Manuscript DS in the hand of Samuel Adams, signed “John Hancock” and “Samuel Adams” and also signed by more than 50 others, three pages on two sheets slightly trimmed in size to 7.25 x 12, July 12, 1773. A petition for the granting of a liquor license. In part: “To the worshipful the Justices of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace for the County of Suffolk and the Selectmen of the Town of Boston: The Petition of George Fetcham of said Boston honorably sheweth that your Petitioner having spent the most of this Days in hard but honest Labor, is now by Reason of Age and Infirmity, become unable any longer to work at the Business of a Shipwright, to which he was brought up in this Town. But being still desirous of doing all in his Power for a comfortable Support, without being burdensome to others, he has with great pains & frugality erected a very small building, convenient for him to keep a Ship for the Sale of a few of the necessary Articles of Life to the Neighborhood. And as it is convenient also for the sale of Spiritous Liquors by Retail to the Boatmen and others at the Wharves he therefore prays that he may have a License granted to him to sell such Liquors by Retail at the said Shop in Purchase Street....” In addition to Hancock and Adams, other prominent signers include Thomas Urann, Daniel Ingersoll, and Samuel Sloper (all participants in the Boston Tea Party in the following December), Oliver Wendell (judge and grandfather of poet Oliver Wendell Holmes), and Sam Hodgdon (later appointed by Washington as the first U.S. Quartermaster General). In very good condition overall, with intersecting folds (a few pinholes and edge separations; vertical fold through Hancock’s “H”; a few archival tape and silking reinforcements to folds), marginal archival tape along edges where sheets were formerly joined, light show-through of ink, and scattered soiling, toning, and light staining. The signatures are dark and clear. A scarce and historic combination of two fabled American statesmen! R&R COA.
