The Treasure of Pequot

Southport, Conn, is a little (pop. 2,500) village only 50 miles from Times Square. The villagers and commuters like its quiet, colonial atmosphere, are glad that their town is not growing by leaps & bounds. One of the things they like best is the small, one-story stone building on a peaceful street called the Pequot Library. There, among thrillers and romances, Southporters could find row after row of ancient, leatherbound volumes mostly describing life in colonial times. The old books had been there for years, and people enjoyed browsing through them, though few of them seemed to give the old books much serious thought.

Auctions for the Ladies. The Pequot Library Association knew that the old books were the gifts of two wealthy Southport ladies, Mrs. Virginia Monroe and Mrs. Mary Wakeman. Mrs. Monroe, who donated the library, which opened in 1893, made it her hobby to collect interesting old books for its shelves. A third Southport resident in love with Americana was the Rev. William H. Holman, pastor of the town's Congregational Church. Pastor Holman made it his business to read over rare-book bibliographies and go to auctions for the ladies. His own records show that in 25 years the Rev. Mr. Holman spent more than $15,000 collecting 3,000 old books and manuscripts for Pequot.

Pequot's directors thought it best not to ballyhoo the collection: if the books were known to be worth $15,000, someone might steal them. Librarian Edna

Werrey picked out a few of the oldest-looking items and locked them in her vault; the rest were left standing on Pequot's shelves for the people of Southport to enjoy. Then, after the war, inflation hit Southport and the library began having money troubles.

A year ago Pequot's directors reluctantly decided to sell some of the books. They asked Manhattan's Parke-Bernet auction galleries for an appraisal. The expert who came to look got an eyeful. There were papers signed by England's Queen Elizabeth I and Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII; a complete set of autographs of America's Founding Fathers (estimated value: $50,000), including the rarest of all, Georgia's Button Gwinnett; a priceless law journal kept by Connecticut's Governor Jonathan Trumbull from 1715 to 1747; the full minutes of the town meetings of Guilford, Conn, from 1665 to 1701; and most of the original tracts and sermons of Cotton and Increase Mather.

Columbus & John Smith. The Parke-Bernet man dug deeper. He found a copy of Hakluyt's Principall Navigations . . . dated 1589; a printed letter in Latin by Christopher Columbus describing his trip to the New World; Captain John Smith's history of Virginia and Massachusetts; and John Eliot's 1663 translation of the Bible into the Algonquian Indian language. Finally, Parke-Bernet announced that it would be delighted to sell the collection. It should bring, at auction, from $250,000 to $1,000,000.

Book Publisher George Brett and ACcountant George May (both commuting Southporters) heard the news and begged the library not to sell. Such a treasure trove, they argued, should be used by scholars, not hoarded by private collectors. They called Yale University's Sterling Library and asked Librarians James T. Babb and Donald G. Wing to hurry down. Babb and Wing took one look and rubbed their eyes. "It's the most important Americana find in years," said Wing. "It's like the crown jewels. It's priceless."

That decided Pequot. Last week, a car pulled up to the low, red building in Southport, and Librarian Wing began the ticklish job of transferring the books to Yale's Sterling Library. Pequot's members were sorry to see their old books go, but in a way they were glad. Yale would get the library on a free loan for 15 years. It will be called the "Monroe, Wakeman and Holman Loan Collection of the Pequot Library Association" and, after half a century of use by Southport's citizens, will now be opened to history scholars the world over.

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