Seth Kaller, Inc.

As president of the Supreme Executive Council (i.e., governor) of Pennsylvania, Franklin approves the sale of five lots at Market and 13th Streets in Philadelphia.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Partially Printed Document Signed, as President of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, granting Thomas Leiper five lots in Philadelphia, November 7, 1787, Philadelphia. Countersigned by James Trimble on behalf of Secretary Charles Biddle; docketed and inscribed on verso by master of rolls and recorder of deeds Matthew Irwin, with paper and wax seal, February 1788. 1 p., 21 x 12-1/2 in.

Inventory #27901       Price: $35,000

Very rare.According to Rare Book Hub, the last Franklin-signed document relating to Galloway’s confiscated land was offered at auction in 1948.

Excerpts
“WHEREAS at a public Auction or Vendue, held in the city of Philadelphia, by order of the Supreme Executive Council aforesaid, on the fourteenth day of October 1786 for the sale of divers Lots and Lands lying and being within the said city of Philadelphia, and belonging to the Commonwealth aforesaid; set off and apportioned by the Supreme Executive Council aforesaid, to be sold, pursuant to the Directions of an Act of the General Assembly of the said Commonwealth, passed the tenth day of April, 1781, entitled, ‘An Act for the better support of public Credit, by an immediate Sale of the Lands therein mentioned, and fully securing the Purchasers thereof in their titles, and also for preserving the common Lands appurtenant to the city of Philadelphia, and other towns in this State, from unwarrantable encroachment,’ and of one other Act of the General Assembly aforesaid, passed the eighth day of April, 1786, entitled, ‘An Act for directing the Sale of such of the City Lots as remain the property of the State, and for disposing of the House and Lots in Hight street, in the city of Philadelphia, late the estate of Joseph Galloway, and forfeited to this Commonwealth,’ Thomas Lieper of the City of Philadelphia bought the Lots or Pieces hereinafter described and granted, marked in the general Plan of the City Lots Number 2000•2001•2002•2003&2004 for the Sum of One thousand and seventy pounds lawful Money of Pennsylvania, being the best and highest bidder.”

“NOW KNOW YE, That the Supreme Executive Council...HAVE given, granted, and confirmed and by Force and Virtue of the said recited Acts of Assembly, DO give grant and confirm unto the said Thomas Lieper and to his Heirs and Assigns, the aforesaid Lots or Pieces of Land Marked in the General Plan of City Lots Number 2000•2001•2002•2003 and 2004 Situate contiguous to each other in the City of Philadelphia on the South of Market or High Street and on the East side of Thirteenth Street from the River Delaware....”

Historical Background
The state sold this confiscated land that had belonged to Joseph Galloway for £1,070 to Scottish-American patriot, inventor, and businessman Thomas Leiper. The state had confiscated the lots because Galloway had collaborated with the British Army. Nearly 500 individuals were accused by Pennsylvania of high treason during the Revolutionary War. Galloway was one of the state’s wealthiest and largest landowners and a longtime friend of Franklin. He served in the state assembly for eighteen years, eight as speaker. At the First Continental Congress, he unsuccessfully called for a plan of union and an American colonial parliament like that proposed by Franklin at the 1754 Albany Conference. A conservative, he sought reconciliation rather than independence. He refused to serve in the Second Continental Congress and opposed the Declaration of Independence. He remained loyal to the Crown and became an advisor to British general William Howe. Under the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777-1778, he served as the city’s superintendent of police. When the British government recalled Howe and their army evacuated Philadelphia in the summer of 1778, Galloway fled to British-occupied New York and eventually to Great Britain. The Pennsylvania Assembly convicted Galloway of treason in absentia, confiscated his property and land, amounting to £40,000, and sold it at auction over the next several years.

Joseph Galloway (1731-1803) was a major politician of the Quaker Party in late colonial Pennsylvania, and a friend and ally of Benjamin Franklin, who turned Loyalist early in the American Revolution. He was Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly from 1766-1774 and opposed the Stamp Act and Townshend Duties. Galloway then represented his colony at the First Continental Congress, where he proposed a compromise plan of imperial reform which called for a separate Parliament for the colonies. Defeated, he reluctantly signed the non-importation agreement, but was ideologically opposed to independence, and shifted towards Loyalism. Late in 1776, Galloway joined British Commander-in-Chief Sir William Howe, and in 1777, accompanied him in the conquest of Philadelphia. For nearly a year until Howe abandoned the city, Galloway was the chief civilian administrator of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Assembly convicted him of treason in absentia and confiscated his estates.

Thomas Leiper (1745-1825) was born in Scotland and educated at schools in Glasgow and Edinburgh. He immigrated to Virginia in 1763 and entered the tobacco trade. In 1765, he moved to Philadelphia, where he opened a tobacco shop. He purchased tobacco from Virginians, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and exported it to Europe. He was a founder of the Philadelphia City Troop, with whom he served as a lieutenant at the battles of Princeton, Trenton, Brandywine, and Germantown. As treasurer of the troop, he carried the last French subsidies to the Americans at Yorktown, Virginia. Along with Robert Morris, he loaned one-third of his estate to the Bank of North America to allow it to fund the military efforts of the Continental Army at the Siege of Yorktown. He was instrumental in quelling the attack on James Wilson and others at Wilson’s house in Philadelphia in 1779 and the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. During and after the Revolutionary War, Leiper owned several mills and quarries; he also served as a director of the Bank of Pennsylvania and the Second Bank of the United States. In 1809, he constructed one of the first railways in the United States and the first in Pennsylvania to carry stone from his quarries to a navigable stream three miles away. Oxen or horses pulled carts filled with stone along the wooden rails, later replaced with stone rails, and the line remained active until 1828. His businesses generated enough wealth for him to build in the 1780s a summer home named Strathaven Hall on 414 acres twelve miles southwest of downtown Philadelphia.

Condition: Creasing from contemporary folds; short separation along center fold at left edge; other very minor scattered wear.