2008-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/31/2008
Broadsheet, 17” x 20-1/4,” printed in three columns, blank form on verso completed in contemporary manuscript, folio, one vertical and five horizontal folds, light foxing, some discoloration along folds, two small holes affect “Y” and “K” in headline, very good. “Congress of the United States at the second session Begun and held at the City of New York, on Monday the 4th of January, 1790, An ACT FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND REGULATION OF SEAMEN IN THE MERCHANTS' SERVICE” was an early federal law requiring strict contracts to be signed and followed by a ship's master and his crew for interstate voyages. This law is signed in type by GEORGE WASHINGTON, President, JOHN ADAMS, Vice President and THOMAS JEFFERSON, Secretary of State. The law was printed with a blank agreement form on the verso. These broadsheets are quite rare. The form in the present copy is filled out for the ship Alexander Hodgdon bound from the Port of Boston “to any Port on the Globe,”and includes signatures and wage agreements for the master, his mate, eighteen hands, a cook, and a boy. The ship was owned by Israel Thorndike, (1755-1832) who was a sailor and merchant, born in Beverly, Massachusetts. He went to sea at an early age, commanded a privateer during the American Revolution, and became active in the early China trade. He was elected to the Massachusetts legislature 13 times. In 1810 he moved to Boston, and his mansion became a center for political and social discourse. Along with Elbridge Gerry, he helped to create the gerrymander. Thorndike is considered to have been the fiftieth wealthiest American of all time having left an enormous fortune. A very rare Massachusetts variant of a merchant marine- related broadsheet, printing the 1790 act regulating merchant seamen on the recto and a blank form of agreement between a ship's master and seamen on the verso.
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