“The continuance of the compromise is dependent, first and foremost, on the degree of tolerance that people who hold opposing outlooks can show through a mutual love of Israel.”

This rare descriptive list of men enlisted for Continental service from Massachusetts includes an African American who served in the militia. The first page lists eight men belonging to three companies in Colonel John Daggett’s regiment of Massachusetts militia. The list gives each man’s age; height; color of complexion, hair, and eyes; and town. All are from Norton in Bristol County, approximately thirty miles south of Boston. Among the militiamen who were forwarded for Continental service was 26-year-old London Morey, “a Negro,” but according to his military records, he was “rejected” at Fishkill, New York.

The verso contains a tabular list of twenty men recruited from Colonel John Daggett’s militia regiment for nine months’ service in the Continental Army. They were from Attleboro, Easton, and Mansfield. The table lists each man’s company, name, age, height, complexion, eye color, town, and county or country. The last four listed are from France. Several served in the 12^th Massachusetts Regiment under the command of Col. Gamaliel Bradford.

This resolution of the Second Continental Congress, approved days before it adopted the Declaration of Independence, defines a person as guilty of treason if they “levy war” against any of the united American colonies or give “aid and comfort” to any of their enemies. This resolution was the first public act to declare King George III the enemy and was a de facto declaration of independence.

“Mr. [Egbert] Benson [of New York] moved that the words ‘but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms,’ be struck out. He wished that this humane provision should be left to the wisdom and benevolence of government. It was improper to make it a fundamental in the constitution.”

This issue of the Pennsylvania Packet includes key debates in the House of Representatives on the developing set of amendments that were later ratified as the Bill of Rights. It also prints the Act establishing the War Department.

Thanking Dr. Paul Means for helping to change the policy of Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock to allow fathers to be present for Caesarean-section births. Four months earlier, she had given birth there to Chelsea Victoria, and Governor Bill Clinton had insisted on being present at the delivery.

Cardozo thanks fellow Judge Alphonso T. Clearwater for his kind words about Cardozo’s work and opinions, and grieves about the death a week earlier of his older sister Ellen Ida Cardozo, with whom he lived on New York’s West 75th Street. “Nell” was the last of Cardozo’s five siblings to die.

“My friends are preparing for a convention at Columbus on the 22^d whichwill be the largest assemblage of citizens & otherwise the most interesting ever held in the Western Country…”

Harrison asks U.S. Senator Daniel Webster for assistance on the sale of land in Vincennes, Indiana, and mentions an upcoming Whig convention in Columbus, Ohio. After his election, Harrison appointed Webster as his Secretary of State.

Congressional attorney Elmer W. Henderson, a hero of the early civil rights movement, congratulates African American chemist Lloyd A. Hall for a recent professional honor. In 1955, Hall also became the first African American elected to the National Board of Directors of the American Institute of Chemists (AIC). The following year, the AIC awarded Hall the Honor Scroll Award. On special occasions, the AIC invites a prominent chemist or chemical engineer to lecture to the Members and Fellows of the AIC on a topic of professional interest. In September 1957, Hall delivered a lecture on “The Chemist and the AIC,” likely the occasion for this congratulatory letter from Henderson a few months later.

In May 1858, Martin M. Lawrence (1807-1859) took a photograph of John Brown at his studio at 381 Broadway in New York City, where he had worked as a daguerreotypist since 1842. He took it at the request of Dr. Thomas H. Webb (1801-1866) of Boston, Secretary of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. In November 1859, shortly before Brown’s execution, an engraving based on this photograph appeared on the cover of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

Complete Transcript

                                                                        Mar 3/23

Father –

        Oh lookit!!

I suppose they want me on the theory that “a man can always talk best when he aint bothered by facts and information” as Kin Hubbard says.

However “my attainments in the field of electrical engineering” are such as should be the envy of any college president.

[Thomas A. Edison endorsement at top:]

Charlie / you might put you foot in it. / E

Dedicatory inscription on verso of title page (partly cropped by binder), handwritten in Hebrew by Imber: “To my wise friend, the linguist... of the periodical HaZvi in Jerusalem. [...] The renowned wordsmith from the ranks of the Jewish sages [...], Ben-Yehuda. This booklet is a memento from the author.”

Inked stamps on title page and on several additional pages (Hebrew): “House of Reading and [Home of] the Book Collection, Jerusalem, may it be rebuilt and reestablished” / “Beit Sefarim Livnei Yisrael... Yerusahalayim…” [House of Books for the Children of Israel in the Holy City of Jerusalem]. The library known as “Beit Sefarim Livnei Yisrael” was established in Jerusalem by a group of scholars led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in 1884 (upon its closing in 1894, its book collection was transferred to the Midrash Abarbanel Library, which eventually evolved into the National Library of Israel.)

In 1886, prior to the publication Barkai, Imber published the following advertisement in Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's Hebrew-language newspaper, HaZvi (2nd year, Issue No. 36): “There is a book with me among my writings [to] which I have given the title ‘Barkai’ [...] Any printer who wishes to purchase it from me in order to publish it should contact me...” An editor’s note follows the advertisement: “We have seen these poems which have been written by Mr. Imber, and [regard them] in keeping with the principle to which we adhere, ‘Look upon the vessel and relate not to its creator' [in a play on words on the chorus of the well-known liturgical poem for the Day of Atonement, ‘Ki Hineh KaHomer’]. It is incumbent upon us to state that the spirit of lofty poetry hovers over them; their thoughts are pleasant and desirable. The language in them is pristine and clear, and the ideas are exceptional. Many of these poems are worthy of becoming national songs. In general, these poems are faithful national songs, writings of a distinguished poet.”

VI, [2], 127, [1] pp., 15.5 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains, mostly to first and last leaves. Tears, some open and some long, to title page and to several other leaves, mostly restored with paper or mended with adhesive tape. Handwritten notations to some pages. New binding and endpapers.

This bold broadside, published in Boston, consists of an overview map of the entire eastern United States, with free states hand-colored red; maps of Baltimore; the District of Columbia; Norfolk Harbor and Hampton Roads with Fort Monroe. The largest maps, extending half the width of the broadside each are of Charleston Harbor with details of its fortifications and of the Pensacola Navy Yard and Fort Pickens. The broadside also includes images of Andrew Jackson with the quotation, “The union must & shall be preserved”; Abraham Lincoln; Winfield Scott, with the quotation “Please God, I will fight many years for this Union, and that too, under the protective folds of the star spangled banner”; and Major Robert Anderson, “The Hero of Sumter” and Routes and Distances by both steamboat and railroad from Boston and Washington to various parts of the nation.

This engraving by David Edwin pictures Jefferson standing beside a table, with his hand on a desktop globe. Edwin copied the head from the Rembrandt Peale portrait of 1800. Edwin placed Jefferson in a black suit in a formal setting, comparable to the 1796 portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart (known as the “Lansdowne” portrait because it was commissioned as a gift for William Petty, first Marquis of Lansdowne).

Also see the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding

On his 11th day as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton orders Customs Collectors to accept Bank of North America and Bank of New York notes as the equivalent of gold or silver, and hints at forthcoming procedures to guard against counterfeit currency.

“In consequence of arrangements lately taken with the Bank of North America, and the Bank of New York for the accommodation of the Government, I am to inform you that it is my desire that the Notes of those Banks payable either on demand, or at no longer period than Thirty days after their respective dates should be received in payment of the duties, as equivalent to Gold and Silver . . .”

A future hero of the French and Indian War leases Turtle Bay for fifty years of use by the British Navy. From the beginning of European settlement, it offered sailing vessels refuge from the East River’s treacherous currents and winter storms. Today, it helps weather different kinds of storms: it was filled in and is the site of the present United Nations complex.

In his position as Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson conveyed copies of new federal laws to the governors of each of the states. This letter, signed by Jefferson, conveyed the First Patent Act, formally An Act to Promote the Progress of Useful Arts, to New York Governor George Clinton, who would later serve as Jefferson’s second vice president.

“Do you want it? You may have it. I’ve been meaning to have a cover made for it. The arms are shredded.”—Georgia O’Keeffe to Mym Tuma (Marilynn Thuma), July 1969

The intricate design of this handkerchief features images of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, beneath an eagle and flags. In the center appears the text of the Declaration of Independence, together with facsimiles of the signatures. An oak wreath with acorns surrounds the text and features images of the seals of the thirteen original states. An image at lower left depicts the Boston Tea Party with the caption, “The Patriotic Bostonians discharging the British Ships in Boston harbour.” An image at lower right depicts “General Burgoyne’s Surrender to General Gates at Saratoga.” Around the edge runs a stars and rope border with anchors at each corner and at the center of each side. The design was printed with red ink using a copper plate.

The design draws much from prints of the Declaration of Independence by William Woodruff, published in February 1819, and John Binns, published in October 1819.

“Joseph Rice is become Bankrupt within the meaning of the Acts of Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

John Rice, a ship’s carpenter in Kensington, a neighborhood of Philadelphia, filed this deposition stating that his brother, Joseph Rice, owed him more than £200 and had become bankrupt within the meaning of the Acts of the Pennsylvania Assembly. Franklin signed the deposition as President of the Council of Pennsylvania, a position he held from 1785 to 1788.

When he signed this document on Saturday, August 18, 1787, Franklin was also the oldest member of the Constitutional Convention, which was meeting in Philadelphia. The Convention agreed to a committee consisting of one member per state to consider the assumption of state debts and continued its discussion of Article VII, Section 1, the enumeration of Congressional powers.