May 2012 Auction Ends Tuesday, May 29th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/29/2012
Founding father and Constitution signer, Thomas Mifflin signs, ''Tho Mifflin'' as Governor of Pennsylvania in a letter to the House of Representatives and Senate of Pennsylvania. Datelined Philadelphia, 25 February 1792. Philadelphia served as the temporary U.S. capital while Washington D.C. was under construction, and Mifflin here approves levying the tax on carriages to fund the construction of a Presidential mansion on Ninth Street. In an effort to convince the federal government to remain in the city, Pennsylvania financed a massive presidential mansion on Ninth Street in Philadelphia. President Washington, a strong advocate of the new capital on the Potomac, refused to move into the building, which remained vacant during the entire Washington and Adams presidencies. It then housed the University of Pennsylvania from 1800 until it was razed in 1828. Single page folio with integral blank measures 9.5" x 14.25". Silked on front and verso, and with short, closed separations at folds. Provenance: Parke-Bernet's John Gribbell sale, 22 January 1941, lot 506.
Thomas Mifflin Tries to Have Philadelphia Become the Permanent Federal City by Financing a Presidential Mansion in 1792 -- Washington Declined as He Was a Strong Advocate of Washington, D.C.
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