Various owners inscribed their name in this book. Joseph Stiles, who operated the Vale Royal Plantation near Savannah from 1806 until his death in 1838, owned at least the latter part of it, where his signature and that of his son, the evangelist Joseph C. Stiles, may be seen. Another owner of the same part was John C. Nicholl (1793-1863), a prominent lawyer and jurist who served as mayor of Savannah in 1836 and 1837. A later owner of the entire volume was a certain S. H. McIntire, not known to have any Savannah connections, who inscribed it in June 1878. The Library of Congress purchased it in June 1909 from the Statute Law Book Company of Washington, D.C. for $2,500.
[Louisiana]
(EXTRAIT De Régistres, des Audiances du Conseil Supérieur, de la Province de la Loüisiane. Du 7. May 1765. ENTRE L'ABBE DE L'ISLE DIEU, Vicaire Général du Diocèse de Québec, & de cette Province, Demandeur en Requête, le Procureur Général du Roi, joint.)
Only after printing penetrated the Thirteen Colonies did the French printer Denis Braud carry the art to Louisiana. His earliest known work, an official broadside concerning the transfer of Louisiana from French to Spanish ownership, was printed at New Orleans in 1764.
The earliest Louisiana imprint in the Library of Congress is the second extant example of Louisiana printing. The Library's unique copy is a four-page, folio-sized document signed by Garic, clerk of the Superior Council of Louisiana, and headed, "EXTRAIT De Régistres, des Audiances du Conseil Supérieur, de la Province de la Loüisiane. Du 7. May 1765. ENTRE L'ABBE DE L'ISLE DIEU, Vicaire Général du Diocèse de Québec, & de cette Province, Demandeur en Requête, le Procureur Général du Roi, joint." It is a decree restricting the activities of the Capuchin friar Hilaire Genoveaux and suppressing a catechism circulated by him which apparently had also been printed at New Orleans. The title of the catechism, as preserved in the text of the decree, is Catechisme pour la Province de la Loüisianne, &c. Rédigé par le R. P. Hilaire, Protonotaire du St. Siége & Supérieur Général de la Mission des Capucins en ladite Province, pour être seul enseigné dans sadite Mission. The contemporary importance of the surviving document lay in its connection with a far-reaching struggle between the Jesuit and Franciscan orders over ecclesiastical authority in Louisiana. Although it contains no imprint statement naming place of publication or printer, typographical features of the document serve to identify it as the work of Denis Braud.[28]
That this unique copy belonged to an official archive—presumably that of the Superior Council of Louisiana—the following manuscript additions make apparent. There is first a notation: "Joint a la lettre de M. Aubry, Command. a la Louisianne du 7. May 1765." (Aubry had succeeded d'Abbadie as commandant, or governor, after the latter's death in February 1765.) A second column in manuscript contains the same date as a filing guide and this descriptive title: "Arrest du Conseil Superieur de la Louisianne portant deffense au Pere Hilaire Capucin de simississer [i. e. s'immiscer] dans aucune Jurisdiction Ecclesiastique autre que celle qui lui est permise par son seul titre de superieur de la mission des RR. PP. Capucins de cette Colonie." At the end of the column is a cross reference: "Voyez les lettres de M. l'Abbe de LIsle Dieu Vicaire g[e]n[er]al de M. de Quebek en 1759 et 1760 et sa Correspond. a ce sujet."