[Taxation - Massachusetts Bay]. Partly printed broadside signed ("J. Taylor") to Thomas Prentice, [Boston: Bartholomew Green and John Allen], 3 September 1706.

1p., 4to (13 3/4 x 8 in.; 349 x 203 mm), retaining the Great Seal of Queen Anne, addressed to Thomas Prentice, constable and collector to the town of Newtown [sic], some spotting, marginal separations along folds occasionally affecting text. Framed, overall, 21 1/4 x 15 1/2 in.

Bartholomew Green was the eldest son of printer Samuel Green, who emigrated to North America from England around 1633. One of the first printers to operate in North America, Samuel Green printed the Eliot Indian Bible in 1663, the first translation of the Christian Bible into an indigenous language; Bartholomew would assist his father in printing the second edition in 1685. With fewer than five printing presses operating in North America at the time and the governance of the colonies of prime importance to the British crown, printers were vital for disseminating information and, in many cases, maintaining control.

The present document details a debt to be collected by the Town Constable, Captain Thomas Prentice, and paid to the Treasurer, James Taylor, by the end of May 1707. Described as "one of the most colorful" figures in the first hundred years of European settlement in North America, Thomas Prentice had established himself as a military hero during King Philip's War. The request for taxes to be collected came in the midst of Queen Anne's War, the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought in North America and involving the armies of England, France, and Spain. EXCEEDINGLY RARE: According to online records, only one copy has been offered in the past 80 years (Rosenbach, dealer catalogue, 1948: "OF THE UTMOST RARITY"). Not in Evans (years 1697, 1701, 1708, and 1713 only).

This lot is located in Chicago.