[NEW YORK]

Journal of the Votes of the General Assembly of Her Majesties Colony of New-York in America [caption title]

New York: William Bradford, 1709. Folio. (11 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches). 40pp.

Expertly bound to style in half calf over period marbled paper covered boards, spine with raised bands in six compartments, ruled in gilt on either side of each band, red morocco lettering piece in the second compartment

The votes of the New York Assembly, 1709.

A very rare and interesting imprint containing New York colonial acts passed between April 7 to November 12. It was printed by William Bradford, New York City's first public printer. Bradford (1663-1752) originally settled in Pennsylvania, where he began operating a printing press in 1685 and a bookstore in 1688. Controversies within the Quaker community, with Bradford supporting the dissident George Keith, led to the temporary seizure of his types and paper in 1692, and in 1693 he moved to New York. The present documents are among the earliest of official New York imprints. The present Journal includes the address to Governor Lovelace, as well as a note of his death after less than a year in office, one day after the Assembly granted him £1600. Page 39, final paragraph, contains instructions to Bradford to print the laws of the Colony "since the arrival of Coll. Slaughter" (i.e. Henry Slaughter, governor in 1691, who died that same year) together with details on its distribution. This is a very rare work; ESTC records four copies, one of which is defective, though Evans and Rosenbach note a fifth copy at the New York Public Library. Rosenbach offered a copy for $385 in 1938, and a copy, possibly the present, sold at Anderson Galleries in 1913 for $485.

ESTC W11517; Evans 1424.

Item #28950

Price: $9,500.00