Washington, DC, 1999.
Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
For more information about this text and this American Memory collection, refer to accompanying matter.
The National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress makes digitized historical materials available for education and scholarship.
This transcription is intended to have an accuracy of 99.95 percent or greater and is not intended to reproduce the appearance of the original work. The accompanying images provide a facsimile of this work and represent the appearance of the original.
Boston Daily Globe.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1905.
RARE AMERICANA
Interesting Collection of R. H. W. Dwight.
Exhibited in Galleries of the Boston Art Club.
Indian Documents and Slave Bills of Massachusetts.
An interesting collection of Americana, consisting of rare letters, documents, engravings, broadsides, newspapers and silhouettes, relating largely to the colonial and revolutionary period, was exhibited in the galleries of the Boston art club yesterday afternoon and evening under the auspices of the Sons of the Revolution. There were 207 numbers in all, being a small portion of the collection of R. Henry W. Dwight, President of the Sons of the Revolution in this state.
Mr Dwight has been a collector of Americana for only a few years, but he certainly must have struck upon some rich fields in that time, judging from the rare things which he possesses and which old collectors would give much to own. Among the 207 numbers were some treasures that are highly prized by the antiquarian collectors. Much of his interest in Americana has apparently centered around the Dwight family and around the early history and settlers of Berkshire county, Stockbridge and the western portion of the state. But, aside from these are many interesting things of a general nature relating to the same period and much of a later date.
The collection includes a number of documents relating to the Stockbridge Indians—documents which indicate the fact that the Indians and white men did business together, not according to the laws of might, but according to the laws of right. And these very documents are further evidence that the Indians were regarded by the white men as equals, in business matters at least. Among these Indian documents are notes, bills, deeds, etc, signed by Indians, some of whom had remarkable names. The famous Jonathan Edwards was at one time an Indian missionary.
There is one lease of land to Elijah Williams for 500 years. Elijah Williams was a somewhat notable man in his day. He was the first high sheriff of Berkshire county under the royal governors, and during the revolutionary period he was suspected of being a tory, which necessiated his carrying a sort of passport for two years in his pocket to prove his allegiance to the new government. This document is in the collection. Williams was finally arrested as a tory, however, and was kept in “Boston gaol” for several years, during which time he wrote a number of letters protesting his innocence. Several of these letters are in the exhibit, together with the final order for release from confinement in gaol.
In the collection are a number of bills of sale of slaves in Berkshire county in the old days—1750 to 1758. One lease details the garments of a negress sold to Elijah Williams in 1778; there is also a negro bill of sale of 1766.
There is a good and sufficient evidence of the old blue laws and the “Puritan Sabbath” in the warrant of arrest for hitching up a horse on the Lord's day, in 1800; there is another for the arrest of a person for using profane language, giving the details of the cost to the person who used the profanity. Here also is a rare old colonial daybook and some old apprenticeship indentures which contain the names of some famous Bostonians.
A revolutionary oath of allegiance signed by about 100 of the most prominent men of Berkshire county, is an interesting document, beside which are tory oaths of allegiance taken prior to the revolution, and an anti-Jacobite oath signed by most of the leading men of Berkshire.
A leaf of a prospectus of the Massachusetts humane society, signed by Gov Bowdoin. Boston, July 21, 1789, calls attention to the purposes of the society, which was organized in 1784, because science had demonstrated that persons apparently dead through accidents were not in reality dead, and that “total suspension of the vital functions in the animal body is by no means incompatible with life, and consequently that marks of apparent death may subsist without any necessary implication of an absolute extinction of the animating principle.” Subscriptions to the society are requested in this prospectus.
A receipt signed by Sir William Pepperill is one of those things over which the antiquarian sighs.
An incident of the Shays rebellion is found in an order of forced sale for taxes to be executed against Benedict Dewey of Great Barrington. The order was issued by Harrison Gray, and the amount of arrears is 8 pounds 2 shillings and 10 pence.
The transition period in the monetary system from the British pounds, shillings and pence to the United States dollars and cents is evidenced in two receipts of the year 1796—one in pounds shillings and pence, dated July 1, and the other, made out in dollars and cents, dated Oct 17.
Mr Dwight has a notable series of broadsides of the revolutionary period, and among these is an address to the council and general assembly of New York by Cadwallader Golden, lieutenant governor and commander-in-chief of the colony of New York, in which he urges the assembly to calmness and deliberation in all matters, to loyalty to the crown and to “discountenance every measure which may increase our distress. This was dated Jan 13, 1775. Golden, by the way, was the historian of the “Five Indian Nations.”
The commission of Ephraim Williams Jr. founder of Williams college, and who fell at lake George, is a valuable document.
Among the engravings in the collection are two of Boston during the revolutionary period, which portray Boston as a sort of Dutch city, with curious Dutch houses and Dutch ships in the harbor. These were evidently drawn and engraved in Holland, either from crude sketches or inadequate descriptions, and the result is that the view of King st (State st) shows a corner of the old state house and a street full of Dutch houses with Dutch people walking around. The other view is of the harbor front, with Dutch vessels in the harbor, and some of them beached in the good old Dutch way and with a Dutch Boston in the background.
These prints are hand-colored, and were evidently made during that period when Holland became so deeply interested in the revolution, owing to Paul Jones and his exploits in the North sea, and the fact that the doughty American captain brought his British prizes into The Hague, causing the government of Holland to take a stand against England, and as a result the remarkable Hague trial in which Jones proved he not only knew how to fight, but that he knew international maritime law better than the English representatives at the court.
A curious thing about these engravings is that the inscription underneath is in German and the title above the plate printed in reverse is in French. This French title was evidently put on after the plate had been finished by some amateur who did not know enough to reverse his letters. These plates were in all probability made and printed in Holland first, Augsburg in Bavaria next and later in France. There are several other Dutch views of Boston made at the same time not in this collection. But there is here a Dutch picture of the landing of troops from Dutch ships in New York. To the Dutch all things were Dutch.
An interesting broadside gives a summary of two lectures on electricity by Ebenezer Kinnersley delivered in Faneuil hall in September, 1751—the first lectures probably ever delivered on the then new subject of electricity. Kinnersley was an Englishman, who was head master in English literature in the college of Philadelphia, from 1753 to 1773, a student of science, who made a number of discoveries in electricity and invented a number of quaint electrical devices. He and Franklin were on intimate terms. In the summary of these two lectures among other things it states that electricity “is an extremely subtile fluid.”
“That it doth not take up any perceptible time in passing through large portions of space.
“That it is mixed with the substance of all other fluids and solids of our globe.
“That our bodies at all times contain enough of it to set a house on fire.”
He exhibits:
“An artificial spider animated by the electric fire so as to act like a live one.
“A shower of sand which rises again as fast as it falls.
“A leaf of the most mighty of metals suspended in the air, as is said of Mahomet's tomb.
“Electrified money which scarce anybody will take when offered to them.
“A curious machine, acting by means of the electric fire, and playing a variety of tunes on eight musical bells.”
(This must have been the original nickel-in-the-slot machine.)
An interesting commission is that of Joseph Dwight, on parchment, signed by Gov Shirley, in 1756, for the Lake Champlain expedition.
A commission, engraved by the famous colonial engraver. Nathaniel Hurd, is made out for Elijah Dwight.
Other broadsides in this Dwight collection are Thomas Paine's song to the tune of “Anacreon in Heaven.” also “Adam and Liberty,” from which the tune of “The Star Spangled Banner” was taken; the famous broadside of the Williamstown committee of safety, Feb 13, 1776, signed by J. Warren, speaker, and Perez Morton, deputy secretary. A rare broadside is “A Picturesque View of the State of Great Britain for 1780.” in which is a distant view of New York, with Arnold and Clinton, while in the foreground the colonists are represented as cutting off the horns of a cow which other colonists are milking.
The collection also includes some interesting silhouettes, old newspapers and rare maps. It is such a collection as is of positive interest to the student of American history and not the least interesting of the numbers are those which are of a later date than the colonial period.