Mahlon Day (1790-1854)

He was born in Morristown, New Jersey, and was apprenticed to a well-known printer there. After a brief interlude in New Brunswick, N.J., he came to New York in 1815 and started out for himself as a printer and bookseller on Pearl Street. His press produced many religious tracts for New York Yearly and Monthly Meetings, putting forward his particular interests in furthering children's education and bringing about the end of slavery. He became best known as an author and a prolific publisher of illustrated books for children - mostly of a moral nature. He was equally well-known his Bank Note List & Counterfeit Detector - a very necessary publication for everyone involved in business at that time. He later recalled that while the counterfeit book was his bread-and-butter, it was the children's books that he really enjoyed.

He and his wife joined the Society of Friends in 1820 and having acquired wealth as a publisher, for the fifteen years before his death - having turned his business over to his nephew and son - he devoted his life to charitable and educational causes, travelling in the ministry with Joseph John Gurney to the West Indian Islands and becoming one of the most prominent Quakers in America. He served as a trustee of African Free Schools and was a manager of the New York Institution for the Blind, among other activities.

In 1815, he married Mary Kerr who was born in England and they had a son and four daughters. He was killed with his wife and one of their daughters when in thick fog their steamship, Arctic, collided with the French Steamship Vesta and was wrecked off the coast of Canada. Only 22 out of the 233 passengers survived, none of them women or children. He was the grandfather of Mahlon Day Sands, a notable figure in America and Europe.