Trent and Croghan's Bond
Franklin's press lived on blank forms — bonds, indentures, powers of attorney — printed by the ream and filled in by hand, and almost all of them were used up and thrown away. This one survived because of who signed it. On September 7, 1750, William Trent and George Croghan, the two Pennsylvania fur traders whose business ran farther west than anyone's, bound themselves to the Philadelphia hatter Jeremiah Warder for two thousand pounds, payable the following October. Two witnesses, two seals, a docket on the back.
The form lacks an imprint but is Franklin's work, a variant of Miller 10. Trent would go on to build the first British fort at the Forks of the Ohio, and Croghan to represent the traders' claims in London; both reappear in this collection in William Franklin's 1769 letter about the Otsego tract. Here they are at the start, in Philadelphia, borrowing money on a piece of Franklin's printing.
[Franklin Imprint]. Know all Men by these Presents That [William Trent & George Croghan
A Franklin bond form by which Trent and Croghan, 'merchants' of Pennsborough in Cumberland County, bind themselves to the Philadelphia hatter Jeremiah Warder, signed and sealed by both. Trent would build the fort at the Forks of the Ohio that the French took and renamed Duquesne; Croghan was the greatest Indian trader of his age. The press at the service of the frontier.