A bill in the Chancery of New-Jersey, at the suit of John Earl of Stair, and others, Proprietors of the Eastern-Division of New-Jersey; against Benjamin Bond, and some other Persons of Elizabeth-Town, distinguished by the Name of the Clinker Lot Right Men. With Three large maps, done from Copper-Plates. To which is added; The Publications of the Council of Proprietors of East New-Jersey, and Mr. Nevill’s Speeches to the General Assembly, concerning The Riots committed in New-Jersey, and The Pretences of the Rioters, and their Seducers. These Papers will give a better Light into the History and Constitution of Jew-Jersey, than any Thing hitherto published, the Matters whereof have been chiefly collected from Records
“One of the most remarkable documents of Colonial times” (Streeter)
Ex-coll. LAIRD U. PARK & BRUCE McKINNEY
UTTERLY UNSOPHISTICATED
[Franklin, Benjamin (publisher) and James Alexander.] A bill in the Chancery of New-Jersey, at the suit of John Earl of Stair, and others, Proprietors of the Eastern-Division of New-Jersey; against Benjamin Bond, and some other Persons of Elizabeth-Town, distinguished by the Name of the Clinker Lot Right Men. With Three large maps, done from Copper-Plates. To which is added; The Publications of the Council of Proprietors of East New-Jersey, and Mr. Nevill’s Speeches to the General Assembly, concerning The Riots committed in New-Jersey, and The Pretences of the Rioters, and their Seducers. These Papers will give a better Light into the History and Constitution of Jew-Jersey, than any Thing hitherto published, the Matters whereof have been chiefly collected from Records. Published by Subscription. New York: James Parker for James Parker and Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia), 1747. First edition.
Folio (13 11/16” x 8 7/8”; 347mm x 225mm): π2 (π1 blank) A-Ff2 Gg2(±Gg1) Hh2(–Hh2 blank) a-c2 2a2 2b-d2 2E-G2 3G2 χ1 [$1 signed]. 86 leaves, pp. [2] (2 blanks) 1-2 (title, errata) 3-124, 21-11 [5] (blank, 2pp. “Reprinted from the New-York Weekly Post-Boy, of May 19, 1746. Numb. 174”, 2pp. “Reprinted from the New-York Weekly Post-Boy, of May 26, 1746. Numb. 174”) 213-15 217-24 [1] (blank) 25-39 [3] (blank, “The New-York Gazette, revived in the Weekly Post-Boy March 7, 1747-8 Numb. 268”, blank). [≈ii, 124, 46] With three folding engraved maps by James Turner after Lewis Evans.
Bound (probably by John Hyndshaw and Robert McAlpine in New York) in contemporary marbled paper boards backed in sheep. On the spine, five raised bands. All edges of the text-block speckled red. Presented in a half-calf clam-shell box (made by Fred H. Shihadeh of Ardmore, PA).
Front hinge split, rear hinge starting. The backing coming up at the front board. Worn peripherally, particularly at the fore-corners, with rubbing generally. The text-block tanned and offset throughout. A couple of ink-spots to the second map. Tears to the lower edges of K1 and Q1. Indications of a removed bookplate to the front paste-down. Mechanical ink-stamp of “55875” to the lower margin of A1r (p. 3). Bill dated 7 November 1798 from “Honble G. Rushout/ To John Capp” for “Macking 3 wastcoats flanill” for £-/4/6 (with a graphite account of crop notations verso) laid in.
Chancery emerges from the from the office of the Lord Chancellor, who in English law was the senior counsellor to the crown on matters of the law. Whereas the Crown court (until 1870) dealt in the common law, the chancery operated in the realm of equity — relief in any form other than money (generally), including mandating an action, the cessation of an action, or the transference of property (including land). Thus in the British Colonies the Court of Chancery was the primary venue for the resolution of land-disputes.
James Alexander (1691–1756) was Attorney General for New York (1721–1723) and for New Jersey (1723–1728); he is now best remembered as a founding member of the American Philosophical Society (APS) as well as the prime mover of the establishment of King’s College (now Columbia University). His fellow APS co-founder Benjamin Franklin was the instigator of the present publication, an unusually public airing of grievances relating to the Board of Proprietors of East Jersey (the state having been divided East and West 1674–1702), holders of the grant that was made by Charles II (via the Duke of York) to Sir George Carteret (ca. 1610–1680), who operated as a real estate corporation that managed and leased land on behalf of the Crown.
The present bill — illustrated by three celebrated maps, on which more below — was drafted by Alexander on behalf of the Proprietors (John Dalrymple, second Earl of Stair (1673–1747), one of the Proprietors, being the named complainant) against the Elizabethtown Associates, who claimed the rights to the land from agreements with Native Americans. The Proprietors sought quitrents (a land-tax, traditionally paid in lieu of service to the feudal lord), leading eventually to the 1745 Newark riots (noted in the title), one of the earliest major cracks in the colonial edifice. The case, which the great Americana collector Thomas Streeter crowned “one of the most remarkable documents of colonial times,” went unresolved through the Revolution.
The publication, whose print-run was a mere 270, is an important milestone in American printing. Franklin, himself a printer, was its mastermind. He connected Alexander — likely the surveyor of the maps — with the engraver James Turner of Boston as well as Lewis Evans of Philadelphia (who drew the map) and the (letterpress) printer James Parker of New York (a letter from Franklin to Alexander is preserved at APS). Likely Franklin’s goal was the creation and circulation of the American-made maps, which are anomalous in Colonial books. The first map adumbrates Evans’s celebrated 1755 “General Map of the Middle British Colonies, in America” (also published by Franklin), and is the first American-made map of the East Coast from Massachusetts through Carolina. The second map, at five miles to the inch, focuses on the region in question (viz. north New Jersey with parts of New York and Pennsylvania); the third, at 150 chains (990 feet) to the inch shows individual land-holdings indexed to schedules within the publication.
Whether 1798 bill laid in has any relation to the ownership of the book — a question that might have been resolved by the bookplate once affixed to the front paste-down — must remain unanswered. The Honorable G. Rushout is doubtless the Rev. George Rushout-Bowles (1772–1842), second son of John Rushout, first Baron Northwick.
The present item was lot 102 in the Sotheby’s New York sale of Laird U. Park, Jr., 29 November 2000. Park (1922–2001) was a graduate of the Hill School and Princeton, graduating after serving in the Pacific theatre of WW2 in the Navy. Park re-established the great balance-making firm of Troemner but his passion was Americana, his books principally bought from Mabel Zahn at Sessler’s Bookshop, now the location of Arader’s Philadelphia branch. Perhaps the purchaser was Bruce McKinney (his sale, 2 December 2010 Bonham’s New York “The American Experience,” lot 60), who founded the Americana Exchange, now Rare Book Hub, the central database of book auction records. His own formidable collection of books (still growing) has been dispersed at several landmark sales.
Church 961; Evans 18640; Felcone 21; Miller 426; not in Howes.
Item #JLR0834
Price: $85,000