Key to Marshalls Astronomical Atlas 1847

"A Key, With General Observations, Explanations and Questions, For the Use of Parents, Students and Teachers. Designed to Accompany the Astronomical Atlas" by Rev. Charles Kimball Marshall - 1847

Here is a small volume intended to accompany an astronomical atlas that was published in Philadelphia in 1847 by the Rev. C. K. Marshall who was a Methodist minister from Vicksburg, MS. When I searched WorldCatalog.org for copies of this book I was only able to locate seven copies, so it would appear that this book is very scarce. The atlas that this volume was designed to accompany may no longer exist. The author gave a series of public astronomy lectures accompanied by astronomical dioramas at a Methodist church in New Orleans at the end of January 1845. In 1846 the author ran pre-publication advertisements for an astronomical atlas and accompanying book in The Times Picayune of New Orleans and in Ormsby Mitchel's Sidereal Messenger. In 1848 the astronomical atlas was again advertised in the New Orleans Crescent newspaper. My thoughts are that this book and atlas were print versions of his lectures and the astronomical dioramas. Searches on WorldCatalog.org fail to find any copies of this atlas. Since this atlas was probably sold almost exclusively in the South, and probably sold in small numbers, it may not have survived the American Civil War. I still plan to continue searching for a copy of the atlas.

Rev. Charles Kimball Marshall was born in Durham Maine in 1811. In 1829 his parents migrated west by way of New Orleans where he found employment and ended up staying there. After some months he left for Cincinnati to attend Woodward College (this was actually a high school). Charles returned to New Orleans where he worked in a foundry that produced sugar-mills while at the same time he was studying to become a minister. In 1832 he became a licensed Methodist minister in the Mississippi Methodist Conference where he became a prominent minister that was in high demand throughout Mississippi. In 1836 he married Miss Amanda Vick, a daughter of Rev. Newett Vick, the founder of Vicksburg, MS. He and his wife would latter settle in Vicksburg, which became their permanent home.