[FRANKLIN IMPRINT]

[FRANKLIN IMPRINT].

By the Proprietaries. To Benjamin Eastburn, Surveyor General.

[FRANKLIN IMPRINT]. By the Proprietaries. To Benjamin Eastburn, Surveyor General. [Philadelphia: Printed by Benjamin Franklin, 1733]. (Miller States "1733?")

This is a variant of this early example of Franklin's printing, done in the first five years of his career.

This land warrant form is signed by John Penn, eldest son of William Penn, and his brother Thomas Penn, co-proprietors, with their brother Richard, of the colony. It records the leasing of 200 acres of land "at the Head of the Doe Run adjoin'd to Robert Henry's and John Rinkin's Settlements" in Chester County to John Henry. The document, dated 12 July 1734, directs Benjamin Eastburn to survey the land. John Penn, the only child of William Penn, was proprietor from 1718 to his death in 1746. Thomas Penn managed his father's colony from 1732 to 1741. Eastburn was Surveyor General over roughly the same period, and has added a manuscript note to the document instructing a deputy surveyor "to execute the above warrant & make a return thereof into my office."

Miller identifies this form as a product of Franklin's press "on the evidence of type and frequent entries in the shopbooks." He notes that there are at least seven versions of the form with variant type settings and occasional modifications in the text." Such early examples of Franklin's printing are very rare in the market. On the verso of the frame are a number of signatures of members of the Jordan family of Philadelphia from the early nineteenth century.

From Catalog III

A land warrant form from Franklin's first five years, signed by John and Thomas Penn as proprietors, leasing two hundred acres at the head of Doe Run in Chester County to John Henry and directing the Surveyor General to lay it out. The Penns' province, parcelled into farms on Franklin's paper. The collection also holds the later form addressed to Eastburn's successor Nicholas Scull.