Our library — for public viewing — consists only of our bibliographies, which are limited to a few specialized areas of study. Our intent is to present references which are of special interest to researchers and historians studying:
- the Gaspee Affair, and its setting and influence;
- American Colonial history 1600 to 1799 of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Colony;
- Bucklin family history, emphasizing the period of 1600 to 1899, with particular reference to the original Bucklin New England settlements and their extensions into other colonies and states.
These bibliographies are now in the process of being built. The first of these will be on a comprehensive bibliography on the Gaspee Affair. This will be known as the “Gaspee Shelf”. This bibliography will include:
- History of the Gaspee Affair (including the legal and political background as it relates to the American Revolution) Now with over 300 entries.
- Legal History of the Law of the time of the American Revolution. Books that explain the American or the English legal background for the controversies of the Revolutionary period.
This will be a major resource for persons studying the Gaspee Affair and writing papers about it.
Our Library Catalog, with its eventual several bibliographies, will always be under development.
The Joseph Bucklin Society studies the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Colony, in the period 1600— 1799, and includes references to England in the same time period. Why? Because here is a rich history involving the English Civil War, from which history the Rhode Island and Massachusetts colonists built their arguments that the English government in the 1770’s was acting in an unconstitutional manner.
The 1772 Rhode Island capture and burning of the English ship Gaspee has special interest to Bucklins because of the involvement of Joseph Bucklin V, for whom our society is named. The Joseph Bucklin Society is one of the few places deliberately collecting a list of the books and articles on the Gaspee affair.