1796 Letter to Congressman Benjamin Bourne Reporting Merchant John Brown’s Canal Charter and a $25,000 Lottery for Rhode Island College.
Providence, Rhode Island: February 9, 1796. Autograph letter signed “N. Searle Jr.,” two pages on a folded sheet, with integral address panel to the Hon. Benjamin Bourne, Representative in Congress, Philadelphia; Providence straightline and “FREE” handstamps. 7 ¾ x 9 ½. Old folds, scattered staining and losses along the left margin, with some loss to text. Good. Item #BK0188 A contemporary report on the February session of the Rhode Island General Assembly, written by Nathaniel Searle Jr. to Benjamin Bourne, then Rhode Island’s representative in Congress. Bourne served in the House from 1790 to 1796 and later that year was appointed by Washington to the federal district court in Rhode Island. Searle reports two of the session’s more consequential acts together: “Amongst other things they have granted a charter to Mr. John Brown &c. to cut a Canal from Providence River to some part of Connecticut river thro Worcester. They have granted a Lottery to the College for the purpose of raising 25,000 dollars.” Providence merchant John Brown’s proposal was the first serious attempt to establish what eventually became the Blackstone Canal route. Rhode Island granted the project a charter in 1796, but the corresponding petition to the Massachusetts General Court failed, ending the scheme until the idea was revived in the 1820s. The American Antiquarian Society’s Blackstone Canal Company records preserve a copy of this first 1796 charter as well as material relating to the unsuccessful Massachusetts petition.[1] The second measure was an important piece of early financing for Rhode Island College, now Brown University. The Corporation had voted in December 1795 to seek legislative authority for a lottery, and in 1796 the General Assembly granted permission to raise $25,000 for the use of the College. Contemporary lottery tickets from the scheme survive.[2] Searle also reports on a petition involving Luke Arnold and the Smithfield Town Council and notes that the Assembly had passed a resolution expressing its “undiminished confidence” in George Washington, before observing that most of the remaining business concerned private petitions. The letter thus catches both the ambitious commercial and educational projects before the legislature and the more routine political business of the session, sent directly to Rhode Island’s representative in Philadelphia. [1] Blackstone Canal Company Business Records, 1796–1899, American Antiquarian Society Manuscript Collections, accessed October 12, 2026, https://www.americanantiquarian.org/Findingaids/blackstone_canal_company.pdf.
[2] Russell J. DeSimone, “A List of Rhode Island Lotteries (18th and 19th Centuries),” (2002), accessed October 12, 2026, https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/lib_ts_pubs/8/.
Price: $500.00