Books and Manuscripts

Graeme, Elizabeth, and Francis Hopkinson
Partially-Printed Document, signed
(Lancaster County), Pennsylvania, October 1, 1762. Single sheet, 15 x 21 1/2 in. (381 x 546 mm). Partially-printed land indenture signed by American poet and author Elizabeth Graeme, and Signer of the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey, Francis Hopkinson, as witnesses in a land lease between Henry William Stiegel, Charles Stedman, Alexander Stedman, and Benjamin Mishy. Additionally signed by Ann Stedman, Charles Stedman, Elizabeth Stedman, Alexander Stedman, Elizabeth Stiegel, Henry William Stiegel, and Justice Adam Simon Kuhn. Docketed on verso, and with a lengthy endorsement signed by Mishy and his wife Elizabeth, with her “X” mark. Creasing from old folds, some tears along same; heavily toned; wax seals present.

Scarce indenture signed by American poet Elizabeth Graeme (1737-1807) and Founding Father Francis Hopkinson (1737-91), for an early land sale in Manheim, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to Benjamin Mishy, one of the earliest German settlers in the area. The area was first gifted to James Logan in 1734 by William Penn's heirs, then sold by Logan's granddaughter in 1762 to the three men named in this document: German glassmaker Henry William Stiegel (1729-1785), Scottish immigrant Alexander Stedman (1703-1794), and his brother Charles. The first town plan was laid out shortly after that purchase, and it became the site of Stiegel's business, Manheim Glassworks.

The summer of 1762 was an unhealthy one in Philadelphia, as a strain of spotted fever was going around the city. Graeme and some members of her family decided to go on a trip, as described by biographer Anne M. Ousterhaut in The Most Learned Woman in America, “By the end of August 1762, Elizabeth was well enough to accompany her sister and brother-in-law on an excursion around the countryside. The group consisted of Charles and Ann Stedman, Alexander Stedman and his wife, Francis Hopkinson, Betsy Stedman, Elizabeth, and James Bremer…They proceeded from Graeme Park to Lancaster, the Elizabeth furnace at Manheim, Ephrata, Reading, Bethlehem, and then home…The preceding year, the Stedman brothers had bought the land upon which the town of Manheim had been laid out. By the time of their visit, the town already contained from seventy to eighty buildings.” (pp. 74-75)

Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson (1737-1807) was an early American writer and poet. Born to an affluent family outside of Philadelphia, she was highly educated unlike most women of her day, and is credited with starting the first literary salon in America. As early as 1767, Elizabeth began inviting friends over for conversation, and her "Attic Evenings" as they were called, became a gathering place for Philadelphia’s intellectual elite. It boasted the attendance of prominent figures such as Dr. Benjamin Rush, John Dickinson, Francis Hopkinson, Dr. John Morgan, Annis Stockton Boudinot, Jacob Duche, Thomas Godfrey, Jr., and painter Benjamin West. One contemporary admirer referred to her as "The Most Learned Woman in America." Throughout her life Elizabeth wrote poems, letters, songs, travel accounts, and more, often printed under pseudonyms in newspapers such as The Pennsylvania Magazine or American Monthly Museum, Columbian Magazine, and Pennsylvania Packet and the General Advertiser.