http://i.imgur.com/603e5QM.jpg
Jan 1 the 1862
I have never seen a date written this way before! Was this a peculiar case or is this really how dates were written out in that time period?
EDIT: Still unsure of why the date was written out as it is, but /u/KShant has helped me discovered some more history about the previous owner of the book! Thanks!
EDIT 2: I seem to recall before I went to bed last night that someone said it could have been an abriviation for "The year of our lord"? Not sure what happened to that comment but that does seem like it could be an answer!
Presented to Lizzie Erck by R.B. Jan 1st 1862
Yes, that kind of formatting is very common. The unusual part is that the person wrote 1st as 1th, which I have seen before. What looks like an E is maybe him realizing what he wrote. My guess from the writing style is that the person was not very literate.
For comparison on date usage, http://www.raims.com/education/SlaveryIssueAug04_files/image006.jpg reads "I do hereby certify that a female slave owned by me named Phoebe, on the twenty-ninth day of January 1815 gave birth to a female child now called Harriet, which female child I intend to hold and retain under so and so." The dates used for the signatures are in the style of your image.
Where did you buy the book, and is it a Bible? That narrows down the possibilities if so.
I work with a lot of formal medical/ leagle papers. They are all written like this. What country did this originate from?
UK redditor here.
What's unusual about the date?
