The simple cobler of Aggawam in America. : Willing to help 'mend his native country, lamentably tattered, both in the upper-leather and sole, with all the honest stitches he can take. And as willing never to bee paid for his work, by old English wonted pay. It is his trade to patch all the year long, gratis. Therefore I pray gentleman keep your purses.
The Simple Cobler of Aggawam is a 1647 London pamphlet by the Massachusetts minister Nathaniel Ward, printed for Stephen Bowtell and addressed to English readers during the religious and political upheavals of the Civil War. The single picture is a heraldic achievement, a shield with a crown, a crested arm holding an arrow, and scrolled cartouche ornament engraved in simple line. A designer might take its symmetrical scrollwork frame and the contrast between flat dark field and fine hatched linework as a model for crest or badge design.
