Books and Manuscripts

First American Edition of Blackstone's Famous Legal Treatise, with Three Associations to the American Revolution

America: Printed for the Subscribers, by Robert Bell, Philadelphia, 1771-72. In four volumes. First American Edition. 8vo. (viii), ii, (vi), 485; (viii), 520, xix; (viii), 455, (i), xvii; (xxii), (viii), 436, vii, (i), (xxxix) pp. From the libraries of John Chandler (1754-1801)--son of subscriber, Joshua Chandler, Esq of New-Haven, Connecticut (1728-87)--and signed by him on front free endpaper in Volume I, and dated 1774; Worcester, Massachusetts Patriot soldier, Timothy Bigelow (1739-90), signed by him on front free endpaper of each volume, and dated by him in Volume I, Nov 1784; Colonel Benjamin Hichborn (1745-1817), cousin and associate of Paul Revere, lawyer, Massachusetts state senator, and signed by him on front free endpaper of Volume II, with his name additionally written in another hand to same, as well as on verso of rear blank. Illustrated with two engraved plates (one folding), small paper repairs. Period-style full mottled brown calf, stamped in gilt, red and green morocco spine labels; all edges trimmed; marbled endpapers; scattered soiling and foxing to text; scattered small repairs; scattered marginalia.

A fascinating and scarce first American edition of Blackstone's influential legal treatise, from the libraries of three individuals connected to the American Revolution: a young New Haven lawyer whose family was divided in loyalty to King and Revolution; an early and ardent Massachusetts Patriot soldier present at the Revolution's major battles; and an eminent Massachusetts lawyer, and cousin of Paul Revere.

John Chandler had recently graduated Yale University in 1772, and was studying to be a lawyer when he signed and dated the first volume of this set. His father, Joshua Chandler, was a subscriber to this edition and a respected businessman and politician in New Haven and, like his son, graduated Yale and studied law, and likely gifted the set to John. When Revolutionary fervor swept New Haven in the mid 1770s, John, unlike his father and many brothers who held Loyalist sympathies, sided with the cause of independence.

In April 1775, Joshua was serving in the Connecticut General Assembly, and was recently elected to serve on the 18-man Committee for Public Safety in New Haven, when his Loyalist sympathies became known and he was arrested. He was imprisoned in North Haven until 1779 when the British Army--with the aid of his son, William--invaded New Haven under British General William Tyron. "Like many of his relatives in the country who held offices in the colonies under the King, he [Joshua] was loyal to the mother country; and when New Haven was invaded by the British troops under Major Gen. Wm. Tyron on Monday, at noon, 5th July, 1779, while the whigs were celebrating their independence from the mother country, they were piloted in by two of the sons of Mr. Chandler. Now the crisis had come, he could no longer remain neutral. But the next morning, while he was preparing an entertainment for his friends, Gen. Tryon told him that he could not hold the place, for the militia were fast gathering. The outposts were called in, and the enemy retreated, taking some of the prominent citizens prisoners, and others of them as friends. Mr. Chandler and his family went off as friends, and so sudden was the departure that Gov. Baldwin, who was then a boy, said afterward he remembered going into Mr. Chandler's house on the morning after they left, and there seeing the table spread for a large company, and the viands all untouched." (The Chandler Family, 1883, pp. 252-253). John was seemingly the only member of his family to stay behind when the British withdrew from New Haven. Following their departure with the British, the rest of the Chandler family first resided in New York on Long Island, and then resettled to the Loyalist enclave in Nova Scotia. It is not known whether John had any future contact with his family, but the post-war years left John embittered. Although he was elected Sheriff of New Haven in 1786, he "felt wounded at what he thought the unjust suspicions of the whigs, and that a certain degree of disloyalty would be attached to him on account of the course taken by the rest of his family..." (The Chandler Family, pp. 478-479).

By 1784, the set passed from the Chandler family to Timothy Bigelow (1739-90). A Worcester, Massachusetts blacksmith and Patriot soldier in the American Revolution, Bigelow served during the entirety of the war and fought in some of its key battles. Before the outbreak of the war he was an ardent supporter and agitator for independence, and was a member of the radical Sons of Liberty as well as the American Political Society, was a founding member of Worcester's Committee of Correspondence, and served as a delegate to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress from 1774-75. Following the Lexington Alarm he served as a Captain in the Worcester militia and led a company that fought in the Battle of Concord. During this time Patriot soldiers often used his home as their headquarters and his blacksmith shop to prepare ammunition and arms. When the British invaded Boston in 1775 he was instrumental in escorting publisher Isaiah Thomas and his printing equipment safely to Worcester, where Thomas then published his newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy, or American Oracle. During the winter of 1775 Bigelow served under General Benedict Arnold in the Quebec campaign, where he was captured by the British while on reconnaissance. He was transported to a prison in New York, where in May 1776, he was released in a prisoner swap. He quickly returned to service in the Continental Army and was commissioned Colonel of the 15th Massachusetts regiment, fought at Saratoga (and assisted with the capture of British General John Burgoyne), Monmouth, Rhode Island, and Yorktown, wintered at Valley Forge, and was stationed at West Point. Following the war he was in charge of the Springfield arsenal, engaged in local politics in Worcester, and later helped found Montpelier, Vermont. In the late 1780s, following a series of unsuccessful business ventures, he was jailed in debtors' prison, where he died.

From Timothy Bigelow this set then passed into the hands of eminent Boston lawyer Benjamin Hichborn. Born in 1746, Hichborn graduated from Harvard in 1768, was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1784, and practiced law in Boston. A cousin of Patriot Paul Revere, at the beginning of the Revolution Hichborn was suspected of being a Tory because he served as a clerk under well-known Loyalist Samuel Fitch. To prove his patriotism he traveled to Philadelphia where John Adams and Benjamin Harrison entrusted him to deliver letters to George Washington, Abigail Adams, and James Warren. While delivering the letters to Cambridge he was captured by the British, imprisoned, and the letters seized. He eventually escaped, and although Adams eventually forgave him for losing the letters, apparently Washington never did. Following his imprisonment, Hichborn served on the Boston Committee of Safety and, following the war, he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and represented Boston from 1785-86, Dorchester from 1791-92, and then served as a state senator from Norfolk from 1800-03. A respected orator, in March 1777 he gave the keynote address during the anniversary ceremony commemorating the seventh anniversary of the Boston Massacre. When Shays's Rebellion broke out in Western Massachusetts he served as a Colonel in the Massachusetts Militia and led a cavalry raid on the insurgent leaders that helped put down the uprising. Until his death in 1817 he remained an active lawyer in Dorchester.

This edition of Blackstone's treatise was the first law book of a general character printed in the North American colonies (Frederick Charles Hicks, Men and Books Famous in Law, 1921, p. 126). It's publication proved to be incredibly influential for America's Founding Fathers and contributed to the intellectual groundwork for the American Revolution. Although Blackstone himself opposed the Revolution, his thoughts on natural law and the rights of individuals helped mold American ideas about independence and subsequently formed the basis of American legal thought during the 18th and 19th centuries. Published by subscription, this edition, printed by Robert Bell sold for $8, and its 22-page list of subscribers reads as a who's who of individuals important to the Revolution and early American history, including John Adams, John Jay, John Dickinson, James Wilson, Roger Sherman, Richard Stockton, John Dunlap, Caesar Rodney, Clement Biddle, and many others. Sixteen subscribers would go on to sign the Declaration of Independence, and six would attend the Constitutional Convention.