Feb 27, 2003 - Sale 1961

Sale 1961 - Lot 231

Price Realized: $ 402
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
THE FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN BISHOP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH HOLLY, JAMES THEODORE. Autograph Letter Signed, to Dr. Seth Pancoast of Philadelphia, writing on various issues. 5 pages, folio; with the mailing envelope. With an enclosure - The Anti-Caste. Volume III, Number 1 (1890). Port-au-Prince, 05 March 1890

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Holly (1829-1911), born free in Washington, D.C., was the author of the noted "Vindication of the Capacity of the Negro Race for Self Government and Civilized Progress" (1857). With Lewis Tappan he was an abolitionist in the 1840s and 50s. In 1874, Holly became the first African-American Bishop of the Episcopal Church. In this long letter to Pancoast (physician and student of the occult), Holly described the loss of his large library and his continued interest in the occult. He asks Pancoast's aid for 2 of his sons studying in America. Of special interest in his discussion of Haiti's involvement with the American Revolution an the War of 1812, as well as writing of the aid given by Haiti to Simon Bolivar. In 1861 he and his family in the company of 110 other African-Americans moved to Haiti. The issue of the Anti-Caste included here is referred to in the letter. In it is a letter written by Holly in which he speaks of Haiti and the conditions there.