[Americana] An Act to Incorporate the Long Island Sound Harbour Company, Passed April 16, 1830

New-York: Printed at the office of the New-York Amulet, 1830. First edition. 12mo. 12 pp. Original stab-sewn printed limp self wrappers, horizontal crease at center; stain at center of all leaves, foxing to same. Not in Sabin

Very rare first edition of this Act incorporating the Long Island Sound Harbour Company. Passed by the New York State legislature on April 16, 1830, the Act lists 25 articles for the establishment of the Company, "constituted for the purpose of constructing a harbour near the shore of Long Island Sound in the town of Southold, in the County of Suffolk; and of making a channel or canal to connect the said harbour with the said sound." (p. 3)

The period from 1815 to the 1860s marked the golden age of steamboat navigation. New York in particular became the nexus of steamboat development, with the Hudson River and Long Island Sound providing favorable conditions for steam navigation. The Supreme Court's landmark decision in Gibbons vs. Ogden in 1824, that established that Congress had sole power to regulate interstate commerce, broke up the steamboat monopolies of Robert Fulton and Robert R. Livingston in the region, and helped establish competing companies--the present included--to serve the region's growing population and commerce.

One of possibly only two known extant copies (the other at the New York Public Library). According to RBH, this is the first copy to come to auction since 1923.

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

[Americana] An Act to Incorporate the Long Island Sound Harbour Company, Passed April 16, 1830