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Partly-printed DS, signed “Rob't Morris,” four pages, 9.25 x 13.25, October 9, 1794. Asylum Company stock certificate No. 156, issued to Philadelphia financier John Nicholson for one share in the company, representing the equivalent of 200 acres of land and entitling him to a corresponding share of the company’s real and personal property. Signed at the conclusion by Robert Morris as president and James Duncan as secretary. The certificate includes the company’s printed Articles of Agreement, dated April 22, 1794, establishing the Asylum Company for the acquisition, settlement, and improvement of Pennsylvania lands, with its capital stock to encompass as much as one million acres. The articles name Morris and Nicholson as the principal parties and set forth 22 provisions governing the company’s landholdings, shares, management, sales, finances, and eventual dissolution. In very good to fine condition, with scattered toning and tape-repaired folds and tears.
The Asylum Company was organized by Robert Morris and John Nicholson under Articles of Agreement dated April 22, 1794, the same agreement printed with this certificate. Established to acquire, settle, and improve vast tracts of Pennsylvania land, the company became closely associated with the French émigré settlement known as Azilum on the Susquehanna River. The community provided a refuge for French exiles fleeing the Revolution, while French political figure Antoine Omer Talon served as a founder and agent and the Vicomte de Noailles was among its investors. The enterprise was even connected with plans to provide a refuge for Marie Antoinette, a tradition preserved in the Pennsylvania State Archives' French Azilum collection.
Nicholson had served as Pennsylvania's comptroller general before resigning his offices in 1794 following impeachment proceedings, and his extensive land speculations ultimately contributed to his financial collapse. Morris was likewise becoming increasingly dependent on credit to sustain his enormous speculative interests; only months before signing this certificate, he had borrowed $10,000 through Alexander Hamilton, part of the mounting financial obligations arising from his land ventures. Their increasingly precarious finances would eventually engulf both men: Nicholson died in debtors' prison in 1800, while Morris was imprisoned for debt from 1798 to 1801.
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