Includes: A.L.s. from Egbert Benson to an unnamed recipient, 2 pp. in ink on single sheet 6¾x7¾. Response to a question of why “the St. Croix Commission omitted to extend the Boundary Line from St. Croix between the Islands and into the main Ocean?... By our Commission we were to decide ‘What River was truly intended in the Treaty of Peace, and to particularize the Latitude and Longitude of its Mouth and Source’ – we decided the Scudiac to be the River, the Mouth of which is properly at the promontory called Devil’s Head; but as the intermediate Water, between it and Joe’s Point, where we decided its Mouth to be, although evidently an arm of the Bay of Passamaquoddy, yet as the French Colonists in 1604, with whom the name of St. Croix originated, considered and denominated it River, we supposed we might conform to their conception…” Dated New York, Jan. 14th, 1802. * Handwritten article or treatise, not in Benson’s hand, 13 pp. on 7 sheets 13x8, in ink, describing at length the boundary dispute, with much historical detail , and the actions of the Commission in resolving the dispute, concluding that “the Boundary should be a Line passing through one of the Passages between the Bay of Fundy and the Bay of Passamaquoddy, that the west passage being unfit for the purpose, having a bar across it which is dry at low water, the next to it must be taken and the Line may be described, Beginning in the Middle of the Channel, of the River at St. Croix its mouth, thence… to the middle of the Channel between Point Pleasant and Deer Island, thence through the Middle of the Channel between Deer Island on the east and north and Moose Island and Campo Bello Island on the west and south…” * 4 manuscript maps: “A Map of Passamaquoddy Bay from Actual Survey,” 14x8½ in.; “Bone Island surveyed in 1797,” 8¼x12¼ in.; map of area between the Bay of Fundy and River St. Laurence, “Copied from Mitchell’s Map,” 4½x12 in.; “Les Chifres montret les brasses d’eau… copied from Champlain Edit. 1613,” 8x11¾ in. * A plain sheet docketed in ink, “Case/ St. Croix Boundary/ sent to RK. By the author E.B.” – RK. Is undoubtedly Rufus King, E.B. of course Egbert Benson. * Plus folder, likely from Parke Bernet, with typed description of the lot, also a sheet of paper with additional typed description lauding the importance of the items, “A Unique Discovery of Superlative Historical Value…”
Very important and significant manuscript presenting the findings of the three-man bilateral commission appointed to resolve the boundary dispute in the northeast between the fledgling United States and Great Britain. Primary to the issue was whether the St. Croix River referred to in early French documents was the Scudiac (preferred by the British) or the Magaguadavic (choice the Americans). The Scudiac prevailed, and the peaceful resolution of the conflict was characteristic of the thawing of relations between Britain and the U.S. in the wake of the Jay Treaty and the waxing power of the Federalists. Egbert Benson (1746-1833), member of the commission and likely author of the 13-page article presented here, represented New York in the Continental Congress and later in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as being the first attorney general of New York and then chief justice of the N.Y. Supreme Court. Provenance: A private California collection.