Autograph Letter Signed. Philadelphia, July 31, 1818, to John Stirling, care of Stirling Brothers & Co., London [Hole from seal opening]

by Willing, Thomas Mayne

quarto, 3 pages, plus stamp less address leaf, formerly folded, postal markings on integral address leaf, in very good, clean and legible condition, marked "copy" at top edge of first page.
1818 British ties of a Philadelphia banker, reputedly the richest man in America.
"Our dear Elizabeth was this morning …safely delivered of a fine hearty boy…We…have every prospect of her speedy recovery. We have been delighted to learn the dissolution of the Parliament and that the election in which you are so much interested will soon take place, so as to enable you to return to us in the Autumn, when your son Andrew was so far advanced as to interest you (truncated) with his little [pranks?]
Mrs. Willing's health is improving…Our friend [?] has written you and promises to do so again with full information as to the state of our market for your manufactures. He appears to me of the opinion that our market at present is very dull and that goods for the Autumn sales ought to be bought lower than they have before to increase in profit. The details however I leave to him to communicate but will surely say that monied operations in this country are more difficult than they have been and that the general curtailment of Bank accommodation must have a considerable effect on…foreign manufactures during the coming season. You ought therefore to buy on very low terms…the probable fall of prices. At present everything is nominal, the heat of summer preventing the County dealers from visiting…Some of your prints by the [Jane?] which [?] sold, have been returned as damaged by the operations of printing, not by the sea…My Father is making efforts to walk, but rides frequently…without fatigue…"
The first name of the Willing who signed the letter is difficult to make out, but details in the letter seem to indicate that he was Thomas Mayne Willing, son of the President of the Bank of North America and Mayor of Philadelphia (as was his father) and a founder of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Thomas Mayne writes this letter, mixing personal and business news, to his son-in-law, London merchant John Stirling, who had recently married Willing's daughter Elizabeth in Philadelphia. As she was also Stirling's second cousin, it appears that there had been earlier Anglo-American marriages in the family.
The financial situation to which he refers was the first American "Panic" of the 19th century, when prices for overproduced American agricultural products began to fall in Europe. Whether or not a result of this downturn, Stirling's firm went bankrupt, eight years later, which did not apparently affect the fortunes of John Stirling, who brought up his family (including the newly born Andrew) in the oldest home in the Scottish town of St. Andrews, the "Home of Golf". As a matter of curiosity, Andrew Stirling would die, unmarried, in frontier Australia, at the age of 26; Thomas Mayne Willing would die three years after this letter was written at 55, but only one year later than his 90-year-old horse-riding father. The whole family was one of the richest in Jacksonian America. (Inventory #: 31226)

$100.⁰⁰ add to cart Available from
Michael Brown Rare Books

Michael Brown Rare Books

Offered by

Michael Brown Rare Books

4421 Osage Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19104

mbamericana@mindspring.com

(215) 387-9808

Specializing in Americana: Books, Pamphlets, Broadsides, Manuscripts & Ephemera 17th-19th Centuries

More from this seller

Autograph Letter Signed (“Mort”), Dec. 12, 1918, no place; undoubtedly written in France but inexplicably postmarked by the French military post in Smyrna, Turkey, to Laurance J. Scott, Burlingame, California.

by Stelle, Major Morton,

(click for more details)

, Collection of Correspondence, Manuscripts, Photographs, and Ephemera pertaining to the career of Lillian Gatlin, Pioneer Aviator and Author, 1900-1968

by Gatlin, Lillian

(click for more details)

The ABAA
Promise

You can be confident that when you make a purchase through ABAA.org, the item is sold by an ABAA member in full compliance with our Code of Ethics. Our sellers guarantee your order will be shipped promptly and that all items are as described. Buy with confidence through ABAA.org.

Autograph Letter Signed. Philadelphia, July 31, 1818, to John Stirling, care of Stirling Brothers & Co., London [Hole from seal opening]

Michael Brown Rare Books

Autograph Letter Signed (“Mort”), Dec. 12, 1918, no place; undoubtedly written in France but inexplicably postmarked by the French military post in Smyrna, Turkey, to Laurance J. Scott, Burlingame, California.

, Collection of Correspondence, Manuscripts, Photographs, and Ephemera pertaining to the career of Lillian Gatlin, Pioneer Aviator and Author, 1900-1968

The ABAA Promise

The ABAA
Promise