Nov 21 at 10:30 AM - Sale 2687 -

Sale 2687 - Lot 239

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(WEST--MISSOURI.) Broadside extra of the "Western Missourian" newspaper, Letterpress broadside, 16¼ x 11 inches; folds, uncut, manuscript marks on verso bleeding through. Independence, MO, 6 November 1841
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Independence, Missouri was founded on the Missouri River in 1827 and soon became an important fur-trading town just east of Kansas City; for decades it was an important stop on the westward wagon trails. This broadside extra, issued by a Democratic newspaper in Independence, is headlined "The Voice of the Farthest West!--Meeting of the Democracy of Jackson." It describes a meeting of Jackson County's Democratic Party, and prints their "Preamble" and 16 resolutions. The preamble closely parallels the Declaration of Independence in its rhetoric, but swapping out the King for the "National Bank Monster" and other atrocities, denouncing without naming President Tyler's Whig administration. Among the resolutions is one opposing grants of land and financial support to displaced Indian tribes.

The Western Missourian was frequently quoted in other newspapers from about July 1841 to September 1843. We can trace no extant copies from this period at auction, in OCLC, or in the Chronicling America database at the Library of Congress (though some issues of a weekly of the same name from Warrensburg, MO survive from the late 1850s).

Provenance: found along with letters of Missouri newspaper editor William Gilpin (see lot 239).

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