Apr 27, 2017 - Sale 2444

Sale 2444 - Lot 15

Price Realized: $ 1,300
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--PRELUDE.) Resolutions of the Tryon County Committee of Safety, August 27, 1774. Engraved broadside, 22 1/4 x 14 inches; toning, several closed tears with tape repairs, seal remnant in lower right corner. Np, undated

Additional Details

An otherwise unknown facsimile of an early German-American patriotic declaration signed in western New York. Tryon County was a vast swath of frontier land in northern New York, settled mostly by Germans from the Palatine region. The signers met at a private home in the village of Stone Arabia, about 50 miles west of Albany, and resolved that "it is our undeniable privilege to be taxed only with our own consent, given by ourselves or by our representatives." They formed a Committee of Correspondence and approved the New York slate of delegates to the Continental Congress. The document has been called the German-American Declaration of Independence. While the text is well-known to scholars, we have traced no other reference to this or any other broadside printing in libraries or at auction. The paper suggests a mid-19th century printing date. with--a small brass plaque reading "Pfaelzer Unabhaengigkeitserklaerung . . . Palatine Declaration of Independence Augsut 27, 1774."