![Item #5846 Agreement between Jewett & Groves. Jan[uar][y 12 1795](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5846_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1603319463)
A rare eighteenth century Maine shipbuilding-related contract. This memorandum records an agreement made on 12 January 1795 by and between Freeborn Groves and Stephen Jewett (ca. 1727–1803) in Pittston, Maine. Detailing the specifications of the vessel to be built, the agreement reads as follows: The said Stephen Jewett doth covenant.....
A contemporary manuscript copy of the declaration of intent of the patriots of present-day Portland, Maine to support the Continental Congress and oppose the “evil designs” of Parliament, made in Falmouth (now Portland)—one of the early hotbeds of the American Revolution. Dated more than a year before the Declaration of.....
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 unique and truly delightful Arts & Crafts illumination of an account of the pursuit and capture of wild horses in Nevada, calligraphed, illustrated, and bound by San Francisco artist Otis Oldfield. This seems to be the only example in book form of horse-breaker Charles “Pete” Barnum’s vivid, first-hand account.....
An important copy of an extraordinary retaliatory order issued by the Confederate Government during the Enchantress Affair, instructing the head of prisons in Richmond to select for possible execution a number of captured Union officers being held as prisoners there. This copy was obtained by Col. Milton Cogswell in an.....
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=1560463560)
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.....
A fascinating group of seventeen autographic inscriptions by Confederate officers, mostly Virginia natives, captured during or just after the Battle of Gettysburg and imprisoned at Johnson’s Island, Ohio, including the autographs of Captain Benjamin L. Farinholt, who successfully escaped, as well as the tailor who helped disguise him. The inscriptions.....
![Item #5294 [Indenture of a German Immigrant Woman at the New Orleans Jail.]. City of New Orleans](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5294.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1640810119)
An unusual indenture binding a young German immigrant woman to the chief warden of the New Orleans city jail, where she was employed for her “understanding of the household business.” This remarkable indenture specifies the financial arrangement and terms of employment for one Annah David of Anspach, Germany—aged twenty-three and.....
An interesting letter revealing some of the difficulties involved in the life of an itinerant artist in the first half of the nineteenth century, addressed to Abraham Bell & Son, a Quaker shipping firm located in New York City. Edouart, writing from Saratoga, is inquiring about his supply cases which.....
![Item #7941 [Archive of early American missionaries to Hawaii.]. John S. Emerson, et. al, Ursula...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7941_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1674142860)
An extraordinary archive of a noted Hawaiian missionary couple, including over thirty years of epistolary journals, firsthand accounts of voyages to Micronesia and the Marquesas, numerous letters, a substantial collection of Hawaiian photos, several manuscript maps, and a charming original watercolor of the Emerson house in Waialua. Also included are.....
A rich archive of 119 letters by an employee of the Treasury Department in Washington D.C. in the 1850s, with extensive content on life and politics in Washington; the vast majority of these letters were written to the writer’s wife Martha in New Jersey. Born in Philadelphia, John W. C......
An important, unpublished, and exceptionally well-written “brown-water navy” journal kept between 1862 and 1863 during a critical phase in the execution of the Union’s Anaconda Plan on the Mississippi River, featuring extensive battle and contraband content as well as two important maps. Evidently from Cape Breton, Canada (some 40,000 Canadians.....
A brief but interesting letter from an important period in US–Indian relations, with mention of William Clark. George Gibson, then the Commissary General of Subsistence responsible for feeding the military, informs Lieutenant A.M. Wright that “deputation of Indians amounting to 28 persons will pass Mackinw on their return from the.....
A detailed letter from a Georgia lawmaker quietly trying to put a case together against a man for taking a female slave to New York—and freedom. This letter, from William Young Hansell to Archibald Russell Spence Hunter, provides a synopsis of the situation around a (former) slave named Katy and.....
![Item #2100 [Manuscript Journal of a Boston Merchant]. Ralph Haskins](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/2100_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1560463139)
Manuscript journal of a Boston merchant—an uncle of Ralph Waldo Emerson—illuminating trade, shipping, and life in Boston during the early years of the American republic. Ralph Haskins, born in Boston on April 5, 1779, was apprenticed to Theodore Lyman, a well-established merchant, at a time when Boston was a......
![Item #7835 [Autograph letter, signed, eulogizing Abraham Lincoln.]. S. J. Heatherly](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/7835_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1684260731)
A rich letter revealing a Union soldier’s high regard for President Abraham Lincoln, composed less than two months after both Lincoln’s assassination (on 15 April 1865) and the close of the Civil War. Provost Marshall and Lieutenant S. J. Heatherly writes here to J. V. Wood from the Headquarters of.....
A letter written aboard the steamer Natchez from Vicksburg to New Orleans in 1885, describing events and conversations on board as well as the countryside, agriculture, and Civil War sites along the route. This letter from New York State apple grower Silas Seward Hopkins is written on Natchez letterhead showing.....
A Confederate surgeon’s letter illuminating medical aspects of the Civil War. Tazewell Howard, newly arrived assistant surgeon to George Paul Harrison’s training camp outside Savannah, Georgia, describes his new appointment and attempts to use his connections to secure a higher paying post. He reports a certain dissatisfaction with his lot.....
A manuscript pass authorizing two men to join the forces defending Fort Ticonderoga, issued less than two months prior to the siege of the Fort (2–6 July 1777) by British General John Burgoyne during the Saratoga Campaign. The pass reads in its entirety: Norwich [Mass.] 20th of May 1777 by.....
A fascinating document recording the sale of whiskey to the Wyandotte, bearing the name of Christopher Miller, who was captured by Native Americans as a child and lived among them for many years, then rejoined the white community and fought in the Northwest Indian War. This document reads in full.....
![Item #5491 [Manuscript compilation of official reports for the Battle of Port Gibson.]. George...](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5491_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1563205789)
A compelling brigade battlefield report composed in the immediate wake of the Battle of Port Gibson (Mississippi, 1 May ‘63), an assault that set the stage for Grant’s pivotal siege of Vicksburg; the eight reports of Army of the Tennessee regiments and batteries chronicle extensive combat; the capture of Confederate.....
A group of papers documenting book donations made by the Maryland State Library to the Library of Congress in 1841, including personal correspondence between librarians John S. Meehan of the library of Congress and D. Ridgley of State Library of Maryland. A form issued by The Committee on the Library.....
![Item #2918 [Ipswich Massachusetts Livery Owner’s Daybook]. Frederick Mitchell](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/2918_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1560463212)
Day book of Frederic Mitchell, an Ipswich, Massachusetts innkeeper, recording the daily rentals from his livery. Recorded herein are daily rents and rates for all manner of horse-drawn transportation. With customers, by and large renting chaises in the warmer months and sleighs in the winter. Beyond chaises and sleighs, Mitchell’s.....
Two manuscript journals in one volume of Maine ship captain Josiah Mitchell (1812?–1876), best known as Captain of the burned and sunken ship Hornet, famously described by Mark Twain in the Sacramento Daily Union in 1866. Documented in these sea journals are the two angst-filled final voyages of Captain.....