This 1844 circular effort reports upon the success of colporteurs (in this instance “in the Western states”) but it includes the lengthy narrative concerning one colporteur in particular, a converted German Romanist who has been able to sell over 400 books to seemingly rabid Romanists wishing to convert.

This particular bookseller’s remarkable skills are boasted of under a section entitled “Facilities and mode of gaining access to Romanists.” In one section is described what must have been almost seen as an “infiltration” of a German sect in Ohio known as the “Revier Bruder” (River Brothers) “...whose religion consists chiefly in a scrupulous observance of outward forms. Opposed as they are to vital piety and all the benevolent operations of the day, I hardly knew how to gain access among them. Leaving the assembly, I saw two Romanists coining towards the meeting from curiosity. I drew them into an adjoining field and affectionately explained to them the scriptural way of salvation ... At length, at their suggestion, we removed under the shade of a large tree, where there were gathered about me some 300 listeners. I told them at last the object of my visit, and displayed my books. The younger portion of them with one consent fell to purchasing books, until my stock was exhausted.”

(It should be noted that this account is later elaborated upon and printed in the 1845 annual ATS Report.) The German coleporteur convert is identified as a “Leger Ritty.” Ritty (it turns out) was a pharmaceutical “doctor” and herbalist in Dayton and we can’t help but wonder he wasn’t peddling his herbal medicine along with his religious tracts.