Manuscript DS, one page, 19.25 x 25, December 31, 1774. Indenture agreement between Samuel Hudson and Tobias Rudolph, signed at the bottom by Benjamin Chew, Moses Levy, Joseph Swift, and James Stuart. Affixed to the left side of the indenture is another manuscript DS, signed “John Penn,” one page, 8 x 13, dated January 31, 1775. Penn’s document attests “I do hereby certify that Benjamin Chew…now is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the said Province of Pennsylvania duly and legally appointed.” Signed at the conclusion by Penn and countersigned by Joseph Shippen, Jr. In very good condition, with intersecting folds to both documents, light fading to Chew’s and Stuart’s signatures, writing on indenture a couple shades light but still completely legible, and light creasing and wrinkling. The red wax seals are cracked, but mostly intact.
Ten days prior to the Hudson-Rudolph indenture agreement signed by Levy, attorney Swift, Stuart, and Chew, England banned all trade with the American colonies with the passing of The Prohibitory Act of 1774, establishing a naval blockade at Colonial ports to quell the growing rebellion by disrupting trade. This act officially declared war on the colonies and marked the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.
The second document attested to Chew's legal appointment and was countersigned by Penn and Secretary of Pennsylvania Shippen. Chew was a prominent Philadelphia lawyer and the head of Pennsylvania's Judiciary System when he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Province of Pennsylvania on January 31, 1775. Raised as a Quaker, Chew supported the colonies but opposed independence, believing that resolution of the differences between the colonies and the British Parliament lay in legal reform not conflict. While he spoke publicly of British abuses, his pacifism caused the colonials to question his loyalties and his liberty was restricted in 1776. At the end of the war, Chew, a firm believer in the legal process, helped the Founding Fathers draft the United States Constitution and The Bill of Rights free of charge. RRAuction COA.
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