For decades, descendants of America’s Founding Figures have come to Raab to sell their family heirlooms. In just the past few months that has included heirs of his Secretary of War and State Timothy Pickering, Revolutionary War Lt. Col. William De Hart, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Jay
The Raab Collection recently announced a series of landmark offerings of newly discovered historical manuscripts, each acquired directly from the descendants of pivotal figures in early American history and brought to market for the first time.
The materials—spanning the Revolutionary War, the presidency of George Washington, and the diplomacy of John Jay—have all remained in private family hands for more than two centuries. Never before available to collectors or, in some cases, even known to scholars, they represent a rare convergence of fresh discovery, remarkable provenance, and national significance.
Three Washington Letters to Cabinet Member Timothy Pickering
Acquired directly from the descendants of Timothy Pickering, Secretary of War and State under Washington, these three original letters show Washington actively defining the powers of the presidency and consulting his Cabinet on matters of profound national importance, including his first use of executive privilege and public opinion of the Jay Treaty.
The Pickering family kept them as heirlooms for approximately 225 years before bringing them to Raab.
The letters had never before been offered for sale. Raab placed them individually into major American private collections.
The Newly Discovered Jay Treaty Diary
Most recently, Raab acquired and sold another original and unknown piece of history: a remarkable and entirely unpublished diary kept by John Jay during his 1794–1795 diplomatic mission to Great Britain. The manuscript was acquired directly from Jay’s descendants and has never before been available to collectors or the scholarly community.
The diary records nearly 1,000 meetings conducted by Jay during the negotiation of what would become known as the Jay Treaty—the first major international treaty under the U.S. Constitution.
The diary has been sold to an American private collector.
Revolutionary War Orders from Washington in the Field
Also newly sold by Raab were two previously unknown Revolutionary War letters written by Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, acquired from the descendants of Lt. Col. William De Hart. The letters provide a firsthand look at Washington’s battlefield leadership and intelligence operations in late 1779 and early 1780.
Preserved by heirs for over 200 years, both letters were sold to a private collector on the East Coast.
Raab’s Work with Descendants and Heirs
What united these offerings was not only their historical importance, but their origin: each piece came directly from descendants of figures of note to George Washington, who carefully preserved these documents across generations. In an era when many significant manuscripts are held in institutions or have circulated repeatedly in the marketplace, the arrival of entirely fresh and important material is exceptionally rare.
Raab has emerged as a primary destination for descendants of historically prominent figures to sell their family treasures. These include not only descendants of Washington’s cabinet members and colonels, but heirs of John Hancock, as well as those of scientific acquaintances of Albert Einstein, correspondents of J.R.R. Tolkien, and Napoleon’s senior aide to camp, among others. Worth magazine named The Raab Collection “a global authority in important historical documents and autographs, advising beyond commerce into scholarship and discovery, placing newly surfaced materials with major institutions and private stewards alike.”
