LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 Oct: The Luhrs Collection #9675  / 

61096

Ebenezer Elmer 1804 Autograph Letter

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:100.00 - 200.00 USD
Ebenezer Elmer 1804 Autograph Letter
<B>Ebenezer Elmer 1804 Autograph Letter With Barbary Wars Content.</B></I> Two pages, 8.25” x 10”, Washington City, March 19, 1804, to an unnamed recipient. An exciting letter filled with news of the capture of the U.S. Navy frigate <I>Philadelphia</B></I> off the shores of Tripoli during the Barbary Wars. Ebenezer Elmer (1752-1843), at the time a Congressman from New Jersey, writes “<I>The news of the Capture of the Frigate Philad.a has occasioned some agitation; & if true, of which there can be little doubt, will produce considerable embarrassment. More efficient & energetic measures must be pursued in the war with Tripoli, & on the Barbary coast.</B></I>” On October 31, 1803 the frigate <I>Philadelphia</B></I> ran aground on an uncharted reef just off the coast of Tripoli harbor and her officers and crew made slaves by the Pasha. Ebenezer Elmer may have been pleased to know that scarcely a month before his letter was written a clandestine mission was undertaken by the U.S. Navy in which a volunteer party of officers and men boarded the <I>Philadelphia</B></I> and burned her where she lay. British admiral Horatio Nelson referred to the act as “the most bold and daring act of the age”. The letter is remarkably bright and legible, with the usual fold creases, and some light toning, else fine. <I>From the collection of Henry E. Luhrs.</B></I><BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Flat Material, Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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