?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
"IN TIME THIS WILL BE A GREAT PLACE." (MICHIGAN.) Palmer, Thomas B. Letter describing early Detroit. Autograph Letter Signed to Lyman A. Spalding. 3 pages plus address panel on one sheet. 4to, moderate dampstaining, loss of a few letters at the seal. Detroit, MI, 20 August 1820
Thomas B. Palmer (1789-1868) was one of Detroit's earliest merchants, first settling there in 1812. Here he writes from "Citty Detroit" to an old New York friend: "When I first came here there were so many soldiers & play actors that it was all noise and confusion, but after a while they cleared out and the place came more quiet. And I think its getting more moral. It was the most imoral when I first came here I ever saw, all the conversation was about hoars. . . . In time this will be a great place." He also recounts a recent Independence Day celebration in which "a select party of gentlemen and ladys sailed out in the steam boat up into Lake St. Clair." with--a small archive of nine other business and personal letters to Lyman A. Spalding of Canandaigua, NY, 1810-54.
