library in history
An engraving titled "The Taking of the City of Washington in America" showing the burning of the city by British forces, with fires, smoke, and various scenes of destruction, including boats and fleeing people.
▪ British troops burn Washington, D.C., in August 1814 in this print published by G. Thompson in London two months later. Prints and Photographs Division

Testament to Survival

A Bible, stolen during the burning of Washington, is returned to the capital city.
The order that resulted in the devastation of the first congressional library during the War of 1812 arrived in the city of Washington on Aug. 24, 1814. As word reached Washington of the impending arrival of British forces, government officials and citizens fled.

The British easily marched in, ransacked and burned the Treasury, the President’s House (the White House), the Navy Yard, the Capitol (and the Library of Congress inside) and other federal buildings. Troops were ordered not to pillage or destroy civilian property, a command that largely was respected.

But one Royal Marines officer, Nathanael Cole, decided to extricate a keepsake, though it’s not clear from where: a King James family Bible, printed in Philadelphia in 1807 by Mathew Carey.

An open Bible displaying a map on the left-hand page titled "The Journeyings of the Children of Israel" and the title page of the Bible on the right-hand side, including "The Holy Bible: containing the Old and New Testaments" with additional details about its publication.
▪ Royal Marines officer Nathanael Cole took this King James Bible during the burning of Washington, D.C., in 1814. Rare Book and Special Collections Division
A handwritten note in cursive text describing that the Bible was taken during the Battle of Washington on August 25, 1814, by Major Nathanael Cole of the Royal Marines, given to his sister-in-law, with instructions to keep it within the family.
▪ This note, attached inside the front cover, explains how the Bible came into possession of the Cole family. Rare Book and Special Collections Division
Cole later gave his prize to his sister-in-law, and it became the Cole/Dean family Bible. In the family record section, the family bound generations of births, marriages and deaths. At some point during the Bible’s British captivity, a paper was attached to the inner front cover relating how the family came to possess the Bible, along with an injunction that it was “never to be given out of the Family.”

That order notwithstanding, the Bible eventually was gifted to the United States and returned to Washington with a second paper, attached to the inner back cover, inscribed thusly: “This bible having left the possession of the family of Major Cole, for reasons and by ways unknown to the present owner, is returned to Washington by Commander Harry Bent Royal Navy as a gesture of goodwill and gratitude to the people of the United States of America. September 1957.”

The capital city was gradually rebuilt, and its collections of books, cultural artifacts and institutions expanded far beyond what was destroyed. Like the city, this Bible — now part of the Library’s collections — has endured over 200 years and bears the marks of its history.

—Allison Buser is a reference assistant in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
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