1503

Missionary to the Indians of Plymouth - and a Unique Form of Signature.

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:80.00 USD Estimated At:160.00 - 220.00 USD
Missionary to the Indians of Plymouth - and a Unique Form of Signature.
Charming manuscript land contract, Bridgewater, Plymouth County, "Province of ye Massachusetts Bay in New England," Sept. 13, 1729, 7 1/2 x 12 1/4. Signed by Mathew and Samuel Allen, and Abigail and Samuel Harris, the latter with "his mark": two parallel lines, the first such "signature" we have seen on an English-language document. Signed on verso by Registrar Josiah Cotton, noted for his pioneering Vocabulary of the Massachusetts Indian Language; Cotton was a missionary to the Indians around Plymouth, delivering sermons in "Indian and English"--Address to the Members of the American Antiquarian Society..., 1819; his father was pastor of Plymouth's first church. Remnants of red wax seals. For "3/7 th Parts of a Certain Tract of Land w(i)th a Dwelling House and orchard...Containing Sixty & five acres...on ye North Side of Sawquetuckitt River...the Corner Tree being a White-pine...by a heap of Stones...Three acres more...In a Swamp Called Black Brook Swamp...." Horizontal center fold carefully repaired on verso with strip of yellow-orange paper, triangular stain at bottom signatures, chipping just touching "m" of "mark," average wear, else good and attractive. At least some of the signatories to this document had lived under the Mayflower Compact, which governed the Pilgrims' "Colony of New Plymouth" until just 38 years before. Cotton appears in a wide body of literature, including the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology Bulletin, 1891 (modern photocopies accompany), Native People of Southern New England, 1650-1775 (Bragdon, 2012), The Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials... (Baker, 2014), and other works.