Jun 27, 2024 - Sale 2675

Sale 2675 - Lot 203

Price Realized: $ 1,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(MARYLAND.) John Glisan. The extensive manuscript "Life and Memoirs" of a Frederick County carpenter and politician. 3 volumes. 492 manuscript pages. Folio, 12¼ x 7½ inches, original plain wrappers, worn and mostly detached, lacking front wrapper of second volume; generally only minor wear to contents. Libertytown, MD, circa 1836-1847
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John Glisan (1762-1851) was a lifelong resident of Maryland, mostly in Libertytown in Frederick County, MD. He begins with the immigration of his father from Ireland in 1754 "and thus exiled himself from his native land forever, in the recital of which I have seen him shed abundance of tears, particularly on account of his mother." His memories of boyhood athletics in the 1770s include some distant bat and ball ancestors of baseball: "I was also amongst the foremost at all athlectick sports for age and size, to wit wrestling, running, hopping, jumping, foot, wicket, bait ball, cat, lead out, baste, good at shooting with crossbowe and common bowe, fishing and fowling" (page 7).

Glisan's father fought with the patriots in the Revolution and was severely wounded at Cowpens. He recalls being in Baltimore when the Declaration of Independence was read: "I was . . . amongst the very great number who assembled on the evening of 4th of July for the purpose of testafying their wish on that great occasion. The greater part of all the houses were illuminated on that night. Some of them had twelve dozen candles in the windows and thousands marched with musick all through the principal streets of Baltimore" (page 23). On page 47, he first discusses his lifelong love of cockfighting (a favorite subject throughout), and tells a long story about facing off against Colonel William Washington, the hero of the Battle of Cowpens, in a series of matches. He discusses the launch of his carpentry business in 1780 amid the privations of war (pages 64-65), and recounts his brother's stories of life as a cabin boy on a privateer (pages 85-86).

His own brief militia service is recounted on pages 90-91. After he was drafted in October 1781, "we were to have been marched to the siege of Cornwallis, but we were delayed some time in Frederick Town. . . . When we arrived at the Potomack River, Lord Cornwallis had surrendered his army prisoners of war. We received several thousand of them and conducted them to the barracks at Frederick Town." That winter, "in marching the prisoners into Pennsylvania, several of the prisoners were severely frostbitten."

The remainder of the memoir covers several decades as a prosperous tradesman and farmer in Libertytown, raising a large family and getting involved in local Democratic politics. On page 187, he mourns "the loss of my worthy slave and friend William Walker, who died at about thirty years of age . . . my foreman and manager of all my farming & stock raising concerns . . . my farming business from that day to the present constantly declined." The dramatic election of Martin Van Buren in 1836 is discussed at length (pages 289-291), along with other extensive commentary on national and local politics. He discusses many of his building projects for the local elite. The closing words: "It is s'd of old men, the ideas of mankind & things are allways gloomy. I hope it may not be in my case."