25 May 1792

Clymer, George, 1739-1813

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Edward Hand

Sends General Hand copies of the excise law, an explanatory letter from the treasury department, a license form, and a copy of a "bill raising money for the protection of the Frontiers" (none included). Discusses the Whiskey Rebellion, relaying Alexander Hamilton's sentiments "that the government will face the opposition with all the necessary spirit."

GLC02894

26 September 1794

Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Samuel Hodgdon

Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton asks Superintendent of Military Stores Samuel Hodgdon to check a return for military stores at New London, Virginia, that had been sent to him by Virginia Governor Henry Lee.

GLC02908.01

28 June 1805

Mountford, Timothy, fl. 1804-1810

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Tobias Lear re: assassination and expulsion of Jews from Algiers (pogrom)

An almost hour-by-hour description of the assassination of Napatili Busnach, Jewish Algerian government officer, and the expulsion and massacre of Jews in Algiers by the government. Mountford sends a report of activities in the city. "This morning about 8 O'clock, Napatili Busnach, in the sheet, was shot thro' the Belly, by a Turk Soldier, & died in two hours after. He never spoke after [inserted: he] was shot, altho' he walked to his own house. About 3 P.M. he was buried. The deed of a single Soldier threw everything into confusion -- the City appears to be ready for insurrection,…

GLC02794.063

30 September 1789

Fenno, John, 1751-1798

Newspaper

Title: Gazette of the United States. [No. XLIX (September 30, 1789)]

Reports on the French Revolution and activities in the House of Representatives, including reference to the "fixing of the seat of government" and an editorial note that "this closes our account of the proceedings of the full session of Congress under the New Constitution…an object of prime consequence." Prints a letter of congratulations to George Washington on the progress of the new government, from the Pennsylvania General Assembly, who point out that their state was among the first to ratify the Constitution. Washington's reply is printed as well: "…the Union of these States is…

GLC03174.02

26 September 1789

Fenno, John, 1751-1798

Newspaper

Title: Gazette of the United States. [No. XLVIII (September 26, 1789)]

[French Revolution, fall of Bastille]

GLC03174.01

July 16, 1776

Whipple, William, 1730-1785

Autograph letter signed

Title: to [John Langdon].

Discusses contracting for guns, military preparations, and the Declaration of Independence. Remarks that independence was proclaimed in the army at New York last Wednesday and a statue of King George III was taken down and cast into bullets, "... for the destruction of this tools of tyranny. May every one of them be properly commissioned." Informs that in a few days 20,000 men will be assembled at New Jersey in addition to the army of York. Writes the Declaration "has had a glorious affect has made these Colonies all alive, all the colonies forming governments. . ."

GLC03186

10 October 1794

Knox, Henry, 1750-1806

Letter signed

Title: to Samuel Hodgdon

Orders Hodgdon, the Superintendent of Military Stores of the United States Army, to deliver clothing and arrange for a coach. Indicates that President George Washington's "waggon will be ready in the morning." Washington was going to western Pennsylvania to command the army in the Whiskey Rebellion. Written from the War Department.

GLC03377

23 April 1861

Newspaper

Title: Herald Extra. [(April 23, 1861)]

Headlines reads, "Very latest by telegraph his afternoon. Rebellious excitement in Maryland and Virginia. Northern students sent home. 14000 troops at Washington. Vessels arming for the Blockade." Reports on various events related to the 19 April 1861 Baltimore Riot, during which secessionists attacked Union soldiers passing through the city. Discusses a town meeting held in Calais' Horton's Hall, where "The vast assemblage was animated by one sentiment and that a determination to sustain the Government in the present emergency." States that citizens of Cockeysville, Maryland reported…

GLC03838

1788

Minot, George Richards, 1758-1802

Book

Title: The history of the insurrections, in Massachusetts, in the year 1786, and the rebellion consequent thereon

First edition copy published by Isaiah Thomas. Gives a historical account of Shay's Rebellion.

GLC03808

2 September 1786

Bowdoin, James, 1726-1790

Broadside

Title: A proclamation

Issued as Governor of Massachusetts. Gives a brief account of the rebel mobs storming the Court of Common Pleas in Northampton. Calls upon all civil & military officers to suppress Shays' Rebellion.

GLC03538

14 September 1863

Ewing, Thomas, 1829-1896

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Thomas Ewing

General Ewing, commander of the District of the Border (Kansas-Missouri), writes to his father following the Lawrence Massacre. States "I have received your two letters from Washington, and am glad to be assured that the demoniac ravings of the rabble in Leavensworth over the Lawrence Massacre and their threats of ill directed vengeance, have only created with the Administration contempt for the base demagogues who make the excitement their stock in trade." Writes that United States Senator, James Henry Lane, criticized General John McAllister Schofield following the Massacre and Ewing's…

GLC03599

7 January 1858

Ewing, Thomas, 1829-1896

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Thomas Ewing, Sr.

Writes to his father that he has been very busy with politics. Gives his eyewitness account of the fraudulent Kansas elections of 4 January 1858. "We have warrants for the arrest of illegal voters & for judges of the Election at Kickapoo & Delaware but only caught two - the others fled ... I was at Kickapoo all day Monday, & saw more than I ever heard before of election frauds. Boys 15 years of age voted, men voted two or three times in an hour, about 50 Missourians voted, in all there were not over 450 votes put in, & yet the judges reported at the close of the polls 905…

GLC03598

18 September 1780

Dundas, Ralph, 1732-?

Autograph letter signed

Title: to James Dundas

Dundas, Captain of the H. M. S. Bonetta, informs his brother James he was in New York and other locations before moving north to Nova Scotia. Reports that on the way, his men took five prizes and reclaimed two brigs containing low-valued cargo. States that a French fleet is "Blocked up at Present at Rhode Island" by Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot. Refers to the British defeat of American forces at Charleston, South Carolina, in May 1780 and the capture of valuable Virginia ships by New York privateers. Discusses a riot in Boston, Massachusetts following General George Washington's call for 3,…

GLC03676.02

20 February 1787

Huntington, Samuel, 1731-1796

Autograph letter signed

Title: to James Bowdoin

Connecticut Governor Huntington expresses his approval of the suppression of the insurgents (involved in Shays rebellion). Agrees to cooperate with Massachusetts Governor Bowdoin in apprehending insurgents hiding in Connecticut and not supplying them with arms or provisions. Reassures Bowdoin that the people of Connecticut "detest the lawless and violent courses which insurgents have taken." Indicates "copy" on the upper left hand corner.

GLC03711

19 June 1771

Lee, Richard Henry, 1732-1794

Autograph letter signed

Title: to William Lee

Signed with initials "RHL". Describes the Regulator movement in North Carolina, a rebellion by backcountry farmers against lawyers, whose high legal fees and manipulation of debt laws were hurting them. North Carolina Governor William Tryon, although he claimed to agree with the insurgents, resorted to suppression by force: he "fell upon the unsuspecting multitudes and made great slaughter with cannons." The royal governor needed more than a thousand troops to defeat the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771.

GLC03719

17 October 1787

Huntington, Samuel, 1731-1796

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Henry Knox

Discusses Connecticut's progress in raising troops for duty in the Northwest territory and the appointment of officers. Retained copy, as noted on docket. Written as governor of Connecticut to Knox as the Secretary of War.

GLC03729

25 March 1865

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865

Document signed

Title: [Pardon of Robert Barnett by Abraham Lincoln]

Barnett was arrested during the New York Draft Riots and convicted of discouraging enlistments, he was pardoned due to poor health. Endorsed on verso on the date of Lincoln's death. (c/s F.W. Seward)

GLC03912

circa January 31, 1862

Barstow, Simon Forrester, 1817-1882

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Samuel Hooper

Barstow, Captain and Assistant Adjutant General, writes to Hooper, a United States Representative from Massachusetts. Complains he is constantly interrupted while writing. States, "I regretted nothing more in leaving Washington than my inability to return your pleasant visits & to pay my respects to Mrs Hooper & your family. But the news came Sunday of the attack on Romney & I started at once to join Lander. Since then our experience has been varied. Shelled in one town, frozen almost in crossing the mountains, arriving in Romney in time to withdraw the troops, a twenty hours…

GLC04418

20 November 1803

Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Anthony Taylor

Says he just arrived in New Rochelle. Received Taylor's letter with the news of the death of Colonel Joseph Kirkbride. Claims he has lost "my best friend." Paine befriended Kirkbride, a well-known patriot and fellow Quaker, when he lived in Bordentown, New Jersey 1777-1778, 1785-1786, and 1803. When he saw a letter from Bordentown not in Kirkbride's handwriting he suspected he had died. Says he is feels more grief because if Kirkbride had lived he would have rejoiced at "the triumphant success of the last elections" - Democrats had gained a majority in the New Jersey state legislature and…

GLC04281

16 October 1778

Laurens, Henry, 1724-1792

Manuscript document signed

Title: [Congressional resolution denying the flag of truce to British Peace Commissioners]

Denies the use of flags of truce to "nefarious" British peace commissioners who abused the privilege to disseminate "under the sanction of a Flag certain seditious Papers under the name and title of Manifestoes...with a view to stir up dissentious animosities and Rebellions among the goode Popele of these States."

GLC04805

October 31 1774

Dawe, Philip, fl. 1750-1785

Print

Title: The Bostonian's Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring & Feathering

Engraving attributed to Philip Dawe, with hand-coloring. Shows the Boston Tea Party in the background, a "Liberty Tree" with a paper "Stamp Act" affixed upside-down, with five unsavory Bostonians forcibly pouring a pot of tea into the mouth of a tarred and feathered tea excise collector. Printed for Robert Sayer and J. Bennett, October 24, 1774. Dawe was a British mezzotint engraver.

GLC04961.01

circa 1926

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Broadside

Title: For the Good of America

NAACP poster listing statistics regarding the 3,436 lynchings that occurred between 1889 and 1922. States "Do you know that the United States is the Only Land on Earth where people are burned at the stake?" Reports that 83 women have been lynched in the United States. Requests that donations are sent to Joel Elias Spingarn, NAACP Treasurer.

GLC06197

1835

Thomas, William, ?-1836

Book signed

Title: The enemies of the Constitution discovered; or, an inquiry into the origin and tendency of popular violence...

(title continues)... containing a complete and circumstantial account of the unlawful proceedings at the City of Utica, October 21st, 1835; the dispersion of the State Anti-Slavery Convention by the agitators, the destruction of a democratic press and of the causes which led thereto. Together with a concise treatise on the practice of the court of His Honor Judge Lynch. Accompanied with numerous highly interesting and important documents. Published by Leavitt, Lord, & Co. Author (Thomas, according to Library of Congress) writes under the pseudonym "Defensor." Signed in pencil several…

GLC06232.04

1866

Pamphlet

Title: The New Orleans riot. Its official history.

Opens with the statement "It was no Riot- It was an Absolute Massacre by the Police- A Murder Perpetrated by the Mayor." Includes dispatches pertaining to the riot from Albert Voorhies, Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana; Andrew Herron, Louisiana Attorney General; President Andrew Johnson; Edward Davis Townsend, Assistant Adjutant General; Edwin McMasters Stanton, Secretary of War, and General Ulysses S. Grant, among others. Contains newspaper reports on the event from the New York Tribune and the New York Times. The final page contains a Tribune report stating "We must convince the SOUTH…

GLC06232.08

1908

Morton, Jack, fl. 1908

Postcard

Title: [Color reproduction of a photograph depicting the lynching of four African Americans]

Beside the photo on the front of the postcard, printed text indicates that the lynching took place at Russellville, Kentucky, and the photograph was taken 1 August 1908. Depicts several lynching victims hung on a cedar tree. Caption states that "[t]his is a multiple cedar tree and these four make a total of nine men lynched on this tree, some were white men." Photograph includes two witnesses watching the lynching. A warning sign hangs from the neck of one lynched man. On verso, printed text indicates placement of address and stamp. Copyrighted by Morton, a salesman in Nashville,…

GLC06265