A letter and books owned by Founding Father and the first President of the United States are likely to realise the most at a Sotheby’s sale of significant US historical documents tied to the country’s 2026 250th anniversary celebrations.
The Visions of America sale in January is headed by two books almost certainly carried on campaign by General Washington as he fought the battles that freed the first 13 United States from British imperial control.
The volumes are: Major Robert Rogers’s Journals (1765) and Concise Account of North America (1765). Washington has signed the title-pages of both and both are signed and inscribed by Henry Knox, an artillery officer to whom Washington gave the books.
The two books carry an estimated sale price of $1.2 to $1.8 million and demand an opening bid of $1 million.
The letter is equally significant, and perhaps more so, as it brings together Washington with two other towering figures of the American War of Independence, Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette.
The Marquis of Lafayette was a major figure in both French and American politics. While his fortunes waxed and waned in his homeland he remained an American hero to his death.
The missive, signed, dated December 28, 1778, in Philadelphia was written by Washington to introduce the Marquis to Benjamin Franklin, who was to travel to Paris as the new country’s Minister to France.
Lafayette was a 19-year-old orphaned aristocrat (of extreme wealth) when stories of the American Revolutionary War inspired him to travel secretly across the Atlantic to join the American’s fight.
By 1778, France and the United States were allies, and Lafayette returned to Paris in early 1779 with a letter from Washington to Franklin, explaining Lafayette’s important role in the war.
Franklin and Lafayette became close friends in Paris and the Marquis was considered a hero, and a considerable political and military figure in both nations.
He went on to play an active role in the French Revolution as the first leader of the National Guard.
In the 1830s he toured America and was honoured wherever he went. His death in 1834 was marked by official mourning in both the United States and France. A Stars and Stripes often flies over his Paris grave.
The letter, in Washington’s very precise hand, and describing his “very particular friendship” with Lafaeyette is predicted to realise between $1 million and $1.5 million.
Documents related to the founding of the United States are generally very valuable. In 2021, a copy of the original printing of the US Constitution was sold for $43.2 million to become the most valuable document ever sold.
