McMaster Library Collection

The McMaster Library is a monograph collection that was donated by Mary A. Maxwell of Pittsburgh. The collection consists of the working library of her father, the Rev. Dr. Algernon Sidney McMaster and her uncle, the Rev. Dr. Erasmus Darwin McMaster. At the time of its donation in 1883, the collection was one of the largest single donations of books given to the University of Wooster. The collection served as a core collection of Presbyterian resources for the early campus library.

Of the original 1510 volumes, 189 volumes have been identified and have been added to Special Collections to support the history of the college and its ties to the Presbyterian Church, as well as mission work at home and abroad. Books are listed individually in the library catalog and are searchable by author, title, subject, and collection name.

Algernon Sydney (1807-1882) and Erasmus Darwin 1806-1866) were sons of the noted author and scholar the Rev. Dr. Gilbert McMaster (1778-1854), who served as the Moderator of the Synods (1811, 1827) and of the General Synod (1851).

For Additional Information on the donation of this collection:

• Catalogue of the University of Wooster (1883-1884): 40.
• Freeman, Michael S. "T.K. Davis' Library, 1877-1905." Wooster vol. 103, no. 1 (Fall 1988): 10-12.
• Notestein, Lucy Lilian. Wooster of the Middle West, Kent, OH: Kent State University, 1971.

For Additional Information on the McMaster family:

• Glasgow, William Melancthon, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America: With Sketches of All Her Ministry, Congregations, Missions, Institutions, Publications, etc., and Embellished With Over Fifty Portraits and Engravings, Baltimore, Hill & Harvey, 1888.