Morris-Jumel Mansion
Some things never change. Rev ping.
Morris-Jumel Mansion
Very cool! thanks for sharing this.
It’s hard for me to imagine Madison “raving” about anything, but I wasn’t there to see it.
Regarding the old doctor’s bills (from the same time) found along with this document: I don’t think those are worthless; they are valuable in another way and should also be preserved.
bttt
Interesting article. The NYT’s non-political reporting is often excellent, quite unlike the shoddy propaganda they print as political reporting.
From the linked NY Times article...
“Until Ms. Gruchow found it, only the final, printed version from July 1775 had been known to exist. She consulted with Michael D. Hattem, a teaching fellow and research assistant on The Papers of Benjamin Franklin at Yale. He analyzed the handwriting on the yellowed pages of the manuscript and did textual analysis that led to an unexpected conclusion: The document was written by Robert R. Livingston, a prominent New York jurist who had been on the fence about whether to support independence for the colonies.”
From some other website I just now found...
“On Sunday, January 26 [2014] Leigh Keno will hold a single-lot sale at his gallery at 127 East 69th Street. At 1 p.m., he will sell a newly discovered document written by Robert Livingston. It is the manuscript for the 12 colonies’ last attempt at reconciliation through redress with Britain, written a year before Livingston was appointed as one of five members of the committee formed to draft the Declaration of Independence. It was known only in printed versions that were circulated in the colonies, and it was not known that Robert Livingston wrote it until this manuscript was discovered by Emilie Gruchow, archivist at the Morris-Jumel Mansion.
She found the eight-page “letter” in a folder with various 18th-century doctors’ bills. Handwriting experts have verified that it is indeed in the hand of Robert Livingston. It is a first draft, heavily edited, of what was published as “Letter of the Twelve United Colonies to the inhabitants of Great Britain.”
There were only 12 colonies in 1775 because Delaware was still part of Pennsylvania.
Keno estimates it at $100,000 to $400,000.”
http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/stories/americana-week-in-new-york-city-january-2014/4178,000/400,000. There were only 12 colonies in 1775
Oops! Just now saw that the Times piece did mention the auction.
Give me a break, will ya...it’s 4:45 in the morning here in NYC! Lol. :)
That was followed by a long list of complaints about the infringement of colonists’ rights, the restrictions on trade and the “rigorous acts of oppression which are daily exercised in the Town of Boston.”
There are similar writings taking place today that someday may also be important and significant insights to history.
Why throw out ANY 200 year old hand written documents?
They were going to throw away documents from what is basically a museum??