George Washington Pre-Inauguration Letter Headlines Freeman’s Americana Auction

Freeman’s will begin its yearlong celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States tomorrow with its 153-lot Printed and Manuscript Americana auction spanning key moments in American history from the Revolutionary era to the 21st century.

It is led by a 1789 autograph letter by George Washington written a few weeks before his first inauguration (estimate: $250,000–$350,000, and the first letter of credence issued by the Continental Congress in 1776 appointing Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Silas Deane as commissioners to France to negotiate a treaty of alliance, September 30, 1776 (estimate: $150,000–$250,000).

Other highlights include:

• a 1775 single-sheet Providence broadside printing of the Declaration of the…Causes and Necessity of…Taking Up Arms, a precursor to the Declaration of Independence drafted in the opening months of the American Revolution, signed in type by John Hancock and Charles Thomson (estimate: $70,000–$100,000)
• an autograph note signed by President Abraham Lincoln, dated April 13, 1865, the day before his assassination, authorizing General James W. Singleton to pass through Union lines to Richmond, Virginia (estimate: $20,000–$30,000
)
• Wanted poster for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
, a rare Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency wanted circular, issued August 5, 1901, documents the final train robbery carried out by the notorious Wild Bunch near Wagner, Montana, offering rewards totaling up to $6,500 for their capture (estimate $8,000–$12,000)

In March, Freeman’s will present The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale focusing on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln alongside material relating to other influential presidents, and in June How History Unfolds on Paper: Important Americana from the Eric C. Caren Collection offering a single-owner auction representing one of the most extensive documentations of American history in private hands, spanning the period before national independence through westward expansion, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and into the 21st century.