Rare Autographs, Manuscripts and Aviation Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/27/2016
Harrison, Benjamin. Three 1-page Manuscript Legal Documents. The one for Phlip McNabb vs William Coquilltal is handwritten and signed by Harrison as "Porter, Harrison & Fishback it is endorsed on verso Sept. 23, 1869;. The other two briefs we do not believe are written or signed by Harrison they are signed(as "Harrison & Fishback, Attys for Deft." and "Wallace & Harrison Attys for Deff."), Marion County, Indiana, docketing notes on verso dated Feb. 13, 1862 and Sept. 23, 1869; All three involve civil suits in which Harrison and his partners were counsel for the defendants. In 1858, 25 year-old Benjamin Harrison opened his first law office in Indianapolis in partnership with William Wallace. When Wallace was elected County Clerk in 1860, Harrison found a new partner in William Fishback, who maintained their office while Harrison, having won his first elective office as Reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court, went off to fight in the Civil War. These three documents date from Harrison's legal work, before, during, and after the Civil War - the second written just four months before he went into uniform, serving as Colonel of the 70th Indiana Infantry in Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. Written and signed by Harrison. Legal papers written by Harrison as a young lawyer have become scarce since a small group of such documents were sold in the 1970s; only a few have appeared at auction in the past thirty years.
PRESIDENT BENJAMIN HARRISON AS CIVIL WAR ERA LAWYER
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