We specialize in Americana, both printed and manuscript materials. We offer books, pamphlets, broadsides and ephemeral items, manuscript letters, diaries, journals, personal and business correspondence from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th.

  • Joseph P. Bradley Letter
    octavo, one page of a four page bi-folium, formerly folded, now flattened, in very good, clean condition.
    Bradley writes, on Supreme Court letterhead, to Manning, an Associate Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, sending an opinion in a recent court case and noting that Manning's opinion in a recent case, Meyer v Johnston (Alabama 53 237, 1875) had come to the notice of the judges of the court.        "Dear Judge,         I did not answer your letter of 26 Feby. Last, as from inquiry of our Clerk, I found there was no occasion - he having communicated with counsel, and the case not being reached before our recess. I write now, simply to excuse my seeming inattention.       Your opinion in the case of Meyer v. Johnston attracted a good deal of attention from our judges, and its exhaustive examination of the cases was of great use to us. We had the Alabama and Chattanooga case before us on appeal, and I send you a copy of the opinion. It touches, towards the close, the question of Receivers Certificates..." Bradley's letters are scarce.       American National Biography, vol. 3, pp., 374-376      Dictionary of American Biography, vol 1, section two, pp., 571-573      Hall, Kermit L., ed., Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United… more >