Western Library Association

The Coonskin Library

The Western Library Association was established as one of the first circulating libraries in the state of Ohio in nearby Ames in 1804. At the time, residents in and around Ames did not have much money, but they did have access to the rich natural life in the area. Desperate for reading and educational materials with which to teach their children and nourish their community, they gathered the skins from animals they hunted, especially racoons, and gave them to Samuel Brown. Brown brought the skins to Boston where he was able to exchange them for enough money to purchase approximately 50 books to bring back to Ames. He worked off of a wish-list created by Manassah Cutler. The texts purchased consisted mostly of encyclopedias, historical and religious texts, and works of the European Enlightenment philosophers. 

Since the skins funded the first books in the library, the Western Library Association is more commonly known as The Coonskin Library. Some years later, settlers colonized lands to the west along Sunday Creek and with them grew the Dover “branch” of the Western Library Association, which was formally established in 1830. Both the Ames and Dover collections continued to grow over the years and were vital to sustaining these communities. 

Books from first libraries still at Ohio University

In 1876, some portion of the Dover collection was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. At some point after their return to southeastern Ohio, some volumes were lost in a fire. Later, the remainder of the Dover collection was entrusted to Ohio University, where about 30 volumes remain to this day in the rare book collection. They are identifiable by inscriptions that include some variation of what you see pictured here: Property of the Western Library Association, [Ames and/or Dover], and a date.

Some are also still safely wrapped in handsewn animal skin bindings typical of the time and of the collection, continuing the tradition of associating the animals that had made the library possible in the first place, with the books themselves.