Signatures / Unsigned Portraits.
It's been noted that U.S. vice president Wilson (1873-75) began as a cobbler (actually, he founded a successful shoe factory), but never that he might perchance have cobbled shoes using leather from the tannery of his future commander in chief, President Ulysses S. Grant, who worked at (and despised) his father's tannery in Galena, Illinois; an ardent antislavery advocate, Wilson founded the Free-Soil party when he left the Whig party in 1848, then in 1854 joined the American (Know-Nothing) party -- but it was as a Republican that he was elected as senator from Massachusetts (1855-73); Grant's second vice president, he was the third second-in-chief to die in office. Sumner was the most fiery and influential of abolitionists and represented Massachusetts in the Senate from 1851 to 1874; his antislavery sentiments earned him an infamous beating on the floor of the Senate from a South Carolina representative, Preston S. Brooks, leaving injuries that plagued him the rest of his life. Item #51988
On a single 5" X 8½" sheet, likely a book front flyleaf, Wilson signs large and bold in brown ink, adding "Mass." below; under this, Sumner signs boldly, adding "Mass." below. Near fine. Undated, but Wilson and Sumner's Senate careers overlapped between 1855 and 1873. Accompanied by two fine heavy stock steel-engraved head-and-shoulders portraits, each 5" X 8½". Wilson is shown later in life, with facsimile signature beneath, and Sumner appears within an oval as a young man in this aquatint engraving. A delightful trio.
Price: $250.00