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1802 Letters: Regarding the Easton Delaware Bridge Lottery. New York. Pair

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:180.00 USD Estimated At:250.00 - 300.00 USD
1802 Letters: Regarding the Easton Delaware Bridge Lottery. New York. Pair
Colonial Lottery
1802 Letters Regarding the Easton Delaware Bridge Lottery
August 6 & 10, 1802-Dated, Lot of 2 Autographed Letters Regarding the Easton Delaware Bridge Lottery, NY, Choice Very Fine.
This early bridge was a covered wooden arch designed and built by the pioneer bridge builder, Timothy Palmer. Two Autograph Letters Signed, “Jon. Ogden,” at New York, August 6 & 10, 1802, regarding Lottery tickets for the Easton Delaware Bridge Lottery. Written to a William Meredith, of Philadelphia. It reads, in part: “...If you have an opportunity for inquiring whether the following Tickets... are blanks or prizes in the first Class in the Supplement to the Easton Delaware Bridge Lottery - you will oblige me-- ...” Both Letters are beautifully written on fine-laid, watermarked paper, 9” x 7.5” each, with few flaws--one with some ink erosion. Firsthand period references to an early lottery! Ex-James DuPont collection of U.S. and foreign lottery tickets, Smythe, April 8, 1993 Lot #116. (2 items)
About the year 1797 a toll bridge was begun in Easton. A freshet washed the first structure from its foundations during construction, and in 1805 the Easton Delaware Bridge Company, under authorization from the State of Pennsylvania, raised by lottery a fund with which they erected a bridge. This bridge was a covered wooden arch designed and built by the pioneer bridge builder, Timothy Palmer.