Know All Men By These Presents, That I...Am Held And Firmly

1729. (FRANKLIN IMPRINT). Know All Men By These Presents, That I...Am Held And Firmly Bound...[caption title]. [Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin, 1729]. Printed form, 12-3/4 x 8 inches, completed in manuscript and docketed on verso. Small red wax seal. A couple light spots and old fold lines, but essentially fine. MILLER 10. Intellectual World of Benjamin Franklin, 9. This partially printed mortgage bond is a very early Benjamin Franklin imprint, produced within the first year of the establishment of his printing office in Philadelphia. By this form, dated in manuscript 13 October 1729, "Joseph Drinker of the City of Philadelphia Carpenter" borrows ?160 at 5 per cent per annum from the trustees of the General Loan Office of Pennsylvania. The trustees are identified in type as Samuel Carpenter, Jeremiah Langhorne, William Fishbourn, and Philip Taylor. It is docketed on the reverse. The document is signed in manuscript by Drinker (beside the wax seal), and also by Charles Brockden and William Parsons as witnesses. Brockden was Recorder of Deeds for the county of Philadelphia and Clerk of the General Loan Office. William Parsons was Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania and the founder of Easton, Pennsylvania. He became a member of the famous "Junto," the club formed by Franklin in 1726, to discuss ethics, politics, and natural philosophy. Franklin mentions Parsons as a Geographer, in a letter of April 1744. He was a signer of the original charter of the Library Company of PhiladelphiaFrom 1734-1746 he served as librarian of the City Library. Though the mortgage was issued with a conjugate sheet, Miller notes that they are often detached. "This pair of legal forms appears to have been the usual ones signed by inhabitants of the Province of Pennsylvania in borrowing mortgage money from the General Loan Office. Franklin, and later Franklin and Hall, along with other Philadelphia printers, must have done numerous reprintings of the forms"--Miller 10. A rare and very desirable example of an extremely early Franklin imprint.