(DELAWARE) Manuscript orations and other papers of Delaware

Sale 2675 - Lot 125

Price Realized: $ 552

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

(DELAWARE.) Manuscript orations and other papers of Delaware civic leader Willard Hall. One box of manuscript papers (0.3 linear feet); variously worn, many pieces had previously been tightly folded. Various places, circa 1838-1879

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Willard Hall (1780-1875) was one of the most prominent men of nineteenth-century Delaware: he served in Congress from 1817-1821, spent almost fifty years as a judge in the district court, was president of the Delaware Bible Society, was a lay leader of the Hanover Street Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, and was a bank president in his spare time. He was the founding president of the Delaware Historical Society. Offered here is a large collection of his manuscript orations. The orations are generally unsigned and untitled, but judging by the handwriting, the content and the context, the great majority seem to be Hall's work. Two or three were Fourth of July orations circa 1838 and 1841; others relate to the Bible society, patriotic and legal topics, and education. We count ten complete works and perhaps ten incomplete fragments.

Also included are two retained draft letters regarding the Hanover Street church signed by Hall, 1856; a packet of legal letters addressed to Hall and his son-in-law Robert Robinson Porter (1811-1876), 1863-1865; and several essays by Hall's grandson, Willard Hall Porter (1853-1907) of Wilmington, as member of the Princeton University Class of 1875. Finally, the lot includes three copies of Hall's pamphlet "A Plea for the Sabbath Addressed to the Legal Profession" (1845) and 2 copies of "Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Willard Hall" by Daniel Bates (1879).