Posted
August 18, 2018
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I am John Hajicek, an economist, investor, rare book collector,
writer, and single father with a residence in the town of Burlington,
Wisconsin.
My greatest passion is as a sort of “Indiana Jones” of American
religious history, always on a quest to discover some legendary
relic said to be sacred. I specialize in artifacts (mostly
rare books, historic manuscripts, fine art, early photographs, and
famous objects) from Vermont, New York, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois,
Wisconsin, and Michigan. I have discovered most of the major
new contributions to Mormon history in the past twenty years, and am
currently working and writing on Joseph Smith Sr. and the roots of
Mormonism in Vermont and New York. I preserve and place
substantial discoveries from the Smith family and Book of Mormon
founding witnesses with responsible private collectors and scholarly
libraries. I am not Mormon exactly, and not practically a
member of any regularly organized church, but I believe that the
Mormon experience of Joseph Smith was earnest and just.
The
Hajicek family has a
300-year history of entrepreneurial businesses, evolving from merchant
trading, agribusiness, beverage bottling, automobile parts, toy manufacturing, and software development. For almost a century, the family has moulded
rubber for the restoration and conservation profession, and currently
also makes rubber parts and weather stripping for models from all
American, British, and German automakers including parts for new cars,
and makes specialty rubber parts for all industries.
I worked momentarily for the family rubber business in Minnesota (in which I
later held indirect stock acquired with my own money), and then for 10 years in the hotel and restaurant industry—including
key management positions with Hyatt Regency Hotels in Wisconsin, Florida, and Missouri. I
was a director of restaurants before returning to graduate school to study economics, entrepreneurial business, and direct marketing. I have used my own earned finances and ventured successively into book printing, writing books, historical consulting, historic site restoration, real estate investing and development, stock trading on the Internet, a blue jeans
distribution concept, and restaurant concepts.
I am a father and have three children, Jessica (25), Samantha (23), and Jacob (19);
Jessica is
a graduate of BYU when she was 20. Samantha was in college Washington University in St. Louis
when she was 16, and is currently a student at BYU and at the
University of Missouri. Jacob is in college at the University
of Missouri.
I also have some charitable commitments that require more time than
I had available to commit. One of these commitments includes 12
volumes of historical writing. This is my 35th year traveling
between Burlington, Wisconsin and Jackson County, Missouri. Twenty years ago
I created this Internet site, and have recently updated it for 2018.
For 25 years, I have been best known as one of the leading
private collectors in faith-based and historical early Americana, particularly rare
books and artifacts related to specific American folk religions. I started
collecting books in high school, bought my first $2,000 book when I turned
18, and now search for high-end books in the $5,000 - $500,000 range. I have
helped in the acquisitions/discovery
of 50,000 items, which have included, just for example:
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Four copies of the first book printed in Jackson County, Missouri, A Book of Commandments, 1833.
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Numerous hymn books, including
a half-dozen copies of a rare book of Sacred Hymns, from Kirtland, Ohio, 1835;
several copies of the second edition from Nauvoo, Illinois; and many
divergent hymn
books of that period from 1835-1864.
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Any early book of
scripture, particularly multiple copies of any American scriptures or
ancient historical writings discovered in or published in America, many
in early treed calf bindings; particularly those printed between 1830
and 1856.
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Select early American Bibles, ranging from the Holy Bible from Cooperstown, New York, 1828; to the Holy Scriptures from Plano, Illinois, 1867, bound in gilded scarlet goatskin.
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Arguably the most significant private collection of
rare bound volumes of American newspapers, 1830-1856, and rare
tracts in original printed wrappers, 1830-1880.
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Books about American cultural tolerance, including certain religious books owned by American slaves;
as well as books written by civil rights leaders of the 19th Century
who ran for public office as high as the presidency, including
presidential campaign pamphlets from 1844.
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The only copy in private hands of a book printed in
America by a crowned king on a royal press.
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A complete copy of a rare religious book in uncut
sheets, that was rescued from a frontier mob that destroyed its
press.
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A rare 1848 pamphlet by Lyman Wight, the founder of
the Texas settlement where the ancestors of my children lived.
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Rare religious art, including Mississippi River scenes of a Latter Day temple by the western artist Seth Eastman,
the largest existing portrait collection painted by the folk artist and pattern maker
named Sutcliffe Maudsley, and a portrait by David W. Rogers.
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A hand-carved sun-faced white
Mississippi limestone sculpture that is partner to the one that the Smithsonian Institution has displayed next to the original Old Glory flag.
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Rare
black and white photography of churches and other architecturally
important buildings, like the seven earliest known photographs of the “The House of the Lord” in Kirtland, Ohio.
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The most important book written by Alexander Campbell, founder of
the other Church of Christ, published at Boston, 1832; and a similar
book by E. D. Howe printed in Painesville, Ohio. Even children’s books, such as the first popular Americanized edition of Mother Goose’s Melodies,
1833, with hand-colored engravings, and other unusual and frequently
overlooked curiosities.
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All materials consequential to early American religions, especially the earliest members of the Church of Christ organized in upstate New York in 1830.
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Everything related to the history of religions in Vermont,
1791-1816; upstate New York, 1816-1831; Ohio, 1831-1837; Missouri, 1831-1839; Illinois, 1839-1848; Wisconsin, 1844-1856; Michigan and Lake Michigan
(particularly the Islands of the Great Lakes), 1846-1856; and to a
lesser extent Utah and the West, 1847-1857.
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Everything written by or about the earliest
Latter Day Saints, the primitive founders of a restored American
religion, before the settlement of the West.
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Fifty thousand related religious items: early maps, diaries, manuscripts, letters, minute books, newspapers, books, tracts, broadsides, association artifacts, sculptures,
paintings, sketches, prints, early photographs, and so forth.
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