Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 149

Price Realized: $ 219
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(CONNECTICUT.) "Young Nick." Awful Tribunal . . . High Court of Vengeance for the District of Southington . . . Presiding--His Satanic Majesty. Letterpress broadside, 15 x 10 3/4 inches; worn at edges, moderate dampstaining, folds, manuscript doodling on recto and verso. [Connecticut?], 1 January 1834

Additional Details

The true meaning of this broadside may never be fully understood by modern historians, but its intent was certainly satirical. Whether its author was a great humorist or completely insane is unclear. It purports to present the proceedings of a trial of "Sweet Romeo," "Great High Priest," "Little Wheel George," and "Big Bug Merchant" before His Satanic Highness in the basement of the Southington Presbyterian Church. Little Wheel George was sentenced to row up the nearby Farmington Canal with an apple tree, while Sweet Romeo (who had apparently defrauded some veterans of the Revolution) was sentenced "to be steeped down in phosphorus 86 years, and at the expiration of that time, you be devoured alive by fleas, if they will eat you." Not in OCLC, and no other copies traced.