Show WA d new A aca 0 D 4 two L bi J it TJ 1 G k tiree 7 famous 0 rw f autographs A of Ti resident NOY SCOTT WATSON VISITORS at the witte house since nerbert herbert hoover became president have base often commented upon tl e fact that while the chief executive listens to what hae base to say he busies himself with a draw drawing ing a series of various geometrical design upon scraps of paper usually v I 1 en the Interi few Is concluded he crumples up the paper and tosses it into a wastebasket recently I 1 however one visitor rescued such a paper from tl ti e basket and asked the president to autograph it which he be smilingly did he probably did nit nt real ize that this scrap of paper had adv particular value but the result was as that the visitor sold it for what Is described as a fair portion of the presidential salary it now holds an honored place in the collection of thomas F madigan of new york as an authority on autographs who says it Is the most unusual signature ever to come out of the white house but this Is only one of the many interesting items which have base passed through mr Had madigan igans s I 1 ands during his long career as autograph col lector and dealer the fruit of that career Is a book published recently by the frederick A stokes company to which he has ghen the appropriate title of word shadows of the great with a sub title which tells of the I 1 ure are of autograph collecting autographs are truly word shadows reflecting the personalities of the men and women who wrote them and often revealing their very souls and for or this reason autograph collecting Is one of the most fascinating hobbles known to mankind what american would not be thrilled to have in his possession a letter written by george washington or by thomas jefferson by andrew jackson or by abraham I 1 lincoln or some other great man yet many such letters often throw ing new light on some important event in our history have been in mr air Mad madigan igans s possession before they became in the collection of some autograph enthusiast for instance there Is the letter written by washington to governor clinton of new york from his headquarters at morristown at a time when the dawn was just beginning to break for the great commander of the continental army after five dark years of what seemed at times a hopeless struggle it was glorious news which this letter tore bore news that the long hoped for aid from the french was soon to come and it Is easy to imagine washington s elation as he penned these lines morristown may wh 1780 dear sir I 1 have the happiness to inform excellency that the th marquis de lafayette has brought the in te resting intelligence of a french fleet army which was to sail all from france early in april for or the continent to cooperate operate with us he is gone on to congress and measure measures will it Is I 1 to be hoped be immediately taken by them to put our selves in a situation to derive the advantage from this which with proper exertion we have a right to expect you will be sensible that there will be a feces eity sity for or the concurrences of the legislatures of the different states in providing men and sup plies As A I 1 am informed your assembly is now bitting sitting and may probably be abort abo rising as the determination of congress may not arrive in time to prevent its adjournment I 1 have thought it proper to give this intimation in confidence that you may keep them together it if they once sep arate it will be impossible to reassemble them in time to answer our purposes and it Is of in finite importance that 04 should be assembled As this anticipates congress it Is of course only intended tor for your private information and Is not to be officially made use of to the assembly in the intended co operation to whatever point it may be directed we shall stand in need of 0 all the continental force we can collect on this principle I 1 wish to have the regiment ment at fort schuyler rel relieve level and shall be glad your excel lency will be pleased to order two hundred and efty men of the raised by permission of con gross gress as speedily as possible to that post I 1 pro pose to leave col van dycke and some good sergeants in the garrison to arrange the NOW new corps perform the duties with lanced it Is my wish that the officer who commands the men should be interior inferior in rank ito ato lt colo van dycke as he Is I 1 am told an attentive diligent officer and the command may be safely reposed in him I 1 am with the greatest affection tr yr most obed able G riON his excels goar clinton had I 1 never read the inspiring story of lin coins progress from the log cabin to the white house I 1 believe I 1 could still obtain a just con caption of his immortal character from his let says mr madigan few letters of lincoln are more reflective of his simple modesty and bound judgment than the letter written during his single term as member of congress the letter n to which he refers reads washington fob feb 13 1848 dear hewett your whig representative i from mississippi P W tompkins has just shown shorn me a letter of youre yours to himi am jealous because you did not write to me perhaps you have forgotten me don t you remember a long black fello v who rode on horse back with you from tremont to springfield nearly ten years ago aga swimming your horses over the mackinaw Mack anaw on the trip well I 1 am that same old fe low yet S I 1 was once of your opinion expressed in your letter that presidential electors should be dis with but a more thorough knowledge of the ca ses sea that first introduced them has made t P me doubt these causes were briefly these the convention that framed the constitution had this d the small state wished to so form the new government aa its that they might be equal to A t r N OIX y k L I 1 4 fe i w AS priced autograph on ori record the large ones regardless ot of the inequality of pop illation the large ones insisted on equality li ii pro portion to population they compromised it by basing the house of representatives on tion and the senate on states regardless regard lebs of lation and the executive on both principles by electors in each state equal in nun ber her to her sen acors and representatives now throw away the machinery of electors and the compromise Is brok en up and the whole yielded to the principle of th large states there Is one thing more in th slave lave states you have representatives and con electors parti upon the basis of your black population which ouid be swept anav ba b the change you think desirable have you ever reflected on these things but to come to the main point I 1 wish you to know that I 1 have anade a speech in congress and that I 1 want you to be enlightened by reading it to further which object I 1 send you a copy of the speech by this mall mail for old acquaintance t f tor for nothing else be sure to write rite me on receiving this I 1 was very near forgetting to tell you that on my being in produced trod to geni gent quitman and telling him I 1 was from springfield illinois he at once lemarl ed then you are acquainted with my valued friend hewett of natchez and on being assured I 1 was he stid just such things about you as I 1 like to hear said about my own valued friends yours as eer josephus hewett esq A LINCOLN it Is doubtful it if the long black fellow who writes thus modestly mode stIv of himself realized at the time that in less than twenty years he be would be enshrined in the 1 earls of his countrymen country men ler gainly he be would have been the most surprised person in the world if some one had told him that three quarters of a century after he be wrote that letter it would be sold for more than considerable space was devoted in new fork york newspapers recently to the fact that a new york torts collector of americana had acquired an extensive collection of letters by john adams thomas jef ferson james madison james monroe john quincy adams and otters oti ers the most important were sixteen jefferson letters only four of which had ever been published the concluding para graphs of the half column newspaper story about these letters reads as follows one of the letters which has been published 1 one of the most interesting that has ever passed through the hands of mr madigan during his twenty five years in the autograph bubines bu sines he said in a few sentences mr jefferson clarified whatever doubt may have been in the mind of his correspondent about the authorship of the D declara lara bior of independence in part jefferson w wrote rec Is tour your statements of the corrections of the dec dee lar atlon of independence by dr franki frankl n and mr adan 9 are neither of the TI at all exact I 1 should think it better to sav generally that the rough draught was communicated to these two gentle men who each made 2 or 3 short verbal altera alons only but even this Is laying more stress on mere comp composition than it merits tor for that alone was wag mine the sentiments were of all america while it would seem that the autograph letters of the earlier presidents would out bring higher prices than those of the later executives such Is not always the case for the typewriter tyle ayi writer has had its influence on aitogi aph hunting washington 9 and Lin lincoln colas s voluminous correspondence was all handwritten but the letters of the last three or four presidents hive been dictated to ste pliers written on the typewriter and one cannot always be sure whether the signature at tl ti e hot torn tom of the letter Is by the pres pros dent deal himself or by some secretary or clerk one of the rarest of all autograph collectors items it is said Is a letter written in long hind by warren G hard ing and a similar one by C cilian alln col dge Is near ly as rare re be ng rare they cheref ie te command a price which will aquil tb tint it asked for the let of soul son e of the earlier presidents and pare favorably with the prices of washington and I 1 letters at a recent sale a iv washing ton letter brough t the same price that was paid for a harding letter in the presidents own handwriting but R wian I 1 on the matter of price in connection with autographs Is mentioned there Is one classic example wl ch overshadows all other valuable signatures the man himself was unknown to most an until ti tie e signature broke all autograph price lepoids true hp he was a signer of the declaration of inde indel ei or dence but it might be p isible to get a complete set of auto graphs of the signers with the exception excel tion of this one man if you were willing to pay from WO to 2 2000 tor for it but if you wish to make it corn com bv ad I 1 ng the name of button gwinnett of georgia to the names of the 1 other vi 55 it may cost you from 30 to 50 more b bor or tl ti e signature of button gwinnett Is one of the rarest of all known auto autographs graphs there being not in re thin twenty known to be in existence and of this number not more than half a dozen have ever been available for purchase by cottle tors the reason tl ti at there are not more is due to the fact that he was killed in a duel in 1777 about a year after his signing the declaration made him one of america a s immortals 1 t nn 1 Z k I 1 1 1 av 51 el sk U al I 1 T it na 1 te 1 4 4 e hiis v oti a tr e I 1 back in 1886 1880 according to mr air madigan a but ton gwinnett autograph sold for only but that was long before autograph collecting became so popular and took on a big business tinge forty bears later on january 19 1 WC 1916 col cal james IL manning offered at auction his complete set of autographs of the signers and his button gwin nett s grature as a witness to a will the first ever sold at a public sale brought the total collection realized the sum of in may of the same year another gwinnett from the dr george C F willlim william im collection sold gold for 10 19 and a cut out signature brought but that was as just the beginning of the gwinnett boom not long afterwards mrs arthur W swann of new york who had read of those prices re that she had inherited some old letters from her ancestors and had stored them carelessly among some old sheet music and books in a closet she begin beggin to investigate and found among the letters the third bond mentioned in the records of the gwinnett by its executor this signature sold for 28 but the end was not yet in march 1927 a let ter signed by button gwinnett and five ilse other signers of ta tie e declaration was sold for 51 OW I 1 it was the first letter ever found bearing hearing the gwinnett signature the other examples of hie his autograph being from official documents this let ter was found by john cecil of new tort york among a mass of old papers tint thit had been stored in an outbuilding ipg at mamaroneck Mam aroneck for many years hearing fearing of the high prices price being paid for gwin givin nett signatures he remembered that there was one among the pipers store I 1 on his proper property tv so he went through them until he d seo verel the precious document and two days davs after the d s covery the building in which the autograph had remained so long took fire and burned to the ground I 1 but talk of such sky I t agh prices does not mean that it Is immoss ble for the average person to obtain autographs of famous people if he so de sires the signatures of any ini i m ler ter of celebrin ties presidents generals genei als authors poets actors statesmen sculptors sculptor artists singers inventors explorers etc can he be anywhere from 50 cents each to 0 o 00 ai at d it Is 19 poss ble to buy letters wh h ch cli they have ha e written from 1 TO up to 25 or 50 depending upon the historic interest which the letters contain con biln and the rarity of such letters for those are the two factors which ally ne the value nine of an autograph auto griph it Is not often that a celebrity cibes in on the value of his autograph wl ile tie he Is still liv ing yet that was true of two famous indian chiefs S 8 eting bill ill of the sioux and geronemo Geron of the apaches after S eting bull had returned from his exile in canada in the he learned to write his name and upon joining buffalo bill bills s wild west show did a thriving h b siness selling I 1 is autographs for 1 ro 0 apiece geronemo Geron the apache leader also learned to t his name after his davs dans on the were over and at tl e world worlds s fair in st I 1 ouis in 1901 he was kept busy printing his signature for 25 11 cents cash capt tack craw crawford ford the poet scout who wb 0 guided son e of the old kold ers when they were try ing to round up the acael es eq in the old days davs tells with some amusement of visiting Geron geronimo at st t fouls and how the old cl let upon seen g briw ford in the crowd crow d promptly pro i ptsy suggested that the price to him would be ro 0 cents the autograph of the tl ird indian shown above Is of special interest because of his insist ence price up n prefixing the word christian to his name whenever he wrote it laici e or natelen Na gatei telez ez was the hered tary chief of the chiricahua at aches and a lieutenant of Geron geronimo in tl if e long series of abiche wars in the southwest but after he surrendered and was as settled down as a prisoner of war at fort rort sill okia okla he accepted the christian religion and took great pride in this evidence that he m was as travel ng the white mans roid road in that connection it Is interesting to note that just a short time before he wrote the auto graph reproduced above abase he discovered that the elder of his two wives n was as jealous of the younger so to cure her he shot her through the knees a somei somewhat hat curious manifestation of chr christian atlan spirit 1 I |