Cohasco Inc., Auction Of Historical Documents
Closing Date: December 6
Yonkers, NY 10702
www.cohascodpc.com
info@cohascodpc.com
1-914-476-8500

YONKERS, N.Y. — A long-lost 1792 letter of Charles Brockden Brown, considered America’s first professional writer of fiction, will appear in Cohasco’s December 6 auction of books, manuscripts and antiquarian collectibles. Penned at just 21 years of age, the three-page missive was written on the verge of committing to a literary life, here hinting at the gloomy tone of his writings.

Indeed, Brown’s incipient works of fright and horror were later credited by Edgar Allan Poe, Frankenstein’s Shelley, Hawthorne, Longfellow and Whittier as influencing their own styles. (Brown is even speculated to have been an initial impetus for Poe’s move to Philadelphia.)

Considered the first successful American novelist, Brown was the first American writer — in any genre — to gain an international reputation. In this letter, the young Brown reflects, “…though all my hours are employed in trifling, my trifles are of too gloomy a complection…What human creature is absolutely exempt from weaknesses and foibles?…”

Far rarer than Poe on the market, RareBookHub finds only two Brown letters at auction from 1860 to present, appearing in 1887 and 1904 ($14/24,000)

Also appearing: Unusual pay document for an elite Black patriot who served on both land and sea, and at Valley Forge. James Columbus may have taken his name from another mariner — Christopher Columbus ($2,9/4,000).

Among 482 other lots of historical documents and collectibles in 32 categories is a seldom-seen illustrated runaway slave broadside, with small but unmistakable woodcuts of a male and female slave fleeing to freedom, their belongings bundled on a stick ($9/12,500).

Also offered will be an important letter of naval hero John Rodgers, urgently requesting horses for his sailors to pursue the British on land, after they had burned Washington, 1814 ($700/900); a book from Francis Scott Key’s law library, signed by him ($400/500); a heavy, incomplete Bible of a named patriot massacred by “Tories & Indians” in the Revolution, at Wyoming Valley, Penn., in 1778 ($250/325); and a manuscript 1811 farm account book, Newmarket, N.H., including “2 Chickens [for] Thanksgiving Day, 30¢…” ($130/160).

Additional highlights include James Bond’s predecessor in the form of a British spy’s letter in code, 1764, where he cryptically writes “…there seems to be a storm gathering in Island…” ($180/250); a war-date letter of the future Union Gen. William Campbell — remembered for his slogan “Boys, follow me!” — to friend and Confederate Gen. George Washington Gordon, on the tragedy of war between North and South ($475/625); the elusive signature of the youngest Confederate Gen. Stephen Ramseur. One day after learning of his daughter’s birth, Ramseur was mortally wounded at Cedar Creek. ($4/6,000); a portion of an 1843 legal document in hand of the young Abe Lincoln, this case lacking in the Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln ($6/7,500); and a telegram from Secretary of War Stanton, 1866, referring to Jefferson Davis. Indicted for treason one week earlier, the ex Confederate president languished in leg irons, with no visitors and no books, save his Bible. ($550/700).

Crossing the block will be a three-dollar Republic of Texas banknote, 1841, no examples in any grade found in PMG’s Population Reports ($350/450); a selection of colonial and Continental currency, including a choice uncirculated Continental $2/3 (Friedberg CC-22), none higher in PMG Population Report) ($4,4/5,000); a rare (albeit incomplete) Civil War-era comic book, “Uncle Bantam’s Funny Books…,” including “Prying Will,” a nosy boy who falls into a vat of jam ($110/150); and a document paying sailor aboard an extreme California clipper Witch of the Waves, 1872 ($90/120).

Thomas Jefferson’s signed Act, 1792, on “Protection of the Frontiers of the United States” came in the aftermath of an astounding 98 percent casualty rate of American troops in a clash with Indians. Jefferson was determined to prevent such disastrous border issues from happening again ($27/35,000).

Perhaps the earliest FDR letter on baseball — 1912 — while in his first elected office, as a New York state senator, is estimated $500/700, while three seldom-seen letters of Dorothea Dix, head of Union Army nurses during the Civil War, part of an assemblage of 46 other items, has one letter in which she forewarns a nurse-applicant, “…If you can endure mental trials, privations and discouragements…” ($2/2,700).

Additional highlights include rare letters patent for the Steam Bird, an 1867 aircraft “with wings flapped by the action of steam.” The contraption was fleetingly mentioned in a Jules Verne novel ($325/500); a papyrus fragment, circa 400 BCE, in Demotic script, probably from Egypt ($90/120); and the original mortgage for land on which one of the world’s most famous structures would be built: Grand Central Station. Boldly signed by William Vanderbilt, 1870 ($1,2/1,600).

Bids will be accepted up to December 6, 2022, 9 pm EST. All items are fully described at http://cohascodpc.com and mirror site http://historical.auction. For information, 914-476-8500.

Just a few of 480 lots in 32 fields
Act signed by Thomas Jefferson, on America’s border crisis of 1792 – ” … for the Protection of Frontiers”
Detail of selfom-seen illustrated runaway slave broadside, ex-celebrated Sang Collection
Probably the earliest F.D.R. letter on baseball 1912, to a clergyman on Sunday games
Excessively rare signature of the Confederacy’s youngest General