Name/Title
Pennsylvania Hospital - Promissory NotesDescription
A group of 4 promissory notes for the Pennsylvania Hospital:
1. Thomas Foxcroft, April 7, 1768
2. Israel Pemberton, Jr, May 1, 1751. Pemberton was one of the first managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital. This note is Numbered 2‚ and thus was the second note issued.
3. William Smith of Philad. Rector of the Academy‚ September 14, 1761. Smith‚ in a 1753 essay A General Idea of the College of Mirania impressed Benjamin Franklin and the Rev. Richard Peters, leading to Smith‚ appointment to teach natural philosophy and logic at the Academy of Philadelphia. After visiting the school in June 1753, Smith wrote A Poem on Visiting the Academy of Philadelphia. Smith‚Äôs credentials were made even stronger when he was ordained as a Church of England clergyman immediately before his 1754 election as a professor at the Academy. In 1755 the Academy was chartered as the College of Philadelphia and Smith was appointed provost, which position he held until 1779 when the College became the University of the State of Pennsylvania; he resumed his position in 1789, when the College was restored, until 1791 when it was merged with the University of the State of Pennsylvania and a new charter issued in the name of the University of Pennsylvania. https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-people/biography/william-smith/
4. Morris Morris, May 5, 1751Other Names and Numbers
Other Number
Foxcroft: Miller 724 (1760); Pemberton and Morris is the earliest version, which is not in Miller; Smith is Miller 598 (1754). This form was used into the 1760's as is evidenced here with having the "fifty" crossed out and "Sixty" written in as is also the case in Miller's example.Condition
Notes
Professionally and archivally framed together with double glass allowign for view of full front and of accomplished signatures on verso.
Of note, the earlier notes have “One Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty” printed where Smith’s prints onle “One Thousand Seven Hundred” leaving the question of a second printing. Miller records only one typeset, that of the one with “Fifty” printed, and the image they have has the word Fifty crossed out and Sixty-One written in, as is the case in the note of Thomas Foxcroft, above