Pictured above: Berkshire County Courthouse (home of the Berkshire Law Library), Pittsfield, completed in 1871. Illustration from: History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, (1885).
A fire in 1869 almost destroyed all the books in the Berkshire Law Library. Many rare books were saved, and the library has two old catalogs from the 19th century that list books that may have been endangered or lost.
The Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries have a considerable number of old, rare, and interesting books on the law. Some are lucky survivors of calamity.
The Berkshire Law Library suffered one such calamity in 1869, when a fire nearly spirited away all the books that had been contributed, bought, and treasured by users and staff since the founding of the library in 1815 in the town of Lenox. In 1869, the library was being moved from Lenox to Pittsfield, the new county seat. A new Courthouse was being built to accommodate both the court and the law library. It was a rainy night in May when disaster turned its ghoulish gaze upon the helpless tomes.
One may read about what happened next in the book 200 Years of Free Legal Information: from County Law Libraries to Massachusetts trial Court Law Libraries:
“The law library’s collection sustained a devastating fire while books were held in temporary quarters on North St. in Pittsfield, pending the move into the new Pittsfield Courthouse. A ‘Statement of the loss and damage sustained by the Berkshire Law Library in the fire which consumed the Court House in Burbanks New Block in Pittsfield on the morning of Tuesday May 11,1869’ tells the story. ‘The library was kept in a second story room fronting on street and the book [sic] which were saved were almost all thrown out of the window into the mud and dirt. They were then picked up by the crowd and removed at once in wagons and otherwise to places of safety and as soon as it became daylight were collected and removed in wagons to the Town Hall where by direction of C.J. Chapman the Court was held that morning.’ The loss was settled by a Boston insurance company within the same month for $800.00.”
(That would be worth between $18,000 to $20,000 in today’s money.)
The “Statement of loss and damage…” reports that “Almost every book in the library is more or less injured. The bindings of many are torn and spoiled, the dirt and mud into which they fell when thrown into the street has very seriously defaced most of them. Many are out of shape. All are smoked, and all are so dirty as to be greatly damaged. The tar from the roof of this building sticks to many of the volumes.” The Statement lists the titles of many of the books.
The librarian at that time compared the titles of the books which were saved with titles listed in the library catalog. (That catalog does seem to survive today.)
To get a fuller idea of which books might have been lost, one might begin by comparing the current library catalog with a handwritten catalog of books in the Berkshire Law Library completed in 1860, nine years before the fire. The volumes total 672, with a total value of $2194.25. However, many of the volumes have been stricken out in pencil at some later date—possibly after the fire in Pittsfield on May 11, 1869—and $731.41 is subtracted, leaving a total value of $1462.84. (Perhaps this was the library catalog used in 1869, after all—although that might assume that the library did not acquire any books in the years between 1860 and 1869!)
More detective work may be necessary to discover what was lost. The oldest book in the Berkshire Law Library today dates from 1650, Reports, or causes in Chancery, collected by Sir George Cary, reporting on English cases from the 17th century. Many more books on English, American, and specifically Massachusetts law also grace our Rare Book Room.
The Berkshire Law Library owns another handwritten “Catalogue of Books in the Law Library 1812“, which appears to be written by Theodore Sedgewick (1746-1813), Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts (1802-1813), whose home was in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The “Law Library” referred to in the title is thought to be the Berkshire Law Library, which still contains some of these titles inscribed by the hand of Theodore Sedgewick.
The oldest of these books, The orphan’s legacy: or, A Testamentary abridgement. In three parts, (4th edition, 1701), by John Godolphin (1617-1678), concerns the execution of wills in Great Britain. (Oliver Twist might still have benefited from the principles presented therein.)
One can read more about the history of the Berkshire Law Library, and all the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries, in the book 200 Years of Free Legal Information: from County Law Libraries to Massachusetts trial Court Law Libraries, which is available to download (for free) online.
