Search Results: Historical Manuscripts from Donald Heald Rare Books

[v.p., including Antwerp, London, Havana, Pensacola, New York, 1833. Folio. (12 3/4 x 8 inches). 21 leaves, plus two additional manuscript leaves laid in. Contemporary half calf and marbled boards, manuscript label on front board. Bookseller's label on front pastedown. Account book of Atlantic trading voyages. An interesting manuscript ship's log containing financial accounts for the brigs Nimrod and Jasper for an eight year period from 1826 to 1833, while they were under the command of a Captain John Hill. The two ships made numerous voyages between the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. The present log book contains line accounts of expenditures for journeys from London and Marseilles to New York and Norfolk in 1827; from Antwerp to London in 1828; from Philadelphia to the West Indies in 1829; from Madeira to the Turks Islands in 1831; from the West Indies to Pensacola to Havana in 1832; from the Indies to New York in 1833; and other similar voyages. The log also contains two copies of an… Read More

Washington, DC, 1895. Archive. Sheet sizes variable. Over 60 ink and pencil manuscripts and typescripts, including copies, ledgers, letters, and US Government correspondence on paper. This remarkable archive of manuscript materials tells the story of "Linconia," Abraham Lincoln's failed 1861-62 scheme to resettle free black Americans in the Chiriqui province of what is now Panama. "You having been charged by the President of the United States with the execution of the Acts of the 1st Session of the 34th Congress for aiding in the Colonization of persons of color freed by the provisions of law in some tropical country." - Lincoln's Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith to Kansas Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy, 9/11/1862 This archive of materials related to President Lincoln's Chiriqui Project is important evidence in a story often unacknowledged in American history: that of the US Government's attempts to relocate black Americans overseas. The Chiriqui Colonization Project was a scheme Lincoln pushed… Read More

England: Elliott Cresson, 1833. Bi-folded folio. 3 pp. (12 1/3 x 7 1/2 inches). Important autograph letter from Elliott Cresson, one of the foremost proponents of the American Colonization Society and its colony in Liberia, to Member of Parliament Benjamin Hawes, presenting a resolution to found the British African Colonization Society. Discusses the famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison's opposition to the colonization movement. The letter begins with the two-page text of a resolution to establish the British African Colonization Society under the patronage of the Duke of Sussex: "[T]hat Colonies composed of fair settlers of African race established on judicious principles on the Coast of Africa appear calculated beyond any other plan to put an effectual stop to the slave trade . . . Resolved that a Society be formed to be called the British African Colonization Society and that its objects be to cooperate with the American Colonization Society and with the several missionaries and other… Read More

Philadelphia, 1834. 3pp. Later annotation at head of first page. Scarce letter on the Liberian colonization movement by one of its founders. Writing to Hawes, a member of Parliament and a committee member of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade, Cresson wishes for success in the British anti-slavery action off the coast of Sierra Leone, writing "[I] hope that you may yet enjoy the satisfaction of crushing one of the worst & most unacceptable of the slave markets in existence, that at Gallinas..." After mentioning the travels of the colonial governor of Liberia, he writes: "... I have been gratified to learn from several highly respectable sources, that such a Colony as you propose, located either at the mouth of the Cape Mount River, or even a little more to the Northward, say at Sugaree, & provided with a good supply of trade goods to exchange with the natives, would have a powerful tendency to break up the monopoly now enjoyed by the Spanish Slavers. My letters from Africa state that… Read More

St. Augustine, Florida: John James Audubon, 1832. Bi-folded folio. 4 pp. (9 1/2 x 7 3/4 inches). Integral address panel with St. Augustine postal stamp. "Should I live long enough to deserve her applause I shall die happy." A remarkable signed manuscript letter from John James Audubon, which addresses in detail the publication of his landmark work "The Birds of America." Audubon may have deemed the Florida landscape "poor beyond any idea that can be given in a common letter," but in the present correspondence he also reports his discovery of a new species of Ibis, which he proposes to name Fantatus Fuscus. Additionally, he records "3 diferrent [sic] Species of Heaths," and notes his "curious observation" of warblers, "moving easterwards every warm day and returning every cold one." He also outlines his plans to travel up the St. John River aboard the US Navy schooner, the Spark. Ever focused on the project at hand, Audubon discusses the prospect of government assistance for his work, including the… Read More

Paris, 1849. 17pp., written recto only on 17 sheets. With a few pieces of related ephemera by J.P. Mayer (the editor of the Gallimard edition of Tocqueville's Oeuvres Completes). From the Tocqueville papers of Gustave de Beaumont. The letters comprise as follows: To John Stuart Mill, 15 October 1839. OC (ed. de Beaumont), vol. VI, p. 93. To John Stuart Mill, 18 December 1840. OC (ed. de Beaumont), vol. VI, p. 106. To John Stuart Mill, 23 April 1847. OC (ed. Mayer), vol. VI, p. 348 To Henry Reeve, 5 July 1849. OC (ed. Mayer), vol. VI, p. 103.

Kensington Palace, 1809. 6pp., on 3 sheets of paper, each 9 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches. Each sheet inlaid at a later date. Renovating Kensington Palace. In this lengthy letter, the father of Queen Victoria consults architect James Wyatt concerning repairs to Kensington Palace. Wyatt had been previously employed by Edward to renovate Castle Hill Lodge, but here discusses proposed improvements at Kensington Palace, which were "in a very dilapidated state, & really disgraceful." Among the needed repairs he requests were the walls of the footman's waiting room, the installation of bookcases and other renovation in the library and changes to the garden room.

London, 1899. Oblong octavo. (8 3/8 x 11 1/4 inches). Black ink calligraphic manuscript title, manuscript map in blue ink of New Guinea, northern extremities of Australia and the surrounding islands, hand-coloured with a related key beneath to show the distribution of the various species and sub-species, 7 plates of pen-and-ink and watercolour drawings of various species of cassowary (the first five plates each with three heads, the sixth plate with two heads and the final plate with a fine full-length study of an adult and a young bird). Loosely inserted is an early manuscript listing (in the same hand as the captioning of the plates and the index to the map) of various species of the birds, with common names and locations. Contemporary brown morocco-backed cloth-covered boards, dark red morocco box Provenance: Otto Fockelmann (of Hamburg, near-contemporary signature in blue ink on title) Pre-publication presentation manuscript with watercolour drawings depicting the 17 species or sub-species of… Read More