Sep 17, 2015 - Sale 2391

Sale 2391 - Lot 355

Price Realized: $ 3,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(WAR OF 1812.) Letterbooks and account books of Boston merchant Jerathmel B. Borland. 4 manuscript volumes, including letter books covering September 1812 to December 1815, an account journal for 1808-11, and a cash ledger for 1813-16 with a few entries in hand of Hannah Borland for 1825-27. Folio, various sizes, contemporary calf, worn; moderate dampstaining, with water damage to the ledger; institutional bookplates on front pastedowns. (MRS) Boston, bulk 1808-16
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Additional Details

Jerathmel Bowers Borland was a Boston merchant. He frequently corresponded with a cousin named John Jenckes in Lexington, KY, settled in Lexington himself in 1816, and died there on 13 December of that year.
His letterbooks make frequent reference to the war; he carried on a heavy trade in gunpowder and discusses it at length in many letters. On 3 March 1813, he tells a Richmond, VA firm: "We have had some reports here there was some apprehension of an insurrection among the Negroes. Do you think there is much danger of it? How is Richmond prepared for to encounter this danger? Are not your militia marched off for the defense of Norfolk?"
Most dramatically, his 2 June 1813 letter describes the capture of USS Chesapeake off Boston: "It seems the ships ran close along side of each other before firing and continued enveloped in smoke for about 20 minutes. In that time an explosion was heard and an immense cloud of smoke seemed to ascend which when it dissipated shew that the Chesapeak was in possession of the Brittish."