A short manuscript paper by an anonymous author on the question "Has temporal Death Promoted the Temporal happiness of mankind since the fall of Adam?" given before the Friendly Debating Society of East Haddam, CT. It seems that the affirmative was the only side to present, and the group voted.....
A portrait photograph of author, social reformer, and philosopher Charlotte Perkins Gilman, signed on the verso just before she became “the leading intellectual in the women’s movement,” as well as on the image itself, after her second marriage (Degler). This portrait of Charlotte Perkins Gilman—initially signed just six months before.....
An autograph album created by someone advantageously positioned and possibly working in the Polk government, consisting almost exclusively of signatures obtained directly from each signer. Included in the album are the signatures of President James K. Polk (and below his the signature of Joseph Knox Walker, Polk’s nephew and private secretary).....
An artifact of the operations of a London-based gold mining firm recording payments for a variety of goods and services from 1872 to 1874. Trends can be traced across the receipts; most noticeably a stiff rise in the price of tunnel digging, which from the beginning to end of the.....
Rare documentation of the systematic hate crimes that mostly went unrecorded. The first of these documents, written in pencil on Elks Lodge letterhead, bears a statement signed by six jurors that: “We the Jury summoned to inquire [in]to the death of Henry Perrill find that deceased came to his death.....
Rare and appealing evidence of a small-town Connecticut fundraiser for women’s suffrage, involving whist and ice cream. This broadside announces a “Whist Party!” on the evening of August 28th at 8:30pm at the Town Hall in Hebron, Connecticut. “Playing” and “Ice Cream” cost 10 cents each. The town of Hebron.....
A vivid letter composed two days after the Great Fire of Belfast, which destroyed over a hundred buildings across some twenty-two acres, comprising an account of the writer’s visit to the city the day after the disaster. Nelson Allen, Esq. (1806–1873) was born and lived in Montville, some eighteen miles.....
![Item #8926 [Manuscript notice regarding the ownership of three escaped and captured slaves.]....](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/8926_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1722442036)
An unusual notice penned by a Virginia slave owner announcing his claim over three slaves—named and likely a family—evidently held by a slave catcher/thief who was refusing to release them. The notice reads in full: This is to Certify that I have in my Possession three negroes viz Anderson Lucinda.....
A compelling archive of letters, a cabinet photo, and other items relating to Col. Thomas Aspinwall who was U.S. Consul to London, having been appointed by President James Madison and serving in London until his removal by President Franklin Pierce in 1853. These items all date to 1853 and 1854.....
![Item #7526 [Brothers in the 12th Missouri Cavalry write to their parents back home in Missouri.]....](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7526_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1656439259)
An engaging group of six Civil War letters written by two brothers to their parents. Both brothers saw action in the pivotal 1864 Battle of Nashville, and one later died from wounds received there. Born in McDonough County, Illinois, Joseph Gilmer Banning (1843–1908) and Pinkney “Pink” Asa Banning (1845–1865) moved.....
An evocative letter documenting domestic and dream life in a small California gold-mining town by a woman who ventured from Kentucky to California with her miner husband. Born in Livingston, Kentucky, Lovina Terry Padon Barnes (1833–1916) married Thomas Bartholomew Barnes Jr. (1830–1905) in 1853, and sometime before 1859 they moved.....
A rare autograph letter by Frederick Benteen, written from Fort DuChesne, Utah Territory in the lead-up to his 1887 court-martial, defending his situation and complaining that “the whole of the Deptmt. of the Platte seemed to have jumped on me in the most vicious manner.” Frederick Benteen was born in.....
![Item #8146 [With autograph notes] Une maison au bout du monde [The Outermost House]. Henry Beston](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/8146_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1689807662)
First French edition. Includes two signed notes by Beston from 1960 on Chimney Farm notecards. Both addressed to Jasper Jacob Stahl, a historian of Waldoboro, Maine. First note reads “Dear Jasper, Thank you a world for your warm and erudite congratulations. When I saw a letter from you in the.....
Five letters, all written in 1853, supporting future Confederate Brig-Gen. Richard Griffith’s (successful) effort to be appointed U.S. Marshall of Mississippi, including some Mexican War and Jefferson Davis content. A native of Pennsylvania, Richard Griffith (1814–1862) moved to Mississippi around 1840, where he lived until the outbreak of the Mexican.....
![Item #4192 [Archive Relating to the Founding of the Town of Brewer, Maine. Etc.]. Josiah Brewer,...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/4192_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1560462960)
A substantial archive of manuscript documents and letters, many of which relate to the early development of the town of Brewer, Maine and the role of Samuel B. Stone as “father of the town,” with letters concerning the administration and development of land in nearby Eddington, etc. The earliest document.....
![Item #7401 [Autograph letter, signed, by the head of a boarding and day school for young ladies.]...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7401_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1714744145)
A letter by a Southern Catholic widow soliciting support for her school for young women, written soon after the Civil War and shortly before she joined a convent. Addressed to her student “Mary,” this letter written by schoolmistress Adeline Brisbane begs that “your Mother, & Self, will use your influence.....
An apparently unpublished “brown-water navy” diary by a volunteer officer aboard the USS Kineo, attesting to the chaotic battles, intricate maneuvers, mishaps, and other remarkable episodes experienced while executing the Union’s “Anaconda Plan” on the Mississippi River. Latham Allyn Brown (1829–1901) of Ledyard, Connecticut was appointed Acting Master of the.....
A letter by the acting president of the Pennsylvania executive council, relaying orders from General Washington for a guard of militia to march British and Hessian prisoners of the Battle of Saratoga—the so-called “Convention Army”— through Pennsylvania on their way from Boston to Virginia. The letter, dated “In Council” and.....
First edition, third impression. Inscribed by Byrd thus: “To Albert Bumstead with affectionate regard. Dick Byrd.” Albert Bumstead (1875–1940) was chief cartographer of the National Geographic Society from 1915 until his death. Prior to that role, he served as cartographer to the 1912–1915 joint Yale and National Geographic expeditions to.....
First edition, inscribed by Byrd to cartographer and inventor of the sun compass Albert Bumstead: “To my old friend Albert Bumstead, wishing him and his a very merry Xmas and happy New Year. Dick Byrd. Xmas 1935.” Albert Bumstead (1875–1940) was chief cartographer of the National Geographic Society from 1915.....
![Item #4898 [Typed letter, signed, from Richard Byrd to Ms. Margaret Attwood.]. Richard E. Byrd](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/4898_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1684874648)
A brief but evocative thank you note by U.S. polar explorer Richard Byrd, regarding a photograph of the first African American Coast Guard officer and their common Arctic vessel, the U.S.S. Bear. The letter reads in full: My dear Miss Attwood, Thank you very much for sending me the photograph.....
![Item #8298 [Boston Silver Company letter archive.] Letters From Colorado [spine-title]. Col....](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/8298.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1694526178)
A rich and extensive archive comprising 117 letters documenting two years of the Boston Silver Mining Company’s operation in Saints John, Colorado, including much content relating to labor and the concurrent mining boom in Leadville, Colorado. The bulk of these letters are written by a company manager, who ran the.....
The journal of a former U.S. army doctor serving as surgeon on the U.S. revenue cutter Reliance from Baltimore to San Francisco, and evidently enjoying a friendship with Michael A. Healy—a.k.a. “Hell Roaring Mike”—who would later become the first person of African-American descent to command a ship of the U.S......
![Item #7367 [Manuscript journal of a trip from Colorado to California.]. Mrs. Castello, Sarah...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7367_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1715098925)
A brief but informative record of a young woman’s journey to California with her mother and new husband during the Civil War, including a striking postscript written forty-four years later. Sarah Elizabeth Shockey was born in Ohio in 1843, and married James H. Castello (1837–1924) in Denver, Colorado in January.....
A vivid, richly detailed firsthand account of the Third Battle of Winchester (Opequon), capturing a young Union soldier’s baptism by fire, graphic impressions of combat, and thoughtful reflections on the experience and its aftermath. Cochlin begins with an apology to his sister for having “not had the time to write,”.....