about Fred S. Piper Greeley, William Roger. Biography of the Late Dr. Fred S. Piper. n.d. [LEX ROOM B P661grb (Piper)] Nason, Ralph A. Doctor Fred Smith Piper: A Biography. Lexington, MA, 1959. [LEX ROOM B P661nad] Related Collections The Thoreau Institute in Lincoln, MA, and the Concord Free Public Library in Concord, MA, hold extensive and complementary collections of books and archival materials related to Henry David Thoreau. Among the most relevant to the Fred S. Piper collection are the Raymond Adams and Walter Harding collections at the Thoreau Institute and the Henry David Thoreau papers and the collection of books from Thoreau’s library at the Concord Free Public Library. Harding’s collection contains a fragment of wood from Thoreau’s cabin given to him by Dr. Piper. Provenance Dr. Piper donated his collection to the Cary Memorial Library on August 16, 1961. For nearly forty years after the donation, the library staff accepted additional donations and actively sought new publications about Thoreau to add to the collection. The practice ended around the time of a major renovation of the library building in 2000, when the collection was moved to storage. Books, periodicals, and other items published after Piper’s death in June 1962 are known to have been added by the library, as are a copy of Joseph Hosmer’s Concord Freeman: Thoreau Annex and an LP of a WBZ Radio program on the environmental conditions at Walden Pond. However, there may be some library additions that were undocumented and are consequently unidentified here. The majority of the collection is believed to be Dr. Piper’s original donation. Scope and Content of the Collection The collection includes correspondence, books, pamphlets, periodicals, clippings, manuscripts, photographs, sketches, and ephemera containing content primarily about the life and writing of nineteenth-century author, philosopher, naturalist, and Concord native Henry David Thoreau (1817- 1862). Other, closely related, subjects include Thoreau’s friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, the site of Walden Pond, where Thoreau lived for two years in a cabin of his own construction, and events commemorating Thoreau and Concord, MA. Although Dr. Piper’s collection at one time included some artifacts and a complete set of first editions of the writings of Thoreau, the current collection contains few first editions and no original Thoreau manuscripts or artifacts. The focus is on books, articles, and poetry written about or inspired by Thoreau. There also is a small collection of material honoring the life and work of Thoreau’s English biographer Henry S. Salt (1851-1939). g:\piper collection\piper collection finding aid.docx 3 Finding Aid – Fred. S. Piper Collection Cary Memorial Library Organization and Arrangement Series 1. Cataloged book collection Series 2. Material related to Henry David Thoreau A. Monographs B. Periodicals and clippings C. Bibliographies and catalogs D. Images E. Unpublished documents F. Ephemera Series 3. Fred S. Piper correspondence Series 4. Material about Henry S. Salt Series 5. Material about Fred S. Piper In this finding aid, locations are given in the following format: Box#. Folder#. Images, for example, have the location 8.1, which means they can be found in the first folder of Box 8. Series 1. Cataloged book collection The cataloged book collection consists of over 330 books and bibliographies by, about, or related to Henry David Thoreau. Nearly half of the books in the series contain the writings of Thoreau, though only two of these were published during Thoreau’s lifetime: Elizabeth Peabody’s 1849 Aesthetic Papers, containing Thoreau’s lecture “Resistance to Civil Government,” and the 1853 poetry collection Thalatta: A Book for the Seaside, containing Thoreau’s poem “My life is like a stroll.” Items not by Thoreau are primarily about Thoreau’s life and writings. Items in this series have been cataloged by the library and are housed separately from the rest of the collection. They can be found in the library’s catalog by searching for items with “PIPER” in the Dewey call number. See also uncataloged monographs in Series 2A, Thoreau Society Booklets in Series 2B, and uncataloged bibliographies in Series 2C. Location Description Dates See Catalog Cataloged books and bibliographies 1846-2000 Series 2. Material related