1792 AMERICAN PSALMS. Rare "Americanized" Version of Watt's Psalms for Worship

Immediately following the cessation of the hostilities after the American Revolution, Presbyterians divines, many of them vocal proponents of the Revolution, set about ensuring that the new country had a worship and ecclesiastical structure fitting the new people and land. One of the earliest projects in that effort was that of revising the then long-established use of Isaac Watts' Psalms. They needed to be excised of pro-monarchy language and any language directly referential to Great Britain. Watts, in an attempt to localize the Psalms, in addition to his "new testamentizing" them, had recontextualized them to England in some instances. 

The work was accomplished and approved by the Synod, as recorded here by George Duffield. 

The present was, in effect, the first truly "American" Presbyterian book of hymns and worship. 

Watts, Isaac, Joel Barlow [ed.]. Psalms Carefully Suited to the Christian Worship in the United States of America. Being an Improvement of the Old Versions of the Psalms of David. Allowed by the Reverend Synod of New York and Philadelphia, to be Used in Churches and Private Families. New York: [Joel Barlow] Printed for Berry and Rogers, and John Reid, 1792. 312,[12]pp.

Charming 24mo in a remarkably well-preserved contemporary calf binding. Some very minor scattered handling and foxing. Very good. We have seen two other copies; this is far and away the finest of them.

The NUC locates only four copies of this edition (PPPrHi, NIC, MiU, and RPB), and an imperfect copy at The New York Public Library. Evans #24103.