Franklin, Benjamin, & David Hall, printers | A very early promissory note for the Pennsylvania Hospital

Franklin, Benjamin, & David Hall, printers

Promissory Note for Pennsylvania Hospital. [Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin and David Hall, ca. 1751]

Printed form (97 x 158 mm, irregular) on a slip of paper. Accomplished in a clerical hand, witnessing signatures of Thomas Cadwalader and Thomas Bond, series of dockets on the verso recording payments received by Hugh Roberts, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Hospital; lower right portion trimmed away, presumably as cancellation when the note was discharged in full; lightly browned. Half red morocco slipcase gilt.

A very rare example of job printing by Franklin and Hall, unrecorded in Miller. This promissory note dates to the year of the founding of the Pennsylvania Hospital, the first in the nation, and is witnessed by Dr. Thomas Bond, who, as Franklin writes in his Autobiography, "conceived the idea of establishing a hospital in Philadelphia … for the reception and cure of poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of the province or strangers." The other witness, Thomas Cadwalader, was one of the original subscribers and physicians of the Hospital.

Funding for the Hospital came from both the Pennsylvania Assembly and from private citizens, like Joseph Morris, who here pledges "to pay to John Reynell, Treasurer of the Pennsylvania Hospital, or his Successor in the said Trust, the Sum of Fifteen Pounds current Money of Pennsylvania. …" Morris signed this note on 1 May 1751—ten days before the charter for the Hospital was officially granted by the Pennsylvania legislature.

REFERENCE

Not in Miller, Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia Printing, but see items 598 (1754?) and 724 (1760s) for similar forms.