A BOOK BELONGING TO JOHN SIMCOE? – Oakland Scottish Rite Historical Foundation

This book, first published in Latin in 1647 and in English in 1650, was authored by the Moravian philosopher, reformer, and theologian John Amos Comenius (1592–1670), titled _The History of the Bohemian Persecution from the beginning of their conversion to Christianity in the year 394 to the year 1632…_ may have belonged to John Simcoe (1710–1759), who captained the 60-gun HMS Pembroke for James Cook during the Seven Years’ War, before dying of pneumonia at Anticosti Island, Canada. The bookplate, which bears his family crest and the inscription “Captain Simcoe, R.N. Wolford,” indicates this may be so. Captain Simcoe was John Graves Simcoe’s father. The younger Simcoe was also an accomplished soldier of note and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada.

The book’s title page is decorated with childlike scribbles. These could have been drawn at any time during its long history, but one can speculate that perhaps they were inscribed by one of Simcoe’s young children—even John Graves Simcoe himself. We will never know their origin, but it’s possible to look at them and wonder if they are the doodles of a future war hero and statesman.

According to his Wikipedia biography, John Amos Comenius was “a Moravian philosopher, pedagogue and theologian who is considered the father of modern education. He served as the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren before becoming a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna. As an educator and theologian, he led schools and advised governments across Protestant Europe through the middle of the seventeenth century.”

His biography in Britannica elaborates: “As a young minister, Comenius found life wholly satisfying, but the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618 and the emperor Ferdinand II’s determination to re-Catholicize Bohemia forced him and other Protestant leaders to flee. While in hiding, he wrote an allegory, The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart, in which he described both his early despair and his sources of consolation. With a band of Brethren, he escaped to Poland and in 1628 settled in Leszno. Believing that the Protestants would eventually win and liberate Bohemia, he began to prepare for the day when it would be possible to rebuild society there through a reformed educational system. He wrote a ‘Brief Proposal’ advocating full-time schooling for all the youth of the nation and maintaining that they should be taught both their native culture and the culture of Europe.”

Comenius’s accomplishments are numerous, and his legacy lives on through a UNESCO award known as the Comenius Medal and dedications throughout the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and other countries.

Sources:

“John Simcoe—Cook’s Fourth Naval Captain,” People, Captain Cook Society, https://www.captaincooksociety.com/…/john-simcoe-cook-s…

“John Amos Comenius,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amos_Comenius

“John Amos Comenius,” Biography, Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Amos-Comenius

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/…/john-graves-simcoe…/