Col. Benjamin Church, engraved by Paul Revere, 1772
About it
The frontispiece of the second edition of Thomas Church’s account of his father’s war, “Col. BENJAMIN CHURCH,” in an oval frame and signed “P. Revere sc.” The book first appeared at Boston in 1716 as Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip’s War, written from the old colonel’s own notes; this Newport reprint of 1772 added Revere’s two plates, this and Philip. Revere had no portrait of Church to work from, and he took his face from a print of the English poet Charles Churchill, hanging a powder horn round his neck. Benjamin Church, who led the Plymouth company that ran Philip down at Mount Hope in August 1676, was a grandson of Richard Warren through his daughter Elizabeth, and so a first cousin of Rebecca (Bartlett) Harlow, wife of Sgt. William Harlow. Lt. Isaac Howland of Middleborough served under him in 1676, and Paul Revere was a first cousin of Robert Hitchborne, husband of Susanna (Ellingwood) Hitchborne. The scan is of the John Carter Brown Library’s copy, with the title page showing through the leaf.
- Related to
- Richard Warren, Mary Warren, Rebecca Bartlett, William Harlow, Isaac Howland, Susanna Ellingwood
- Credit
- Paul Revere, *Col. Benjamin Church*, engraved frontispiece to Thomas Church, *The Entertaining History of King Philip's War* (Newport: Solomon Southwick, 1772). John Carter Brown Library, via the Internet Archive (entertaininghist00chur_0); public domain
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