Boston: (Press of Rockwell & Churchill), 1889. Frontispiece, plates. Cloth over boards. Quarto. 97 pages. Near fine. Bound in dark brown cloth over boards with dark brown coated endpapers. Blind-stamped border rules to both boards, City of Boston seal stamped in gilt on upper board, in blind on lower board, spine titled in gilt. Slight rubs to extremities, bump to lower fore corner of upper board.

Crispus Attucks was the first American killed in the Revolutionary War when he led other Boston citizens in a clash with British soldiers in the incident known to history as the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770. Attucks was a mulatto of African and Indian blood who had escaped slavery 20 years earlier.

Massachusetts commissioned a monument to Attucks after a petition by prominent citizens in 1887. The contract was awarded to Robert Kraus, a recent emigrant from Germany, at a cost not to exceed $10,000. The monument was unveiled and dedicated on Boston Common in November, 1889. This handsome volume, by the City of Boston, contains those ceremonial proceedings as well as the history of the monument and the men it commemorates.

Frederick Douglass was asked to give the main address at the dedication but was too busy. His letter declining the invitation is included herein, and contains his eloquent thoughts on Attucks, the recognition of a man of color by the State of Massachusetts. Other addresses and letters included, along with few illustrations. Scarce in the marketplace.

Item #962

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