Mar 24, 2022 - Sale 2598

Sale 2598 - Lot 228

Price Realized: $ 1,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(EDUCATION.) John B. Russwurm. Letter by the future founder of America's first Black newspaper. Autograph Letter Signed to friend John Otis, a student at Paris Academy in Oxford, ME. 3 pages, 12 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches, on one folding sheet, with address panel on final blank (no postal markings); mailing folds, seal tear near signature not affecting text, otherwise minor wear. North Yarmouth, ME, 22 June 1819
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

John Brown Russwurm (1799-1851) was born in Jamaica, the son of an unknown enslaved woman and her owner. He moved to Portland, ME in 1812 with his father, and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1826 as just the third Black college graduate in the United States. He later founded the abolitionist Freedom's Journal in 1827--the first Black-owned and operated newspaper in the country, which he published for two years before emigrating to Liberia.

Offered here is a letter written when Russwurm was only 19 years old, before he began college. He begins by addressing his secondary education: "Well, what think you, friend Otis, Hebron Academy burnt down? Astonishing, you would reply. Not all so, I consider it as the judgment of heaven for their treatment of the few independent souls who resided with them during the past year. True is the saying 'all for the best,' for we see it plainly proved in the visitations of heaven on the Hebronites. . . . You inquired the reason of not appearing in Hebron the last quarter. I mentioned when I came away to Shubael Tripp that if I studied all winter I should not be in Hebron any more (to school); and another, is that I did want to come, for I might have been there all the time that school kept, as such was the desire of my guardian. I shall attend the two ensuing months at Gorham Academy, I expect as soon as my guardian returns from Boston, and I can get ready." He concludes by wishing Otis well in his studies, and sending greetings to mutual friends.

Provenance: formerly on deposit at Bowdoin College as part of their Rowland Bailey Howard Papers, withdrawn by the owner in 1993, and sold by a dealer to the consignor in 2002. A full transcript of the letter is still available on the Bowdoin website, and it has been widely cited by scholars.