Thomas's Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode-Island, New-Hampshire & Vermont almanack, with an ephemeris, for the year of our Lord 1786 ...
Subtitle: fitted to the latitude and longitude of the town of Boston, but will serve without essential variation for the adjacent states ...
Series: Early American imprints -- no. 19027
Publisher: By Isaiah Thomas
Published: 1785
Place of publication: Printed at Worcester [Mass.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 44
Notes: Though the Thomas almanacs through 1795 were ascribed by Evans to Ezra Gleason, most can be attributed with varying degrees of certainty to other identifiable calculators. The present one is apparently the work of Samuel Stearns. The manuscript collection of the American Antiquarian Society contains a letter from Stearns to Isaiah Thomas, dated 25th Oct. 1785, reading: "You need not stop your press one moment, for you may rely upon it, that there will be no eclipse in December 1786. I have made a very critical examination. Dr. Low has made such mistakes before." The present almanac predicts four eclipses. With two exceptions, all other New England almanacs predicted a fifth on December 20, a scarcely-visible eclipse of the sun. The exceptions are Bickerstaff's Plymouth almanack and Weatherwise's Plymouth almanack, both printed at Plymouth by Nathaniel Coverly, which are identical with one another and also sufficiently identical with Thomas's almanac to be obviously the work of the same calculator. In the Thomas almanac, a note has been added, probably by the publisher, stating that an eclipse on December 20 is indicated by some astronomical tables but not by others. Thomas is apparently hedging here on Stearns' assurances.

The AAS manuscript collection also contains a letter to Thomas from Benjamin West, dated July 18, 1785, in which West regrets that other affairs have prevented his calculating Thomas's almanac for the coming year.

The "Dr. Low" referred to by Stearns is Nathaniel Low, the almanac calculator, whose own prediction of five eclipses for the approaching year had evidently come to Thomas's attention.

Advertised in the Massachusetts spy, Worcester, Oct. 13, 1785.

Signatures: [A]⁴ B² C-F⁴⁻² G⁴.

Bookseller's advertisement, p. [44].

"Price 40 s. per gross. 4 s. per dozen. Six-pence single."

Evans 19027

Drake, M.  Almanacs, 3365