Rare Autograph, Photograph and Manuscript Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/13/2017
ADS, signed “J. Marshall,” one page, 7.25 x 5.5, May 22, 1790. Document. In full: “Recd from Mr. Isaac Hite fifty shillings the moity of a fee due to me from the commissioners appointed to ascertain the rents & profits of the lands recovered by the Hites & others from the representatives of the late Lord Fairfax & others which moity it was agreed Mr. Hite should pay to me & deduct it from the sum to be paid to the said commissioners by him.” In very good condition, with small repaired edge separations to intersecting folds, an area of repaired paper loss to the left edge with two affected letters filled in, chipping to edges, and a bit of brushing and mirroring to ink. Accompanied by an engraved portrait by Jackman of NY.
Referring to a lawsuit fifty years in the making, this document concerns a payment for Marshall's legal services. Jost Hite had secured rights to 40,000 acres worth of land in the Shenandoah Valley back in 1731 and was permitted to pick and choose the best tracts, rather than a single wide swath. Lord Thomas Fairfax, the owner of the millions of acres comprising Northern Neck, charged that Hite's 'gerrymandering' of the property constituted 'conspicuous trespass upon his proprietary rights' and initiated the Fairfax vs. Hite lawsuit. When Jost Hite died in 1760, Isaac Hite continued the legal battle and the General Court sided with the Hites in 1769 and 1771, triggering a Fairfax appeal. Fairfax passed away in 1781 while the case was still pending but in 1786, Marshall represented the tenants of Lord Fairfax and won his case and from this time he maintained the leadership of the bar of Virginia. This was a landmark case early in his legal career that established him as a formidable lawyer, eventually leading to his significant 1801 appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
John Marshall-Supreme Court
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