Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/181

 Marshall, who had been a flour merchant, as sharp as a scythe-blade, who had turned his attention to books, book-plates and autographs. At a sale appeared a letter written by James Wilson, the Philadelphia lawyer who did the most in preparing the Constitution of the United States in 1787, and became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to George Washington, introducing to him Colonel Ephraim Blaine, the grandfather of James G. Blaine. I wanted the letter. Marshall bought it for thirty-three dollars. Soon it became noised about over the town in this narrow sphere that I had found the Poe and it was not long before Marshall, who was in a heat over the pursuit of material relating to Poe, came to me to try his luck. I said to him, "Marshall, you and I understand the situation perfectly. We never make the useless inquiry what was paid for a thing. I do not care for the Poe and you have some things I should like to have. If you will make up enough of them to equal in market value the Poe, you may have it. He finally gave me the Wilson letter, a copy of the Philadelphia edition of the Yellow Plush Papers, which, strange to say, is the proof that the first publication of a book of Thackeray occurred in Philadelphia, The Simple Cobbler of Agawam and two or three Franklin imprints, and carried off the book he wanted.

At a sale at the house of a Schwenkfelder family named Kriebel, in Montgomery County, I bought a quantity of material which was sent to my office at 209 South Sixth Street and there, after selecting whatever appeared to be of importance, the residuum of imperfect and more recent papers was thrown on a shelf and there lay for years. It was then carried up to my office at Broad and Chestnut streets and likewise left neglected. It was then taken to my home and piled on an upper shelf. One rainy Sunday afternoon I was turning it over, when the peculiar words concerning a turtle dove singing in the wilderness caught my attention and suggested Ephrata. Thoroughly aroused, Rh