The Dartmouth College Library has obtained a rare copy of an 1830 book written by Daniel Webster, with a brief message penned by Webster on one of the volume's front pages.
Webster, a member of the class of 1801, inscribed the book with a short message before giving it in 1831 to John Marshall, the Supreme Court chief justice.
Webster argued the Dartmouth College v. Woodward case in front of Marshall and successfully preventing New Hampshire's attempt to make Dartmouth a public university.
The inscription reads, "Mr. Webster begs Chief Justice Marshalls [sic] acceptance of this vol. Jan'y 22nd, 1831."
Although the volume is not rare, Webster's inscription made this particular copy valuable to the school, which contacted Roger Malkin '52 for the $12,500 necessary to procure the book, according to Stanley Brown, curator of rare books for the Dartmouth College Library.
The library already had in its possession the thank-you note Marshall wrote to Webster after receiving the book. That note is part of the library's manuscript collection.
"We didn't really know what the note referred to until the book showed up," Brown said. "It was clear from the note that Webster had given him a copy of his speeches and arguments."
The book will eventually become part of the library's collection of books and documents relating to Daniel Webster, Brown said, although it is currently sitting in the library's vault.
A 1914 account of the book claimed Marshall had given it to a friend who settled in Minnesota, Brown said. One of the friend's descendants found the book in an attic of their Minnesota home in 1903.
A different collector found the book in a bookstore in Vancouver in the 1980s after it had been lost for seven decades, Brown said. That collector got in touch with a San Francisco dealer who has dealt with the Dartmouth College Library in the past. The San Francisco dealer then contacted Brown.
"I identified this as something which we really wanted and ... Roger [Malkin was identified as someone who] might be interested in helping us buy it," Brown said.
Brown said there were no problems authenticating the piece. "The bookstore [in San Francisco] simply needed to verify the handwriting," Brown said. To do this, the bookstore compared other samples of Webster's handwriting with the message in the book.
