Jun 21, 2018 - Sale 2483

Sale 2483 - Lot 111

Price Realized: $ 1,875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
(GARFIELD ASSASSINATION.) Group of 19 manuscripts relating to the assassin Charles Guiteau, his trial and his execution. Format and condition vary. Vp, 1882 and undated

Additional Details

Includes: A page of sarcastic notes on the trial, apparently by prosecutor John Kilham Porter, concluding "Whoever did it, he didn't & that the blame rests not on the living assassin, but on somebody dead . . . Perhaps Garfield did it himself to promote the Union of the Rep'n Party." Accompanied by 2 cards signed by Porter dated January 1882 A short poem, undated and unsigned but apparently in Guiteau's hand, which begins "God created Adam and Eve, Satan came, Eve fell, Adam too!" Receipt to Guiteau signed by his attorney George Scoville, for $125 in fees. 2 April 1882 Receipt to Guiteau signed by photographer C.M. Bell and on his billhead. Guiteau had paid $31 for 200 photographs of himself, apparently to send in response to autograph requests. Washington, 5 April 1882 A set of 12 cards autographed by each of the 12 jurors in the Guiteau trial, most notably Ralph Wormley, an African-American; removed from a scrapbook.
Also included is an original news account of Charles Guiteau's final day, recorded on telegraph slips. 51 manuscript pages, most 5 1/2x8 inches, numbered in manuscript as pages 1 through 49, with pages 9, 10, 14, and 41 apparently missing; also 6 manuscript bulletins written out on plain unnumbered paper; minor wear, with one of the plain sheets torn. This long and detailed account of Guiteau's final hours was sent by telegraph from the jail in Washington, and then transcribed by telegraph offices across the nation for newspaper publication, with the opening words "Guiteau was very restless during most of the latter part of the night." The final paragraph begins "When the drop fell, a yell was sent up by some persons inside the jail." This copy was transcribed on the blanks of the Baltimore office of the Northern Central Railway Company. While this long account takes the form of a polished news story, possibly sent in one or two transmissions, the six reports written on blank sheets seem to have greater immediacy: "12:35 pm. The death procession has just started for the gallows"; "12:35 Guiteau is now reading his farewell address"; "The drop fell at 12:40 pm." Baltimore, MD, 30 June 1882.
Provenance: The Forbes Collection; Swann sale, 25 November 2014, lots 260 and 261, to the consignor.