A Century of Newly Discovered History: The Allen Archive

The Raab Collection announced today that it has acquired a large and important archive of history, following the historic Wheelock and Allen families, from the 1740s through the mid 1800s.  The vast majority of this correspondence is unpublished. It was acquired by Raab directly from the heirs of the Allens and has never before been offered for sale.

Among the many individual pieces:

  • An important broadside relating to the founding of Dartmouth
  • A vivid description of the formation of a company of Minute Men in March 1775, written by Thomas Allen, the “Fighting Parson”
  • Diary fragments, recovered off the drowned body of Moses Allen, describing his friend Mordeai Sheftall’s attempts to keep Kosher while in British captivity in 1779
  • A letter of Moses Allen from captivity aboard the Prison Ship Nancy
  • Detailed descriptions of life at Princeton (College of New Jersey) in the 1770s
  • A rare letter of famed revivalist Rev. Jonathan Edwards to Eleazar Wheelock
  • Descriptions of life and religion in Charleston, SC during the Revolutionary War
  • Documentation relating to the growth of Bowdoin College, and Lafayette’s visit to the region
  • An unpublished letter of Abigail Adams
  • A rare letter of the highest ranking Jewish patriot Mordecai Sheftall, describing his captivity during the war

“It is an honor to have discovered such an important trove of history, long safeguarded by generations of one family,” said Karen Pearlman Raab.

Raab has worked with the families of many great historical figures on the treasures that have descended to them, including Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James K. Polk, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Jackson, Gerald Ford, Signers of the Declaration of Independence, senior leadership in the Civil War, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It has worked to bring to the market many unpublished historical archives from all over the world.

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