Philadelphia. 1759.. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three. Sheet size: 3 sheets, each approximately 31 x 21 1/2 inches. Excellent condition,... More

Philadelphia. 1759.. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three. Sheet size: 3 sheets, each approximately 31 x 21 1/2 inches. Excellent condition, with three short repaired tears, very minor age toning at the sheet edges, overall in remarkable unsophisticated condition. Provenance: Laird U. Park (Sotheby's New York, Nov. 29, 2000, lot 322). The first map of Pennsylvania to be published in America. Scull (1687-1761) was born in Philadelphia and is thought to have been apprenticed at a young age to William Penn's surveyor, Thomas Holme. In 1719 he became deputy surveyor of Philadelphia County, eventually ascending to the surveyor generalship of Pennsylvania in 1748. An original member of Benjamin Franklins Junto, Scull was intimately involved with Indian relations of the period, having travelled amongst the tribes surveying the western counties. Siding with the Proprietors in his recollection of the Walking Purchase, at which he was present, no doubt held him in good standing with the Penn family. It is thought that this, in part, led to the publication of this impressive map. Dedicated to the Proprietors, it is among the largest and finest maps produced in America to that date. The map depicts Philadelphia, Bucks, Northampton, Berks, Chester, Lancaster, Cumberland, and York Counties, and is based on Sculls own surveys as well as the reports of Major Joseph Shippen, Colonel John Armstrong, John Watson, Benjamin Lightfoot, and others. In addition, some information was gleaned from printed sources, including Fry-Jefferson's important map, evidenced by a printed footnote on the map concerning the location of Fort Cumberland and the Maryland- Pennsylvania border. Elevation is accurately depicted, much in the style of Fry-Jefferson, by neat hachure marks. The eastern counties include a wealth of detail, such as churches, meeting houses, inns, iron forges, mills, and the manors of significant residents; roads, Indian paths, Indian towns, and forts are clearly shown throughout. Although generally quite accurate, it is curious that Scull included Fort Granville on his map, which had been destroyed by the French and Delaware Indians in 1756. Nevertheless, the importance and accuracy of this large-scale map is underscored by the fact that a copy of it was among the maps hung by the Board of War at Philadelphia in August 1776, twenty years after the map's publication (as listed by John Adams in his letter to his wife dated Aug. 13, 1776). The map was engraved by James Turner (d. 1759), a Philadelphia silversmith and prot? of Benjamin Franklin. Turner had previously worked on map engraving during the production of James Parker's 1747 maps of New Jersey, a project for which he had been recommended by Franklin. Little is known about the printer, John Davis. Although he had no shop, he appears to have specialized in large copperplate engravings of maps, as he is the printer identified in the imprint of the 1756 Philadelphia first edition of Joshua Fisher's important chart of Delaware Bay. That map and the present one are his only known works. Scull's 1759 map of Pennsylvania is very rare, with less than a dozen known institutional copies. Only a few have appeared at auction in the last half century, most notably in the sales of the collections of Thomas W. Streeter, Howard E. Welsh, and Laird U. Park (this copy). EBERSTADT 167:430 (quoting Wroth). EVANS 8489. Garrison, "Cartography of Pennsylvania before 1800" in PMHB, Vol. 59, no. 3. PHILLIPS, p.673. RISTOW, pp.52-53. STREETER SALE 965. WHEAT & BRUN 422. Less

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Note: The information below, as well as additional photos, can also be viewed at http://www.betweenthecovers.com/private/Cinque/Excerpt.pdf.The... More

Note: The information below, as well as additional photos, can also be viewed at http://www.betweenthecovers.com/private/Cinque/Excerpt.pdf.The Abolitionist Autograph Collection of Elwood Evans (1828-1898), assembled in the 1840s, highlighted by what we believe to be one of only three surviving autographs of Cinque, leader of the Amistad revolt, and the only example in private hands. The collection, assembled in Evans' youth, also contains a fine example of the rare John Sartain engraving of Cinque, the Signature of another member of the Amistad revolt, Fuli (here Foole), as well as the Signatures of abolitionists Thomas Clarkson, Charles C. Burleigh, John Pierpont, Joseph Parrish, Joshua Giddings, and Isaac T. Hopper, considered the founder of the Underground Railroad.Elwood Evans, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, traveled to the Pacific Coast at the age of 22 and became deputy clerk to the collector of Puget Sound. The collection also contains four State appointments, dating between 1851 and 1854, in each case appointing him Commissioner for the Territory of Oregon. These are Signed by William F. Johnston, George F. Fort, Horatio Seymour, and Emory Washburn (Governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, respectively). Evans spent most of his adult life in the Pacific Northwest, as a private attorney, public official (he was Mayor of Olympia from 1859-1861), and local historian, culminating in the publication of his two-volume History of the Pacific Northwest (1889).THE CINQUE AND FOOLE AUTOGRAPHSThe Signatures of Cinque and Foole are in ink, on a small slip of paper (approximately 4" x 3.5"), mounted on a larger contemporary sheet of paper. Below the signature is written in ink in a different hand: "at Lombard St School 5mo 27 1841." Below this in pencil is written "Cinque and F-foole [sic] visited the abo[ve] School with Chas Evans then a Director and then and there signed the above." Cinque (also known as Cingue, Joseph Cinquez, and Sengbe Pieh), was born in what is now Sierra Leone around 1813 and is believed to have died there circa 1879. The history of Cinque's life from the time of his enslavement in 1839 to his return to Sierra Leone as a free man in 1841 is well-known, having been re-told numerous times and dramatized in the 1997 film Amistad, in which he was portrayed by actor Djimon Hounsou. Throughout the ordeal of the Amistad captives, Cinque was the unquestioned leader of the group, apparently not only because of his own initiative (having picked the lock of his captors while aboard ship, released his fellow slaves, and planned their rebellion), but also through his commanding presence and abilities. The entire group of Amistad captives was taught English, although not surprisingly it was the children among them who became most conversant in the language. After the Supreme Court ruled in their favor on March 9, 1841, they traveled to New York and Philadelphia as part of the effort to raise funds to provide for their transport home. On these occasions Cinque gave speeches in Mende, while a youth named Kale would speak in English. Despite the language difference, contemporary reports relate that Cinque's charisma was such that his speeches were often enthusiastically received even before they were translated to his audience.It is difficult to determine how proficient in English Cinque became while in the United States. Records indicate that he always spoke in Mende when giving court deposition and when making public appearances. However, the two other extant original documents signed by him, both institutionally held, may contain additional samples of his writing. The famous Mendi Bible, which the Amistad captives presented to John Quincy Adams in 1841 in appreciation of his forceful and effective arguments on their behalf, and now held at the Adams National Historical Park, contains a letter to Adams that is signed, "For the Mendi people. Cinque, Kinna, Kale." Some scholars believe the letter, and not just the signature, to be in Cinque's hand. The other signed letter is that held by the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, dated February 9, 1841, from Cinque to the prominent New York merchant and abolitionist Lewis Tappan, who was the leader of the Amistad Committee and the person most responsible for their legal defense and living conditions while they were in the United States. This letter too is believed by some scholars to be entirely in Cinque's hand. Aside from his three years in the United States, very little is known about Cinque, and there is no reason to believe that he had occasion to write his name after his return to Africa.In addition to the three known autographs (the two institutionally held and the one offered here), there are two known facsimiles of his autograph as well. The first is the contemporary facsimile executed by engraver John Sartain for his 1840 mezzotint of Cinque (included in this collection, see below for further details). It is likely Sartain employed a certain amount of artistic license in more neatly rendering Cinque's signature. The second facsimile is found in a 1906 book Farmington, Connecticut: The Village of Beautiful Homes, in which local historian Julius Gay allowed his own "Autographs of the `Mendi Negroes,"" obtained in his youth when the Amistad captives were housed in Farmington, to be reprinted (p.177). The whereabouts of the original documents from which these facsimiles were made are unknown, and it is likely that one or both have long perished.The Amistad case and the Amistad captives became a national sensation, and their time in Philadelphia (May 24 to May 28, 1841) is well documented in contemporary issues of the Pennsylvania Freemen. The June 16, 1841 issue reports that they visited four churches, at which $482.30 was raised for their return to Africa. While not as fiscally impressive, the paper also reports that $2.01 was collected by the "pupils of the colored Public School." At the time Philadelphia had two public schools for African-American children (sometimes referred to as four schools because boys and girls were educated separately), one at Charlotte and Brown Streets, the other at Sixth and Lombard Streets. The Lombard Street School was built in 1819 as a school for white pupils. In 1828, when white students were transferred to a new building on Locust Street, it became a public school for African-American children. The school was later called the James Forten School, after the prominent African-American businessman who fought successfully to keep the school open when the school board wished to close it the year before the Amistad captives visited.While a certain amount of contemporary attention was paid to Cinque as the leader of the Amistad rebellion, comparatively little primary material exists about the other captives individually. Foole, also known as Fuli, Fu-Li-Wa, and Fuleh, like Cinque gave deposition against their Spanish captors. In addition, it was technically he who brought suit against them (done to forestall their removal to Spanish territory in case the Amistad case itself was lost). Foole, with Cinque and thirty-three other survivors of their ordeal, departed for their return to Africa in November 24, 1841. A facsimile of Foole's signature exists on the Julius Gay reprint, and the Amistad Research Center holds three letters signed by Foole; we could locate no other surviving documents signed by Foole.THE SARTAIN ENGRAVINGIncluded with the autograph collection is a handsome example of John Sartain's engraved mezzotint print of "Cinque: The Chief of the Amistad Captives" (approximately 9.25" x 7.5", very lightly rubbed in one spot else fine, mounted on a stiff backing sheet). This well-known image, commissioned by the African-American abolitionist Robert Purvis, is after a painted portrait by the abolitionist Nathaniel Jocelyn (brother of Amistad Committee member the Reverend Simeon S. Jocelyn). In March, 1841, Sartain, possibly at his own expense, sent 200 copies of the mezzotint to Lewis Tappan to be sold to help raise funds for the Amistad captives. Despite the strong pro-abolition mood of much of Philadelphia in the 1840s, the image was not universally acclaimed there. The city also had strong currents of anti-abolition sentiment from both white workers who felt threatened by the large free black workforce, and from elements of the city's elite who had strong financial ties to the South. Thus the Sartain portrait was officially rejected by the Philadelphia Academy for their second annual Artists" Fund Society exhibition because, "under the excitement of the times, it might prove injurious both to the proprietors and the institution" (Martinez, Life and Career of John Sartain, p. 76). This Cinque portrait is the most famous image by John Sartain (1808-1897), the London-born artist and publisher who settled in Philadelphia. Sartain was a committed abolitionist who also engraved portraits of William Lloyd Garrison, William H. Furness, and Lucretia Mott. He also published several notable works by his friend Edgar Allan Poe including "The Bells" and "Annabel Lee." Although we could find no direct connection between Sartain and Evans, an 1843 letter from Poe to the 14 year-old Elwood Evans, sending "Mr. Dana's" Boston address, was in the Doheny collection and sold at Christie's in 1988. In addition to writing Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana was also an active abolitionist.While the Jocelyn/Sartain image has been reprinted countless times (mostly from the damaged example of the mezzotint in the National Portrait Gallery), original examples of the Sartain mezzotint are genuinely rare.THE CLARKSON, HOPPER, BURLEIGH, PIERPONT, PARRISH and GIDDINGS AUTOGRAPHSThe Thomas Clarkson autograph is also on a small (approximately 4.25" x 2.25") slip of paper, a little soiled else fine, and mounted to a contemporary sheet. It reads in full: "Thomas Clarkson / Playford Hall - Sept. 1, 1846, aged 87 / 'Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them' Hebrews 12.3." On a separate sheet Evans has written out a biography of Clarkson and ends with, "The above Autograph was purchased at the `Liberty Bazaar" held in this city [i.e. Philadelphia] in January 1847 and is known to be original." Clarkson (1760-1846), one of England's most famous abolitionists, first became interested in the subject on purely academic grounds when, as a student at Cambridge, he entered a Latin essay contest on the subject of the morality of slavery. Shortly after winning the contest, for which he undertook considerable research, Clarkson experienced a spiritual epiphany and decided to devote his life to abolition. With Granville Sharp he formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and later persuaded William Wilberforce to join their cause. The group was directly responsible for the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807, and the abolition of slavery itself throughout most of the British Empire in 1833. Clarkson's publications include A Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Probable Consequences of Its Abolition (1787) and History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade (1808). While Clarkson autographs are not rare, this is certainly one of the last he ever provided, and comes with a quaint provenance.Isaac Tatem Hopper (1771-1852) was a New Jersey-born Quaker bookseller who, with Lydia Maria Child, edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard. More importantly, as a teenager he began to organize the system for aiding fugitive slaves that is now known as the Underground Railroad, and some consider him the founder or father of the Railroad. Hopper remained active in both the Railroad and abolition throughout his life, as well as other causes including prison reform. Hopper's note is on a single quarto leaf, folded from mailing with a few very minor chips and tears along the left side (probably from having been tipped into a larger book) and a moderate dampstain along the right side, very good. It reads: "My dear young friend, In compliance with thy request I cheerfully furnish thee with my autograph accompanied with an `original sentiment. / 'He who conscientiously discharges all his social and relative duties, without regard to circumstances or the opinions of others, may some times incur the displeasure of his friends; yet he will find in the end a comfort and confidence that will very far surpass all the favor and applause that can be awarded by his fellow man - Thy affectionate friend / Isaac T. Hopper / New York 9 mo 13th 1842 / To Elwood Evans."Charles Calistus Burleigh (1810-1878), a noted editor of abolitionist publications and widely considered among the best orators for the anti-slavery cause, sent Evans a short note: "To hold a slave without transgressing the Christian law, `love the Lord they God with all they heart, & love they neighbor as thyself," is just as impossible as to do injustice under the influence of a supreme regard for right, to act selfishly from pure good will to all mankind, & to support the falsehood from an unbounded reverence for truth. Philad. 10/25/42. C.C. Burleigh." On the reverse he has noted, "For Elwood Evans. Care of Edwin Satter." Burleigh's note is also on a single quarto leaf, near fine, folded from mailing and with a little wear along the left side from where it was likely tipped into a larger book.The letter from John Pierpont (1785-1866), dated 30 Nov. 1847, folded from mailing else about fine, notes that Pierpont does not have an extra autograph from Dr. [William E.] Channing to provide to Evans for his collection. However, Pierpont was flattered by the "kind things that you are pleased to say of myself and my past cause[s] and wishing you may succeed in your autographic enterprise..." Pierpont was a Connecticut-born educator, poet, and Congregationalist minister. While pastor at Boston's Hollis Street Church he published two of the better-known early school readers in the United States. His social activism for temperance and abolition angered his parishioners and after more than two decades he left that congregation and became pastor of a Unitarian church in Troy, New York, where this letter was written. Pierpont's Anti-Slavery Poems was published in 1843, and his poems were often recited at public anti-slavery meetings. Curiously, while the aged Pierpont was a Union military chaplain and then worked in the Treasury Department during the Civil War, his songwriting son James Lord Pierpont, most famous for the holiday classic "Jingle Bells," served for the Confederacy. John Pierpont was also the maternal grandfather of financier J. Pierpont Morgan.The letter from Joseph Parrish (1779-1840), addressed to the noted Philadelphia attorney Eli K. Price and dated January 25, 1836, discusses family and business matters. It is one quarto sheet, folded in half and written on two sides, fine. Parrish was a well-known Philadelphia physician and President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Parrish attended the eccentric Virginia statesman John Randolph of Roanoke at his death in 1833 and executed the latter's dying wish to have his slaves manumitted. Tipped to the letter is a biographical paragraph by Evans who concludes: "Though quite young at the time [of Parrish's death] I well remember the impression it produced in the community."The short note from Joshua Reed Giddings to Evans is undated, on a single quarto leaf, folded as a self-mailing letter, and torn 3/4 through the primary fold, possibly when initially opened by Evans, not affecting any writing, overall about very good. In it Giddings suggests an address for another person Evans was evidently trying to contact. Giddings (1795-1864) was a long-time Ohio Congressman, one of the most outspoken and radical anti-slavery statesmen of his time. Privately he was active in the Underground Railroad, and in public he endorsed insurrection and violent resistance to slavery. He was censured by Congress for attempting to put on record that the House of Representatives was opposed to federal measures to defend the coastwise slave-trade. Abraham Lincoln was his messmate in Washington in 1847-1848, and a careful student of Gidding's speeches in Congress. Perhaps Gidding's most enduring contribution to history was the notion he developed in the 1850s that, in the event of war, the President could use his war powers to emancipate the slaves of the Southern states (Julian. The Life of Joshua R. Giddings, p. 405). Giddings left Congress after twenty years of continuous service, primarily due to ill health, and in 1861 Lincoln appointed him consul-general to Canada, a post which he held until his death.THE STATE APPOINTMENTSOf the four State appointments of Evans as Commissioner to the Territory of Oregon, the earliest is from Pennsylvania, dated May 6, 1851 and Signed by Governor William F. Johnston (1808-1872). The next is from New Jersey, dated January 28, 1852 and Signed by Governor George F. Fort (1809-1872). The third is from New York, dated February 15, 1854 and Signed by Governor Horatio Seymour (1810-1886). The last is from Massachusetts, dated March 28, 1854 and Signed by Governor Emory Washburn (1800-1877). All four documents are about fine with slight wear.The Elwood Evans Abolitionist Autograph Collection was fortuitously assembled by the young Philadelphian. Although the letters and notes themselves demonstrate that he was actively acquiring autographs related to abolition, it was mostly luck that he was in the right place at the right time to obtain the collection's most scarce and most important autograph, that of Cinque, and that the autograph was valued and preserved by him throughout his life. Because of the small window of time during which Cinque could have written his autograph, and because there would have been little reason for him to sign any documents at all, few signatures of important figures in African-American history, or American history in general, could be more elusive. A letter written by Phillis Wheatley, one of about two dozen known, recently sold for over $200,000, and relatively common signed copies of her volume of poems usually sell in the mid five figures. By comparison, there are close to thirty known surviving autographs of Button Gwinnett, the signer of the Declaration of Independence whose signature is usually considered the scarcest of all American autographs, and there are six surviving signatures of William Shakespeare.A rare, museum quality signature with extensive documentation, and an important survival of African-American and indeed all of American history. Less

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Florence: Demetrius Damilas [in the shop of the Printer of Vergilius (C 6061)] for Bernardo and Nero De' Nerli and Giovanni Acciaiuoli, 9 December... More

Florence: Demetrius Damilas [in the shop of the Printer of Vergilius (C 6061)] for Bernardo and Nero De' Nerli and Giovanni Acciaiuoli, 9 December 1488 [not before 13 January , 1488/89]. 2 volumes, Median folio (332 ?238 mm). Lately rebound to style using 18th-century brown morocco, spine decorated in blind with urn and lyre devices etc in compartments between five raised bands, sides panelled in blind with matching tools and floral devices within a latticework central panel, based on a Florentine binding executed in 1504 (illustrated in Tammaro de Marinis, La Legatura Artistica, Florence 1960). 439 leaves (of 440, lacking final blank), 39 lines, Greek letter, 2- and 10-line initial spaces. Ex-libris University of Lyon, with stamp Acad. Lugd. and release stamp dated 1843 on the first leaf; later in the libraries of Constantine Radoulesco and H. Bradley Martin (Sotheby's New York, 14 June 1990, lot 3355). Unrubricated, occasional marginalia in an attractive contemporary cursive hand; a good clean copy. Editio princeps of the writings attributed to Homer, including the Iliad and the Odyssey, two of the earliest, most important and influential works of European literature. "The Iliad and the Odyssey are the first perfect poetry of the western world. They spring fully grown, their predecessors lost, and the magic has persisted ever since. The legends of the siege of Troy and the return of Odysseus are the common heritage of all … The form, the action and the words have had incalculable influence on the form, action and words of poetry ever since; the composition of the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, and many others, has been determined by the Iliad and the Odyssey. Their popularity never diminishes" (PMM). The editor Demetrius Chalcondylas was professor of Greek at the Florentine Studio from 1475 until 1491. The type is that of Demetrius Damilas, a scribe who had previously been active in the printing of Greek books in Milan since 1476. It was based on the handwriting of Michael Apostolis, which was simpler and more distinct than Damilas's own elegant but elaborate hand. This monumental printing is the first large-scale printing in Greek, and also probably the first Greek book printed in Florence. (The rare Erotemata by Emanuel Chrysoloras, which survives in only two copies, was printed in Florence either in 1475 or c. 1488-94.) The text of Homer was not printed again in Greek until Aldus's octavo edition of 1504, which was based directly on Chalcondylas's text. The Batrachomyomachia ("Battle of the Frogs and Mice"), a pseudo-Homeric text, which is also included here with the Iliad, Odyssey and Homeric Hymns, had been earlier printed in an unsigned Greek-Latin edition printed perhaps at Brescia or Ferrara, which is known only from the unique copy in the John Rylands University Library, Manchester. Despite the lengthy and circumstantial colophon, bibliographers have had trouble in agreeing on the correct imprint and date. Robert Proctor (The Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth Century, 1900, p. 66 sqq.) argued that the edition was actually printed in the shop of Bartolommeo di Libri, whose type was used to print the dedication to Piero de' Medici on the first page. BMC assigned the edition rather to the Nerli brothers, but Roberto Ridolfi (La stampa a Firenze nel secolo XV, 1958, p. 95 sqq.) has pointed out that the Nerli were well-born and wealthy Florentines whose role would have been a purely financial one. He has instead assigned the Homer to the anonymous Florentine shop, the Printer of Virgil (Copinger 6061, Goff V183), which flourished from 1488 to 1490 or so. Ridolfi supposes that only the first, dedication page was printed in di Libri's shop, more than a month after the completion of the edition proper, this page hitherto having been planned as a blank. Less

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