Search Results: Authors starting with S from David M. Lesser, Fine Antiquarian Books LLC

New York: Pudney & Russell, 1852. Disbound, 27pp. Title page browned, else Very Good. A scarce attack on judicial decisions upholding City actions that had adversely affected landowners abutting New York City navigable waters. The unknown author argues that courts have misread the extent of the Common Council's authority; its actions, he demonstrates, were "not within the legal powers of that body." A close examination of the various Charters, from which the City's powers derive, ensues, commencing with colonial days. FIRST EDITION. Sabin 74603. 164 NUC 0217694 [4]. Not in Harv. Law Cat., Eberstadt, Decker.

Chillicothe, O.: Ely, Allen & Looker, 1850. Original cloth [spine renewed] with gilt-decorated front cover. Frontis lithograph of 'Blennerhassets' Mansion'. 239pp. Very Good. "The first attempt by this early expert to unravel the [Burr-Wilkinson] conspiracy" [Jenkins]. Burr visited Blennerhasset in 1805, "and succeeded in involving him in his treasonable schemes" [Thomson]. FIRST EDITION. Howes S13. Tompkins 89. Thomson 1009. Jenkins, Full Howes 2209 [1853 ed.].

[Columbus?, 1857. 10pp. Disbound without wrappers, persistent light to moderate margin spot. Good+. This is the City's brief, defending the City Council's decision to abolish the Board of Trustees of Water Works, of which the disappointed Waddle was a Member. The City's decision was uncomplicated: "There being then no Water Works in existence or process of construction, and nothing further done than the report of August, 1855, the City Council abolished the Board." Not in OCLC, Sabin, Eberstadt, or Decker.

[np, 1863. 7, [1 blank] pp. At head of title: "[Not to be published.]" Folded, uniformly toned. "Mississippi" is in bold ink manuscript; the rest is printed. Very Good. Apparently Sage sent his pamphlet, advocating the use of "private armed vessels," to the several Confederate States. The Journal of Virginia's House of Delegates for 15 September 1863 records the receipt of this document, and its referral to the committee on military affairs. We can thus infer that Parrish & Willingham's suggested 1864 printing date is incorrect. Sage was "a New Orleans lawyer who enthusiastically promoted to President Davis and others in the Confederacy's high command the benefits of privateering and sabotage, both in America and abroad" [H-Net online review of Tidwell: April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War.] Sage proposed establishing a volunteer navy charged with seizing Union vessels, for use by the Confederacy, and a system of bounties for the successful captors. "In 1863 a volunteer… Read More

[New York, 1868. [1], 28, [6] manuscript leaves, 12-1/4" x 8",plus a 6-page manuscript telegram addressed to Thomas Ewing, plus a 16-page printed pamphlet [some blue crayon lines over text, but still legible]. Bound with a bit of rope; curled, outer leaves loose and chipped without loss of text. New York, 4 and 6 July 1868. Except as noted, Very Good. This 1868 Convention, whose proceedings were never published, was held at the time of the Democrats' New York Convention. These minutes are thus a unique record of the support given to President Andrew Johnson by former Union soldiers and sailors. Johnson-- like the members of this Convention-- proposed the immediate admission to full membership in the Union of the rebellious States; and opposed the Civil Rights Act, the Freedmen's Bureau, the Fourteenth Amendment, and any additional protections for Negroes. The minutes were compiled and written by Colonel James R. O'Beirne, Secretary of the National Executive Committee. During the War, as a member of… Read More

Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by William Spotswood, 1794. 12mo. Original leather-backed marbled paper over boards [1.5" wide horizontal piece missing from bottom front cover]. 79pp. Rubberstamp and light pencil writing on front free endpaper. Scattered light fox, light wear. Good+. According to ESTC this is the second title of PAUL AND MARY, Evans 27667 and Welch 11401.

Worcester: J. Nancrede, 1797. Original full leather [rubbed, rebacked]. Plate frontis, 'Philocles in the Island of Samos.' Folding plate, 'Atlantic Hemisphere.' pp [2], 331, [blank], [4 publ. advts]. Text clean and Very Good. This is the single-volume printing, ending with, 'The End,' on page 331, instead of, 'End of first volume.' We have not found any other record of the final four pages of publisher's advertisements. The work presents, as the preface states, "all that portion" of Saint-Pierre's Studies of Nature "which relates immediately to the subject of religion." Bristol, B10094. Not in Shipton & Mooney or Evans. ESTC W36508.

[Plano, Illinois, 1875. 27 pamphlets, each with caption title. These include pamphlets numbered 2-12, 14-17, 20-27, 29-30 above the caption title; and two unnumbered pamphlets: TITHING [Plano: Printed at the True Latter Day Saints' Herald Office. 1860's?], and BRIGHAMISM: ITS PROMISES AND THEIR FAILURES. [Plano: Printed at the True Latter Day Saints' Herald Steam and Book Office. 1869?]. Scattered foxing, bound in stiff paper contemporary wrappers, with 'Tracts' stamped in gilt on front cover. Ink signature on front endpaper, 'Chas. N. Brown, Providence, R.I.' Pasted on the first front endpaper is a printed 'A Revelation and Prophecy, By the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, Joseph Smith, Given December 25th, 1832...copied from the 'Pearl of Great Price,' Published at Liverpool, in 1851.' Very Good. Twenty-seven pamphlets, many of them extremely scarce, from the Reorganized Church, founded in 1860 in Illinois. Its separation from the Latter Day Saints occurred in the schism of 1844, after the murder of… Read More

New York: Parke Bernet Galleries, 1953. Three volumes: Parts I-III. All in original printed wrappers, deckled edges, lightly worn. Very Good. The sale occurred from February through April.

Albany, 1861. Original printed wrappers [lightly worn]. Stitched, 37pp. Very Good. New York State acquired the Salt Springs for a song from the Onondaga Indians. The State leased rights to private industry to process the salt, with activities overseen by the Superintendent, Vivus Wood Smith, who reported the production, costs, problems, other pertinent information. The springs were located at Salina, Liverpool, Geddes, and Syracuse.

New York: Peter Smith [N. Currier], 1848. Lithograph folio illustrated broadside, oblong 13-5/8" x 18-5/8." Minor dusting. Handwritten depository notice at blank bottom margin; small stamp reading "Microfilmed" is near the blank bottom right corner. Prior matting remnants on blank verso, light crease laid down. The image and text are clear and bold. Very Good. The broadside illustrates an important political event: the beginnings of the Democratic Party's splintering over the issue of Slavery. Former Democratic President Martin Van Buren, running for President in 1848 as a Free Soil candidate, failed to bridge the gap between his erstwhile Democratic allies and his new "Whig-Abolition" friends. For this failure he is about to take a spill into Salt River. "Salt River" is 19th century American slang: a losing candidate for office was taking a trip "up Salt River." Tickets for passage "up Salt River" were frequently printed to mock supporters of losing candidates. "Martin Van Buren's inability to… Read More

Haverhill: Printed by Galen H. Fay, 1805. 47, [1 blank] pp. Disbound, occasional mild foxing. Good+. Gaines, citing two earlier editions, identifies 'Historicus' as Moses Sampson, who chronicles here his disaffection with popular democracy. He emphasizes "the instability of the people, and their liableness to become the dupes of artful and wicked men." AI 9306 [4].

Philadelphia: Printed by B. Graves, for W. Duane, 1805. 96pp, bound in modern calf, with gilt-lettered title stamped on front cover. Lightly toned, else Very Good. Someone has written the name of Jesse Higgins on the title page as the purported author; this is probably incorrect. The second edition, published in the same year as the first. "Mr. Sampson was the first in our country to fix public attention on the subject of legal reform. In this cause he laboured assiduously for many years...His invectives, however, against the Common Law, were often injudicious, and indiscriminately severe, and his love of ridicule frequently took the place of prudence, of reason, and of useful learning." Marvin. This Irish emigrant was a lawyer who "achieved high rank chiefly through his eloquence and his vigorous advocacy of personal rights." DAB. His object is, the author says, "to expose to full view the prodigious evil of our jurisprudence, to shew the absurdity of common law, and to suggest a competent remedy… Read More

New York: G.L. Birch & Co., 1820. [2], 195, [1 blank] pp. Later stitching, untrimmed, some dusting. Good+. Goodwin stabbed Stoughton with the blade of a sword-cane on lower Broadway. He claimed the sword came out accidentally. With medical testimony by Valentine Mott. "Mr. Sampson was the first in our country to fix public attention on the subject of legal reform. In this cause he laboured assiduously for many years...His invectives, however, against the Common Law, were often injudicious, and indiscriminately severe, and his love of ridicule frequently took the place of prudence, of reason, and of useful learning." Marvin. This Irish immigrant was a lawyer who "achieved high rank chiefly through his eloquence and his vigorous advocacy of personal rights." DAB. AI 3480.

New York: Charles Holt, 1810. 27, [1 blank] pp. Light to moderate foxing, housed in modern quarter morocco and marbled paper over boards. Good+. With the ownership signature of John B. Clopton (1789-1860), dated September 11th, 1811. Clopton was an American politician and jurist, who served in the Virginia militia in the War of 1812. An Irish immigrant, Sampson became an extremely successful trial lawyer in New York City. Cheetham, the notorious pamphleteer, had claimed in his 'Life of Paine' that Paine had seduced Madame Bonneville, a respectable French wife and mother, and had borne his child. Madame Bonneville and her husband were friends of Thomas Paine; she took care of Paine during his serious illness. Cheetham wrote that Madame B's son resembled Paine, and insinuated that he was the product of their illicit relationship. Sampson represented Mrs. Bonneville, "that injured lady in defence of whose unsullied honour I stand forward," in her suit against Cheetham, who was a defendant at the time… Read More

[n.p.: S.D. Harris, Printer, 1878. 42pp. Original printed wrappers [light dustsoiling and wear], stitched, wraps lightly dusted. Institutional rubberstamp on front wrapper. Very Good. [offered with] EBEN NEWTON, ET ALS. VS. THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, OF MAHONING COUNTY, OHIO. ARGUMENT FOR DEFENDANT, BY T.W. SANDERSON. Youngstown, OH: News Print. 23, [1 blank], 35, [1 blank] pp. [@1878] Original printed wrappers [light dust and wear], stitched. Institutional rubberstamp on front wrapper. [offered with] EBEN NEWTON, ET ALS. SUPPLEMENTAL ARGUMENT FOR DEFENDANT, BY. THOS. W. SANDERSON. Youngstown, OH: News Print. [@ 27, [1 blank] pp. Original printed wrappers [light dust, rubberstamp on front wrap], stitched. Very Good. Two stab holes in left margin. Very Good. Light old folds. Very Good. The controversy related to the removal of a county seat from one town to another. Plaintiffs sought to prevent the removal, on the ground that the State's action violated the Constitution's prohibition on… Read More

New York: Baker, Godwin & Co., Book and Job Printers, 1855. 13, [3 blank] pp. Disbound with scattered foxing, Good+. Sanderson's Letter to Benjamin F. French, Esq., dated January 2, 1855, assures him that he warrants any statements he made to French about "the business prospects of the Reading Railroad, or as to the desirable character of its stock as a safe, permanent, and profitable investment, will not only stand the test of the severest scrutiny, but fall below the standard of actual existing results." Sanderson an original founder of the Reading Railroad. OCLC 11380687 [11] [as of February 2015]. Johnston's Railway Economics, p.256. Hopkins Railway Library, p.66.

10" x 15-1/2", folded to 7-3/4" x 10". [4]pp. Letter on page [1], interior pages blank, and addressed on final page to Southerland. In ink manuscript. Wax seal, small tear on blank area of rear leaf [opening of the seal]. Light wear. Very Good. This letter concerns the high-profile counterfeiting case involving William Brockway, Henry Knickerbacker, and a Mr. Snyder. In 1847 and 1848, counterfeit bills of several New Haven banks appeared in commerce. The banks-- through Hervey Sanford and Henry Hotchkiss-- made vigorous efforts to identify the criminals and to procure new plates. But the counterfeiters copied the new bills expertly. The criminals then counterfeited bills of the North River Bank in Hudson, New York. Here their luck ran out; they were caught and arrested in Hudson in 1849. This January 1850 letter to Attorney Southerland is in preparation for the trial of the malefactors. Brockway escaped from jail around April 1850; he was recaptured in September. [POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL, April 13,… Read More

St. Louis: R.P. Studley and Co., 1862. Original printed wrappers, stitched and disbound. 75, [1- errata] pp. Clean text. Small hole in rear wrapper affects several letters, else Very Good. A thorough report on the medical activities of St. Louis area hospitals during the War. OCLC collates only 64 pages; ours, apparently like the Bartlett copy, prints pages 65 until the errata, the 'Report of the Western Sanitary Commission, July 1st, 1862,' with detailed tables accounting for the distribution of articles by the Commission to the various area hospitals. Bartlett 5750. OCLC 14833658 [2- Boston Pub. Lib., Natl Lib. Medicine] as of May 2023.

New York, 1842. 86pp. Disbound, rubberstamp on title page. Cohen records an errata slip not present in this printing. Good+. The author was "an elderly, temperamental, and contentious Italian with a facile pen," and a "voluminous writer" [Streeter TX 1323] for whom Streeter obviously had an affection. Expelled twice from Mexico, he wrote much in behalf of Texian independence. However, "There is no article on Santangelo in the Handbook of Texas" [Id.] Santangelo had unsuccessfully filed various claims against Mexico which, he argues, Treaty required Mexico to pay. This case arose out of a transaction for a Mexican commercial certificate between Santangelo and McRoberts. Santangelo, in a 'Circular to the World' and elsewhere, called the Senator a liar, thief, and worse; he was prosecuted criminally for libel and presents his side of things here, calling the case a contest "between a naked human frame and a man clothed in full armour." Santangelo says future trial proceedings will form a Second Part… Read More