Jun 21, 2016 - Sale 2420

Sale 2420 - Lot 1

Price Realized: $ 500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(AFRICAN-AMERICANS.) Cheswell, Wentworth. Document signed by the nation's first African-American elected official. Partly-printed Document Signed, 8 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches, completed in another hand but signed by Cheswell, docketed and signed in various hands on verso, with a 5 x 7 1/2 manuscript document pasted in one corner on recto; folds, minor wear. Newmarket, NH, 12 June 1812
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Wentworth Cheswell (1746-1817) was the grandson of a freed African-American slave in addition to his three-quarters European ancestry. He went on to a successful career in Newmarket, NH as a teacher, farmer, and clerk. At the outbreak of the Revolution, he rode to the colonial capital to convey Paul Revere's warning, and then served for two years in a New Hampshire regiment. In his lifetime, he was variously described as white, yellow, or mulatto; he is now generally regarded as the first African-American to hold elected office. He was regularly elected by his townsmen to the offices of constable, selectman, auditor, and other positions from 1768 until his death.
Cheswell was elected as a Justice of the Peace for Rockingham County, NH in 1805. As a justice he signed this writ ordering the sheriff to arrest a debtor named Joseph Durrell of Newmarket. Pasted in one corner to the writ is the original unpaid bill dated 1809 which had landed Durrell in trouble. Cheswell was probably the only man of acknowledged African ancestry to routinely wield this level of legal authority in America during this period. Macon Bolling Allen, often mistakenly called the first African-American Justice of the Peace, was not elected until 1844.