Railroads and Canals

Decoration Day Broadside offering an “EXCURSION TO NEW YORK CITY over the West Shore Railroad”, the same parade where Grover Cleveland publicly revealed his engagement to Frances Folsom

Decoration Day Broadside West Shore Railroad(Grover Cleveland) Broadside, “DECORATION DAY EXCURSION TO NEW YORK CITY over the West Shore Railroad“,  255 x 123 mm. (10 x 4 3/4 in.) and reads, in part: “Decoration Day[*] will be observed in New York City on Monday, May 31st, 1886, in a manner that will interest every citizen of the Republic. A Grand Military Parade, participated in by the Grand Army Posts, National Guard and Civil Societies, will be an attractive feature of the day. The ceremonies at the TOMB OF GENERAL GRANT, Riverside Park, will be of unusual interest.” The broadside provides instructions for acquiring tickets and information regarding the return trip and proximity to steamships, “…The down-town station at foot of Jay Street is convenient to the Iron Steamboats at Pier One, and to the Steamers of the Bay Ridge Route at Battery Place, for Coney Island & Manhattan Beach.”

The broadside is a fun association piece in that President Grover Cleveland marched in the advertised New York parade and thrilled the scandal-hungry press when he returned the affectionate salutations of parade observer Frances Folsom, a young woman who grew up calling him “Uncle Cleve”, who in that moment revealed herself, with a flirtatious wave of her handkerchief, to be the President’s secret fiancé. Two days later, Frances Folsom married Grover Cleveland in the Blue Room of the White House.

The West Shore Railroad was chartered in 1885 on a 475 year lease to the New York Central Railroad, succeeding the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway. The total trackage of the West Shore Railroad was 495.20 miles, with the main line running between Weehawken, New Jersey and Buffalo, New York, and the branch lines servicing the New York City suburbs, Athens, Syracuse, and the Buffalo suburbs.

Edge wear with moderate chipping at bottom margin, a tiny area of paper loss at top margin not affecting content, light creasing, fragile, overall very good condition.

(EXA 5659) $200
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* Decoration Day was the original name for Memorial Day. While different accounts of its inception persist, the practice of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers predates the American Civil War. The first organized observance of Decoration Day traces back to 1 May 1865, when 10,000 black citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, in combination with educators, students, abolitionists and missionaries, paraded on the grounds of the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, a property owned by a slaveholder that had been converted to an outdoor prison by the Confederate Army. Due to deplorable conditions, 257 prisoners died of exposure or disease, and were buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. After the war, a groups of Charlston citizens took it upon themselves to exhume the deceased soldiers and give them a proper Union burial. The massive parade and gathering commemorating the lives of deceased soldiers is often referred to as the First Decoration Day.† John A. Logan, the Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, led a campaign in 1868 promoting the recognition of Decoration Day as a national holiday. See Gulla Heritate and Wikipedia

A superb Robert Fulton portrait on a snuff box after Benjamin West

Robert Fulton portrait on a snuff box after Benjamin WestRobert Fulton portrait on a snuff box after Benjamin West (3)
(Robert FULTON) Papier-mâché snuff box, 82 mm. (3 3/4 in.) diam. 26 mm. (1 in.) high, bearing a finely painted portrait of Fulton accomplished on the lid after Benjamin West’s 1806 portrait. In the background is a faint depection of Fulton’s 1804 torpedo in action againt Boulogne Harbor in France. (Fulton would offer a public demonstartion of his invention in New York Harbor in 1807 destroying a derelect brig.) Identified on the interior of the lid in yellow paint, “Robert Fulton”.
Robert Fulton portrait on a snuff box after Benjamin West (4)
Rare. An attractive piece celebrating one of the great inventors of the industrial revolution. We have encountered only one other example of this portrait accomplished on a snuff box.

Small chip on interior lip of box as shown, some spotting and typical to lid and some crazing and surface wear as expected.

(EXA 5093) $1,450

John Nicholson ALS attempting to account for his labor on the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal

Delaware and Schuylkill Canal 
Navigation (1)
(Robert Morris and the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal 
Navigation) John NICHOLSON (1757-1800) Good content Autograph Letter Signed, 1p. 230 x 185 mm. [Philadelphia] 18 July 1798 to “The Com[mittee of the] D[elware] & S[chuylkill] Canal”. With integral transmittal leaf addressed in his hand.

Robert Morris chartered the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal Navigation Company in 1792 for the dual purpose of augmenting Philadelphia’s water supply and to provide a navigable route around the falls of the Schuylkill River. Like Morris, and Nicholson, the company eventually went bankrupt with only part of the canal dug. The abandoned right of way eventually used by the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad in the 1830s.

Delaware and Schuylkill Canal 
Navigation (3)Up to his ears in debt, Nicholson jots a hurried letter concerning accounting for his work with the canal construction earlier in the decade: “Gentlemen, A letter of the 8th Instant from Wm Weston Esq. has the following on the subject of my and with D&S Canal ‘The Charges of pum [?] if omitted out to be added’ & ‘Allowance were are ought to have been made for the puddle[?] carried up in The embankment and for any extra work in [?] the Ropes’ the original of this letter may be seen if desired – In 1793 & in 1794 my team and workmen were employed hauling brick, stone, gravel sand & lime at several of the Culverts – of which no acct.  hath yet been rendered – I am endeavoring to get it stated with more precision than at present I am able to do – To be carried father to my credit as the former…” Within a year and half, Nicholson would find himself in the debtor’s apartments and died on 5 December 1800.

Usual folds, else very good condition.

(EXA 3378) SOLD.

His Excellency Levi Lincoln inscribes and signs an imprint of his address on railway transport in Massachusetts, 1830

Levi Lincoln address on railways in MA 1830
(Railroads) Message of His Excellency Levi Lincoln, communicated to the two branches of the Legislature, January 6, 1830. (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, Printers to the State. 1830) 40pp. 9 1/2 x 6 1/4 in. (240 x 160 mm.)string-bound in titled wraps, pages uncut. Inscribed and signed by Lincoln on the front wrap to the “Hon Nathl. Lilsbee with the respects of L Lincoln”.

Massachusetts shifts its transportation policy in favor of railroads. An important address to the Massachusetts Legislature in which Governor Levi Lincoln offers significant state support for railroad construction. “… Of the matters of prominent concern, that of the Railways will press with almost engrossing interest … I continue, confidently to entertain, of the interest of those enterprises which are adapted to facilitate intercommunication, and relieve the community from the excessive expense and tedious labor of the present mode of land transportation, I beg leave to repeat the recommendation, that some decisive measures should promptly be taken to give to the Country, at no distant day, such improvement … The astonishing results of recent scientific experiments in Europe, in the application of Steam to produce a moving power, by which time, and distance, and weight are alike overcome, to a degree almost incredible, may well inspire a confidence in this manner of conveyance, which neither the incredulity of the timid, nor the obstinacy of the prejudiced, can longer resist. It has been said, with probably correctness, that the newly invented Steam Carriages, which are designed for use between Manchester and Liverpool, will bring those places, though more than thirty miles remote from each other, nearer together, in a social and commercial point of view, than the extremes of London now are… In relation to a Rail Road from Boston to the Hudson River, it is truly a work of great National importance; and whenever it shall be determined upon, the aid of the General Government may reasonably and confidently solicited. There is wanting but this single link to complete the long chain of inland communication form our Eastern Atlantic Seaboard to the Western Lakes…” When Lincoln addressed the legislature there were only 40 miles of railway in the nation, 30 of which were in New England. By the end of the decade, total railway mileage in the nation would top 2,700 miles (500 of those miles were in New England).

Rare. We have sourced no editions of this imprint offered or in auction records. OCLC 31203064, Thomson, Check List of American Railroads before 1841, 415. In total, only ten institutional copies have been identified. One edition is listed as part of the Streeter Collection.

Some edge wear and light toning, light creases, else very good condition.

(EXA 4066) $600