Linking here to the magazine that The Daughters of the American Revolution put out, called AMERICAN SPIRIT. It's put out every other month, and the July/August Magazine has an article by Bill Hudgins called The Book of Lives.
"Plain or Fancy the Family Bible Has Long Preserved Genealogical Treasures"
The magazine doesn't have this article on line, but this is a good magazine to subscribe to if you're interested in DAR or Americana or genealogy research. And here is a wonderful excerpt from the article.
"The first Bible printed in the Colonies was a translation in a dialect of Algonquian produced 1660-1661 by John Eliot, a Presbyterian minister in Massachusetts according to A Light to the Nations: American's Earliest Bibles 1532-1864, By Diana Lupas.
The next domestic Bible was printed in German in 1743 by Christoph Saur in Germantown, Pennsylvania. His Son, also named Christoph, took over the printing business and republished the German Bible in 1763 and 1776. In 1778, the Continental Army confiscated Saur's property, including printed sheets for about 1000 Bibles. Another printer bought them at auction, then sold them to be used in making cartridges for bullets, according to A Light to Nations.
