Middletown Transcript/1898/An Old Family Bible

An Old Family Bible.

Mrs. Billard, the daughter of the late Reverend Edward Oldrin, who lives on Bank street, Stamford, Connecticut, owns probably the oldest Bible in existence in the state. The Bible came into her possession by inheritance from her father, who was pastor of the Methodist church there, when the Hoyt brothers, two of them, Oliver and William, famous as millionaire leather merchants in the "Swamp," New York, became members of that church. The book is in the original binding and well preserved, the Old Testament part having been printed in 1597 and the New Testament in 1596. The covers are of wood, and the book is the size of the family Bible seen in the house of almost every New England family. Inscribed on the yellow fly leaf are the words: "Edward Oulldron owns this book", and after his death to his son Edward Oulldron, given by his grandmother - 1651." Later on it appears that the spelling of the family name had been changed, for below the name "John Oldrin" is the inscription: "Edward Oldrin's book, given by his father on his deathbed in the 1827, July 28, to be kept in the family."