Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, March 2015 3-C
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directly engage in privateering. A big plus
for this lot was the fact that Russell’s most
frequent correspondent was Robert Morris Jr.
(1734-1806), a fellowmerchant who financed
the American Revolution and was a signer of
the Declaration of Independence. According
to Morris biographer Charles Rappleye, next
to Washington, Morris was “the most power-
ful man in America.” (For more information
on Morris, see Rappleye’s Robert Morris:
Financier of the American Revolution, pub-
lished in 2010.)
This sale also was notable for its many
good diaries. Asked about their number,
Stattler said, “Diaries are a particular favor-
ite of mine, and I try to get into the sales as
many as possible.” Summarizing them well
is a labor-intensive job. Stattler managed to
do his usual impressive job this time, despite
having had to catalog simultaneously a Latin
Americana sale.
The diary that bidders competed most
heavily for was kept by a lieutenant who
served during the French and Indian War.
Josiah Goodrich of Wethersfield, Connecti-
cut, titled these pages “A Jornal [sic] of my
March from Albany.” They included a dra-
matic account of the 1759 Battle of Ticon-
deroga. (“This day I went to view ye fort
which was a very strong one. The enemy
blew off near one quarter of it.”) He didn’t
fail to smell the roses, however. (“This after
noon [sic] went to ye point of ye lake...,
where I had a fair prospect of it, which
appears to be ye most pleasent [sic] place
that ever I saw.” Consigned by the estate of
collector Milton R. Slater (1918-2014) of
Sleepy Hollow, New York, the diary went
to a collector on the phone for $47,500 (est.
$8000/12,000).
Also of great interest in the diary category
was one written out west in 1859 by a writer
believed to be Lieutenant Milton Cogswell,
a member of the so-called Macomb expedi-
tion. The Smithsonian Institution arranged
the expedition of Captain John N. Macomb,
who was charged with surveying and map-
ping the route from Santa Fe to the junction
of the Green and Grand Rivers in Utah. The
87 manuscript pages, plus 35 pages of mem-
oranda, sold to a dealer for $18,750 (est.
$8000/12,000).
When Stattler took the diary in, neither he
nor the consignor knew how special it was.
“But some research showed that this guy
had been on this very important expedition,”
he said. “To have a completely new perspec-
tive on it was quite a spectacular find.” In
addition, as described in the catalog, this
has “almost everything you might hope for
in a Western diary: friendly Indians, hostile
Indians, Mormons, Mexican sheep herders,
breathtaking mountain scenery, and even
some affectionate frontier ladies.”
When Nicholas D. Lowry, pres-
ident and principal auctioneer
of Swann Galleries, got to the
podium for the start of the printed and
manuscript Americana auction in New
York City on November 25, 2014, he
explained why he was a few minutes
late. “We’ve had a gold rush of inter-
est—and we try to accommodate as
many bidders as possible.”
The metaphor was apt. Bids came
in apace from the room, phones, order
book, and Internet—sometimes all at
once—on many of the most important
lots. “This is getting out of control—
in a great way,” Lowry commented in
the middle of one bidding war. “Ah,
the double-handed paddle raise,” he
noted in another instance, speaking of
someone in the gallery trying to get his
attention.
“This was one of the best general
Americana sales in Swann’s history,”
noted Swann Americana specialist
Richard “Rick” Stattler a few days
later. “In fact, it
was topped only
by a big block-
buster we had
back in March
2007,” before the
crash. “We’ve
had a couple of
bigger single-owner sales, but this was
the best general one.”
On expectations of $590,000/
878,530, the auction realized
$1,160,125 (including buyers’ premi-
ums) with an 88% sell-through rate.
The 384 lots had come from 100 differ-
ent consignors.
The top seller, a first edition of
Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis,
Parts I, II, and III, went at $125,000 to
Stephan Loewentheil of the 19th Cen-
tury Rare Book and Photograph Shop,
Stevenson, Maryland, and Brooklyn,
New York. Bound together, the 56
pages were published in Philadelphia
in 1776-77.
“These are the times that try men’s
souls,” Part I famously begins. Origi-
nally issued as a pamphlet, it is consid-
ered to be among the greatest political
essays in the modern English language.
Paine’s biographer John Keane called
it “an ode to fearlessness” and “a liter-
ary cannon on the battlefield of inde-
pendence.” Meant to inspire the men
to be courageous in circumstances that
looked to be pretty dire, rather than be a
“summer soldier” or “sunshine patriot,”
Paine’s words were meant for speak-
ing aloud to people unaccustomed to
reading. Indeed, the essay was read on
Christmas 1776 to men who, on the fol-
lowing day, waged the Battle of Tren-
ton after George Washington’s crossing
of the Delaware River.
Paine wrote Part II in an entirely
different vein. It was cast in the form
of an open letter to a British official,
Lord Richard Howe. The letter was a
taunt, a threat, and a bold prediction
that the British would lose. Part III
was altogether different from the other
two, published on the anniversary of
the Battle of Lexington. Its language
was designed to smoke out remaining
Loyalists.
Only one other copy of this extremely
rare volume has been at auction since
1955, when a copy sold at Sotheby’s on
December 11, 2008, for $158,500. The
one at this sale almost didn’t make it to
market. It had belonged to a man from
upstate New York. While his estate was
being sorted, the pamphlet got put into
a box marked for the trash bin. His
daughter Peggy Labarr spotted it and
retrieved it as something worth saving.
She brought it to a local antiques dealer,
Mark Lawson of Saratoga Springs and
Colonie, New York. Law-
son suggested she bring
it to Swann. Labarr and
her sister were in the
audience when the book
sold, as was a film crew
from Channel 10 news in
Albany.
“I just closed my eyes
when the bidding was going
on, thinking this isn’t real,”
Labarr told the TV reporter.
“I’m not here.... I’m dream-
ing.” Earlier in the day, how-
ever, while walking around
Lower Manhattan, she had
found herself in Thomas Paine
Park, where she looked up and
read signage that mentions The
American Crisis . As she told the
reporter, “That to me was a sign
that good things were going to
happen today.”
Stephan Loewentheil paid
$70,000—nearly four times the high
e s t i m a t e—f o r
another market
rarity, an anti-Fed-
eralist’s eyewit-
ness account of
the Constitutional
Convention. Pub-
lished in Philadel-
phia in 1788, it was written by delegate
Luther Martin, one of our Founding
Fathers, who feared that the Constitu-
tion violated states’ rights. The Genu-
ine Information, Delivered to the Leg-
islature of the State of Maryland was
bound with other pamphlets. Accord-
ing to Swann, only two other copies
have been at auction since 1933. One,
a bound copy like this one, sold on
June 21, 2005, at the Snider collection
sale at Christie’s, for $156,000; a sec-
ond, incomplete copy made $18,000 at
Swann on March 26, 2009.
A rich document from the earli-
est days of the Continental Navy and
Marines inspired another good fight.
A letterpress broadside with com-
pletions in manuscript, it went to
the William Reese Company, New
Haven, Connecticut, for $62,500 (est.
$8000/12,000). Used both as a recruit-
ment contract and a signup sheet for
the U.S.S. Columbus, one of the Con-
tinental Navy’s first ships, it was head-
lined “The Invitation of the Continen-
tal Congress, to their Brethren who
are Sons of Liberty and Seamen, to
Engage in the Defence of the Liberties
of America.” Printed in Philadelphia
on November 15, 1775, it was signed
by the ship’s commander, Abraham
Whipple. Twenty-one officers, mates,
surgeons, and midshipmen, plus 92
seamen, landsmen, craftsmen, gun-
ners, along with one “Negro Boy,” also
signed. Next to each man’s signature
was date of enlistment, rank, and rate
of pay. Those who signed agreed to the
stated conditions of employment and
their incentives. The first man to spot a
prized British vessel, for example, was
to get a double share of proceeds if the
vessel got captured. The first to board
it was promised a triple share.
A unique piece was among other
fresh-to-the-market items that got
bidders’ competitive juices flowing.
Estimated at $12,000/18,000, a letter
book by 18th-century Boston merchant
Thomas Russell was sold to benefit His-
toric Deerfield. It went to an unidenti-
fied collector on the phone for $75,000.
The 637 manuscript letters were written
in 557 pages over the period December
8, 1777, to October 4, 1781, during a
time when, as the catalog states, Rus-
sell was active in running the British
blockade, sending ships up and down
the Atlantic coast, though he did not
Swann Galleries, New York City
“Gold Rush” at Printed Manuscript and Americana Sale
by Jeanne Schinto
Photos courtesy Swann Galleries
Saved from the trash bin, a first edition of
Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis, Parts
I, II, and III sold for $125,000. Credited with
helping to turn the tide of the American Rev-
olution, these 56 pages were bound together
and published in Philadelphia in 1776-77. “I
bring reason to your ears, and, in language as
plain as A,B,C, hold up truth to your eyes,”
Paine wrote in Part I. His phrasing reminded
me of the declaration of a great 20th-century
American wordsmith, Marianne Moore, who,
in a 1920 poem called “England,” character-
ized our nation as a place where “letters are
written/ not in Spanish, not in Greek, not in
Latin, not in shorthand/ but in plainAmerican
which cats and dogs can read!”
A patriotic letterpress broadside
stating the articles of agreement for the
Continental Navy’s U.S.S. Columbus, with
attached manuscript signature lists, sold
for $62,500. The broadside proper, printed
in Philadelphia on November 15, 1775, is
18" x 14". With the list attachments, dating
through January 19, 1776, the whole mea-
sures 36½" x 22½". Missing pieces include a
12" x 8" section of signatures.
This 13½" x 18" political lithograph was published by Currier & Ives in 1860.
Titled The Political Gymnasium, it shows, among others, Abraham Lincoln and
Horace Greeley. “You must do as I did, Greeley,” Lincoln says to the newspa-
per editor and reformer struggling to do a chin-up. “[G]et somebody to give
you a boost. I never could have got up here [balanced on a sawhorse] by my
own efforts.” One of many nice Lincoln items in the Forbes collection, the Cur-
rier & Ives print sold to an on-line bidder for $2215 (est. $700/1000). Greeley
was an unsuccessful candidate for president in 1872, and a satirical fan with his
picture on it went for $406 (est. $300/400).
“This was one of
the best general
Americana sales in
Swann’s history.”
☞