Book Description

"The first edition of the Bay Psalm Book, or New England version of the Psalms, printed by Stephen Daye at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640, has the distinction of being the first book printed in English America. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, and founded the first permanent colony in New England, they brought with them Henry Ainsworth's version of the Psalms in prose and metre, with the printed tunes. This version was used in the church at Plymouth until 1692. Elsewhere, the Puritan colonists of the Massachusetts Bay, coming over in 1629 and 1630, sang the words and tunes of Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms, which for many years had been published with the ordinary editions of the English Bible"--Introduction.