Fantastic full free frank as president, measuring 9.75 x 7.5 unfolded with a central panel of 5 x 3.25, addressed in another hand to "Mr. Mathew Carey, Philadelphia," and franked in the lower left by George Washington, "President, U.S." A docketing notation in another hand is written on the lower edge, "New York, May 21, 1789, Gen. Washington." Stamped in black ink with postal cancelations, "Free" and "N. York, May 22." Handsomely mounted, cloth-matted, and framed with a portrait to an overall size of 29 x 19. In fine condition.
Mathew Carey was an Irish-born American publisher and economist who lived and worked in Philadelphia, and is best remembered for his important magazine The American Museum, which counted the likes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson among its subscribers. He had written to Washington on April 21st, asking if he would be willing to select meaningful documents from the Revolutionary War for publication: 'I have begun & mean to continue a series of documents & public papers, respecting the most interesting circumstances, skirmishes, and battles of the revolution…If your excellency’s numerous avocations allowed to select from your papers those most interesting to the public, it would be of general benefit.'
Washington was inaugurated as president at Federal Hall in New York City on April 30, 1789, just three weeks prior to the docketed date on this free frank. His papers record his reply to Carey of May 21st, evidently carried under this cover: 'However desireous I am to encourage or promote useful publications, it is not in my power to comply with the request…to select from my papers such documents of interesting circumstances, skirmishes & battles of the Revolution, as would enable you to prosecute the design which you have begun of publishing in the American Museum a series of documents and public papers; for all the papers in my possession relative to the Revolution are packed up in trunks and boxes at Mount Vernon.'
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