Yonkers dealer selling Washington letter, slave poster
Cohasco Inc. in Yonkers estimated the value of the George Washington letter at $32,000 to $40,000, but as of Sunday the bidding for it had risen to around $45,000.
A Yonkers auction house is selling a letter by George Washington describing a sale of 90 slaves he supervised less than two years before the Declaration of Independence.
Cohasco, Inc. is offering the founding father's letter, a reward poster for runaway slaves and 440 other historical documents in an auction ending 8 p.m. Wednesday. One of the auction's highlights is the Washington 1774 letter describing his sale of the Virginia estate of Col. George Mercer, a friend who served under Washington in the French & Indian War.
"What makes the letter historically significant is that Washington started life as a slave owner in his early teens and by about this time he began to realize that he had a conflict, an intellectual conflict," said Bob Snyder, vice president of Cohasco. "On the one hand he was agitating for American independence and freedom. On the other hand he's surrounded by slaves."
More Yonkers news
FINE: Stew Leonard's Wines in Yonkers will pay $50,000 penalty
EMAIL: Yonkers teachers to email parents more
REAL ESTATE: Yonkers' Trolley Barn building sold for $17.5 million
Cohasco estimated the value of the Washington letter at $32,000 to $40,000, but as of Sunday, the bidding for it had risen to around $45,000. Snyder declined to reveal the name of the person selling the Washington letter.
Snyder said that Washington's sale of the Mercer slaves before the Revolutionary War helped change Washington's views on slavery.
"Suddenly he found himself in direct contact with black soldiers, some of whom were free blacks, some were slaves, some were slaves who had been promised their freedom if they would serve, and many did on that basis," said Snyder. "So he began to have this contact with them in another context, as opposed to being on a plantation."
Cohasco holds auctions once or twice a year, often in February. Snyder said that the auction's end date was adjusted so that it would fall near Presidents Day in a nod to the documents related to Washington, Abraham Lincoln and black history.
The Lincoln connection in Cohasco's auction is an 1848 runaway slave poster offering a $250 reward for the capture and return of three black sisters named Maria, Susan and Harriet Johnson to their owner in Washington, D.C. The sisters were eventually caught and remained slaves until they were freed in 1864 when Lincoln's administration paid for their and other Washington, D.C. slaves' emancipation, 14 years after slavery was officially abolished in Washington, D.C.
Snyder described the poster as rare because it was never intended to be saved.
"They were printed under very crude conditions. You can see the wood type was used, not even metal type here, and they were printed in small numbers," Snyder said. "They were meant basically to be nailed to a tree or put up in the general store and then if the wind blew it down they would just wash into the gutter and that was the end of it, so the fact that any of them survived is only an accident."
More Yonkers news
INJURY: Yonkers golf cart accident may cost county $1.6 million
FOOD: Le Moulin in Yonkers serves European cuisine
SIGN UP for The Y-O, reporter Ernie Garcia's Yonkers newsletter
The reason the three sister slaves poster survived is attributable to a handwritten annotation on the bottom of the poster stating that the poster was used in a legal proceeding against the three sisters.
Cohasco estimated the runaway slaves poster's value at $6,500 to $9,000, but as of Sunday the bidding had risen to $12,000.
Snyder said the Washington letter and the runaway slaves poster don't necessarily appeal to one type of collector because collectors have varied interests.
"There are people who only collect Lincoln, Babe Ruth, Washington, Geronimo, whatever it is," he said. "And there are collectors of African American stuff exclusively, many of whom are white."