Thomas Prince started what he called his New England Library when he entered Harvard College in 1703. The collection was designed to chronicle the establishment and growth of New England, and he eventually used the library as source material for his A Chronological History of New-England in the Form of Annals ... (1736). The greatest collection of Americana assembled during the colonial period, the library contained histories, travels, and promotional tracts and included the manuscripts and published work of the most prominent writers in seventeenth-century New England. No other colonial book collector more tirelessly sought out and preserved documents concerning early American history. With Cotton Mather, Prince deserves distinction as one of the two greatest bibliophiles in colonial New England.

Thomas Prince was born on 15 May 1687 at Sandwich, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Prince and Mercy Hinckley, daughter of Gov. Thomas Hinckley of Plymouth Colony. His parents sent him to live...