156

Mormons

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,800.00 - 3,000.00 USD
Mormons

Bidding Over

The auction is over for this lot.
The auctioneer wasn't accepting online bids for this lot.

Contact the auctioneer for information on the auction results.

Search for other lots to bid on...
Auction Date:2017 Feb 08 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS signed "John Sartain," four pages on two adjoining sheets, 7.75 x 9.75, October 23, 1849. Letter to his sister, Ann Sartain Pratt, in part: "I hope your health is good, and with regard to your business I need not express a hope about that, for with like yours' work is sure to be at your command. I am not so sure about the prices though, for they appear to be downward all the world over, competition takes care of that. Judging from indications in your last letter I expect that by this time you have lost your companion Miss Hawkins unless something unexpected delayed the departure of their party. I think you said they were to leave London in September (last month). Well, they have a long and weary wait before them, but when they at length reach the valley of the Great Salt Lake and are once settled down, they may bless their lucky stars that the light of Christianity broke on their souls in the shape of Mormonism, since it will save them not merely from the sharks and tigres of business competition in the persons of professing living Christian Brethren, who hold a bible up before your eyes that they may cheat you unobserved-, but it will place them in a beautiful and fertile country, with every enjoyment that reasonable being can desire…This is the result of the grand humbug called modern Christian civilization, a system expressly adapted to the rapacity of the rich land holding nobility, whose truckling lickspittles and jackalls are the very reverend Christian clergy & the merchants, manufacturers and dealers, these combined and leagued together, tread the working people down into the dust by dexterously appropriating to their own use the produce of the producer, leaving those who have earned it to starve…The Mormons planted their first settlement at Salt Lake but four years ago and there is more than a thousand miles of desert without water to cross to reach it & yet in this short time it has become a fertile and beautiful place with upwards of sixty thousand people, their state constitution has been formed & sent to Congress for its approval, in which they have inserted nothing that gives their own religion a preference over others & there is no doubt that in a few months they will be erected into a sovereign and independent state under the title of Deseret…The origin of their faith and the trick by which Smith accomplished the work I know, & if you take interest enough to wish it I will tell you all about it so if you desire you only have to say so." In fine condition, with light stains not affecting readability. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.