Pennsylvania General Assembly | Session laws spanning thirty years

(Pennsylvania General Assembly — Benjamin Franklin)

(Group of 38 Pennsylvania Session Acts) Anno Regni Georgii II [...Georgi III]. Regis, Magnae Britanniae, Franciae & Hiberniae ... At a General Assembly of the province of Pennsylvania, begun and holden at Philadelphia. Philadelphia: printed and sold by Benjamin Franklin, [and others], 1739-69.

56 pamphlets, mostly folio (from 275 x 165 to 345 x 215 mm), ranging from 2 to 98 pages. Woodcut Penn family arms to titles, occasional woodcut ornaments and typographic tables in text; the condition varies, with some pamphlets soiled, spotted, and toned, while others are quite fresh and bright, all have been disbound and resewn, professionally conserved with Japanese tissue along the spines, a few pamphlets with additional paper repairs, most notably to the May 1739 pamphlet, infrequent dampstains, edge tears, and creases, most with library stamps and modern pencil annotations to titles, occasional early ink annotations, the collection includes 7 duplicates. Each pamphlet in an archival windowed folder, and the folders are then housed in four large grey cloth clamshell cases with paper labels.

An extensive collection that spans thirty years of the acts and laws passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, printed by Benjamin Franklin.

From 1682 until the beginning of the Revolutionary War, The General Assembly was the main legislative body for the colony of Pennsylvania. Franklin was elected official government printer of both the Session Laws and the Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly in 1730. He continued in this role until 1765, when he sold his remaining shares in his printing business to his longtime partner, David Hall. He also served as clerk for the Assembly from 1736 to 1750, and as an elected member representing Philadelphia from 1751–64, and again in 1773 and 1775. On 26 May, 1764, Franklin was unanimously elected the 25th Speaker of the Assembly, a position he did not hold for long. Later that year, on 11 October, after having proposed a letter to the King requesting a change in the colony's government from proprietorship to a royal charter, he lost his seat in the Assembly.

These acts cover a vast array of topics, providing insight into nearly all aspects of civic and private life all throughout the colony. For example, they range from the hyper-specific, like commuting a single prisoner's sentence, to the very broad, such as changes to the colony's judicial system. Included are laws regulating politics, finance, taxation, infrastructure, wildlife, public safety, slavery, and much more. Of particular note are the acts founding two of Pennsylvania's counties, those that deal with colonial relations with American Indians, and a series of laws regulating volunteer militias and commissioned soldiers during the French and Indian War.

The creation of two of the charitable institutions that Franklin had a hand in are also represented — the act establishing The Pennsylvania Hospital, together with the system of promissory notes that funded it (see lots 60 and 61), and the act that created the Philadelphia Contributionship, America's first successful fire insurance company (see lot 100), are both included.

A list of all the individual sessions, with descriptions of some of their acts, laws, and particularities, follows:

Box I:

• 1 May, 1739: early ownership signature of Robert Dawson, 1739
• 7 May, 1744: "An Act for laying an Excise on Wine, Rum, Brandy, and other Spirits"
• 7 March, 1745: Acts "for Erecting Houses of Correction and Work-Houses... to build a Court-House..."
• 9 June, 1746: "An Act for imposing a Duty on Persons Convicted of heinous Crimes, &c"
• 3 May, 1747: "Securing the City of Philadelphia from the Danger of Gunpowder"
• 2 January, 1749: "To Regulate Horse-Jockeys and Dealers in Horses"; "to Encourage the Killing of Squirrels"
• 7 August, 1750: Protecting the citizens of remote Western Lancaster County
• 1 January, 1750: Creation of Cumberland County; prohibiting the importation of too many Germans in a single ship; amending the act to encourage killing squirrels and hunting deer out of season
• 6 August, 1750
• 7 January, 1751: Surveying Cumberland County; Suppressing fire, drunkenness, and idleness; Philadelphia nightly watch
• 6 May, 1751: The creation of Pennsylvania Hospital — "An Act to encourage the establishing of an Hospital for the Relief of the Sick Poor of this Province, and for the Reception and Cure of Lunaticks."
• 3 February, 1752: Creation of Berks County; preventing bribery and corruption in the elections of sheriffs and coroners.
• 10 August, 1752
• 15 September, 1755
• 15 November, 1755: Ordering and regulating volunteer militias,
• 2 January, 1758: Regulating commissioned officers and soldiers.
• 2 January [but apparently April], 1758
• [May, 1758]: Granting a duty on wine and sugar for supporting the war effort; punishing mutiny and desertion; Lacks title
• 4 September, 1758
• 5 February, 1759: "preventing abuses in the Indian trade; for supplying the Indians, friends and allies of Great Britain with goods at more easy rates; and for securing and strengthening peace and friendship lately concluded with the Indians inhabiting the northern and western frontiers of this province."

Box II:

• 2 January [but April], 1758
• 8 July, 1763
• 30 September, 1763: Erecting a lighthouse on Cape Henlopen, and fixing buoys in the bay and on the Delaware River; Paving the streets of Philadelphia
• 22 October, 1763: Prohibiting the sale of arms to American Indians
• 30 May, 1764: Published during Franklin's short tenure as Speaker of the General Assembly, with Franklin mentioned on p. 352
• 15 February, 1765: Raising a lottery for finishing the construction of St. Peter's and St. Paul's Churches in Philadelphia, and for other Episcopal churches throughout the state; relief for specific persons imprisoned for their debts
• 18 May, 1765: Repairing public roads

Box III:

• 21 May, 1759
• [After May, 1759]: for recording of warrants and surveys; lacks title
• 11 February, 1760
• 14 March, 1761: Regulating waggoners, carters, draymen, and porters in the City of Philadelphia; the preservation of fish in the Delaware, Susquehanna, Lehigh, and Schuylkill rivers; raising, paying, and clothing 300 men to relieve the forts and posts around Pittsburgh; a duty on slaves imported into Pennsylvania
• 23 April, 1761: supplement to the act laying a duty on imported slaves
• 26 September, 1761
• 17 February, 1762: suppressing and preventing lotteries,
• 26 March, 1762
• 3 May, 1762
• 4 March, 1763: Removing "certain nuisances," mostly drunkards and thieves, from Philadelphia; regulating streets, water courses, and sewers in Philadelphia, regulating apprentices in Pennsylvania; repaying those whose Apprentices have joined the militia
• 8 July, 1763: duplicate
• 30 September, 1763: duplicate
• 22 October, 1763: duplicate
• 24 March 1764: "For Preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters"; repeal of an earlier law about intestate estates
• 30 May, 1764: duplicate
• 22 September, 1764
• 15 February, 1765: duplicate

Box IV:

• 18 May, 1765: duplicate
• 21 September, 1765; Allowing Lancaster to raise funds for a night watch, "For the more easy recovery of legacies," a lottery to erect a bridge over Skippack Creek in Philadelphia
• 21 September, 1765; duplicate
• 8 February, 1766: stopping citizens from cutting ropes used by Ferrymen; for employment, relief, and support of Philadelphia's poor; Printed by D. Hall
• 21 February, 1767: to prevent mischief from the increase of vagabonds in Philadelphia; "for the advancement of justice and more certain administration thereof"; Printed by D. Hall, and W. Sellers
• 20 May, 1967: Raising 20,000 pounds for the support of the province and payment of public debt; appointing wardens for the port of Philadelphia: Printed by William Goddard
• 20 September, 1766: Printed by D. Hall, and W. Sellers
• 26 September, 1767: "Obliging sheriffs and treasurers... and the collector of the duties of tonnage, to give sufficient sureties for the faithful execution of their trust"; Printed by D. Hall, and W. Sellers
• 20 February, 1768: "to remove the persons now settled, and to prevent others from settling, on any lands in the province not purchased of the Indians"; "raising... the sum of three thousand pounds towards removing the present discontent of the Indians, regaining their friendship..."; "An act for the incorporating the Society, known by the name and stile of The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insuring of Houses from Loss by Fire..."; Printed by D. Hall, and W. Sellers
• 18 February, 1769: various infrastructure and building projects in and around Philadelphia; prosecuting those behind a failed lottery scheme to build a school-house for a High Dutch Reformed Church congregation in Lancaster; a divorce on the grounds of adultery in Lancaster; Printed by D. Hall, and W. Sellers
• 27 May, 1769: Printed by D. Hall, and W. Sellers
• 30 September, 1769: Printed by D. Hall, and W. Sellers

REFERENCES

Miller 175; 360; 401; 402; 429; 482; 483; 512; 513; 538; 539; 560; 561; 617; 618; 686; 687; 688; 691; 708; 709; 735; 757; 758; 759; 777; 778; 779; 790; 791; 792; 793; 817; 818; 844; 845; 846

PROVENANCE

Most from the New York City Bar Association (library stamps and pencil annotations; sold Doyle Auctions, 24 November, 2014)