A Fine Pair of Cary Globes, Retailed by Kirk and Mercein of New York c.1816-1820

Of  American Interest-A Fine Pair of Cary Globes, Retailed by Kirk and Mercein of New York c.1816-1820 

The globes of celestial and terrestrial form with their original Cary of London gores. On the bottom of the Cary labels, an additional printed label confirms that these globes had been imported in to America and were retailed by the firm of Kirk and Mercein. We have not been able to locate another pair of globes with this provenance in the course of our research.

The firm of Kirk and Mercein

Thomas Kirk and William A. Mercein were a short-lived partnership of considerable importance in New York, flourishing between 1816 and 1820 according to Donald J. Ratcliffe in his article Selling Captain Riley 1816-1859:  How Did His “Narrative” Become So Well Known? Of the partners, the Philadelphia-born Mercein was a specialist printer, operating from a workshop at 93 Gold Street until c.1823. The partners even received a mention in The Times(of London) on the 12^th of August 1818 in the ‘American Intelligence’ column. The newspaper reprinted an article from the Philadelphia Evening Post of the 20^th of June of that year which stated that the partners had just begun work on their own edition of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold. The article stated that ‘We understand that the whole work has been completed in one printing office, that of Mr. W. A. Mercein, of this city, and is, we believe, an instance of despatch in printing unequalled in this, and probably not exceeded in any, country’.

An obituary for Thomas Kirk and shows that he was an Irish immigrant to New York. The obituary appeared in the Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal, 1851, and reads as follows:

Sir: One of my last New York Tribunes, brought me an account of the death of the late venerable THOMAS KIRK, Esq., of Brooklyn. His death look place on the 9th inst. Having been, in the year 1801, for the space of about one year, an apprentice to the printing business, to Mr. Kirk, allow me lo give some more account of him than is usually in an obituary notice. He was upwards of eighty years of age. Mr Kirk was a native of Ireland, and had received a liberal education. The first I knew of him, he was an occasional preacher in the Methodist Society of Christians. In 1801, he kept a printing office and book store, near the foot of Main street, Brooklyn, which then, perhaps contained about a 1000 inhabitants. It has now more than 100.000. There we printed, besides books and other matters, the Long Island Courier, which was served, not by post, as newspapers are now, but by a post-rider, who thus traversed the greater part of the Island, (which is about 150 miles long) and contrived by the end of a week to serve his last subscribers with their news Happy times, when people could wait a whole week for their news. People now-a-days are almost impatient of the telegraph ! Mr. Kirk was a good prose writer and something of a poet. He edited his own paper. After some years he commenced business in Wall street, New York, as a Bookseller, in partnership with a Mr. Mercein under the firm of Kirk & Mercein. On the dissolution of that firm, he engaged in the bookselling firm of Eastburn, Kirk & Co., on the present site of the New York Custom House. It is my opinion that the Company was not very successful. The next thing which I knew him to be engaged in. was in the Revenue Service of the United Slates, in New York and afterwards in Brooklyn, where he was also one of the Judges of the County Court. He leaves a widow, who was, in mv youthful mind, the beau ideal a kind and benevolent lady. His descendants are not numerous. His eldest daughter, now deceased, was married to Captain Newton of the U. S. Navy. Mr. Kirk bore, in every relation in life, an irreproachable character, and as a necessary consequence, was universally respected by his fellow citizens. At the last annual meeting of the New York Typographical Society, held on the birth day of Franklin, Mr. K was one of the invited guests-and the oldest printer in the neighbourhood. Requiestat in pace. W. McC.

Although as stated above we have not found any other globes with their Kirk and Mercein labels intact, there is evidence to show that that the firm retailed maps and charts in some numbers and were clearly very significant booksellers and publishers. Cary globes are highly sought-after in any event but this pair are particularly special and will appeal to the connoisseur