Mar 21, 2019 - Sale 2502

Sale 2502 - Lot 129

Price Realized: $ 358
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 250 - $ 350
WEBSTER, DANIEL. Autograph Letter Signed, "Dan'l Webster," as Senator, to his former law partner Timothy Farrar, Jr., recommending Albert Smith to superintend a railroad. 1 1/2 pages, 4to, with integral blank, pale blue paper; faint scattered bleedthrough, folds. With the original envelope, addressed in his hand and with Franking Signature ("Dan'l Webster / U.S Senate"). Franklin, NH, 28 August 1849

Additional Details

"The Hon'ble Albert Smith was appointed, in 1842, Commissioner on the part of the United States to run & mark the Boundary line between Great Britain or her Provinces, & the United States, in pursuance of the Treaty of that year. I am happy to say that he executed the duties of his office faithfully, ably, & most acceptably. I had constant intercourse with him so long as I remained in the Department, & I always found him to possess much knowledge of men, & things . . . . I hardly know anyone to whom I would more readily confide the superintendence, I trust, of a large Rail Road Corporation than Mr. Smith."
Albert James Smith (1822-83) was a politician in New Brunswick who, in 1842, was appointed U.S. Commissioner for the purpose of establishing the boundary between the British North American colonies and the U.S. according to the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. The Treaty settled the late 1830s dispute--later known as the Aroostook War--over the border that fell between present day Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Though militias were called out on both sides, no shots were fired.