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Summary: A Pennsylvania patriot writes to a Loyalist (or neutral) friend and associate in Philadelphia, asking him to attend to some of his business interests and to attend to the needs of his slaves. The British had occupied Philadelphia on September 26 – a month before this letter – and would remain in command of the former Continental capital until June, 1777. George Washington’s army spent this cold winter at Valley Forge twenty-five miles west of Philadelphia, while Keen remained in Reading, out of harm’s way.
Reynold Keen. Autograph Letter Signed, to John Lukens. Reading [Pennsylvania], October 31, 1777. 8 x 13”. 1 p. Integral address leaf.
Inventory# 21408 $750
Partial Transcript:
“The line at present that is drawn between us puts it out of my power of attending not only to my own property in Philada., but also to the property of my niece Miss Stout, for whose interest I feel myself much concerned … My old Negro woman in Sixth Street I hope will find a friend in you if she should stand in need. I have three Negro's hired with the Plantation in the Northern Liberties who will want warm stockings at this season and I suppose must be in want of Shirts (other cloaths they have); therefore request the favour of you to tell the tenant Rudolph Mower to furnish them with those articles and I will discompt it out of the Rent at a future day or if he is backward in doing it Mrs Keens aunt Mrs. Rohn will furnish them upon the Negroes applying there ...”
On verso, Keen has listed the “Houses in Philad belonging to the Est. of Mr. Joseph Stout deceased …”, with a rent schedule.
Historical Background:
Pennsylvania was still a society with slaves, if not a slave society, during the Revolutionary era. There were roughly 6000 slaves in 1765 in Pennsylvania. Many of them worked for Philadelphia merchants as house servants and stevedores, while others labored on large-scale inland farms.
Quaker spokesmen such as Anthony Benezet and George Clymer, with non-Quaker luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, and Thomas Paine all published tracts against slavery during the 1770s and 1780s. In 1780, the legislature passed an Abolition Act – the first of its kind in the Northern states – holding that owners could permanently retain all slaves born before 1780, and keep all babies born to slave mothers thereafter, until age 28. This served as model legislation for other states – such as New Jersey and New York – who adapted gradual abolition. It was actually quite conservative. Total abolition did not come to Pennsylvania until 1847. Massachusetts and other New England states, by contrast, ended slavery by judicial ruling.
Reynold Keen was later elected an alderman of Philadelphia. He lived at 20 South Sixth Street, between Market and Chestnut, two blocks from Independence Hall. When Northern Liberties Township became part of Philadelphia in 1854, its population of 47,223 made Philadelphia America’s second largest city, passing Baltimore.
References:
Nash, Gary, and Jean R. Soderlund. Freedom By Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and its Aftermath (New York, 1991).
Condition: Partial separations at horizontal folds at edges. Fine condition.
Provenance: Ex. Henry E. Luhrs Collection.
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