Product Details

Intricately engraved antique stock certificate from the City of Boston dating back to the 1840's. This document, which is signed by Boston's Mayor (Josiah Quincy, Jr.) and Treasurer, was printed by the New England Bank Note Company and measures approximately 12 1/8 (w) by 9" (h).

This beautiful piece has six amazing vignettes ringing the outside.

Very rare piece!

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Historical Context

Bonds for Boston water scrip were authorized by the Act for supplying the City of Boston with pure water, enacted by the Legislature in 1846. The bonds were issued to help pay for several million dollars in loans for the new waterworks, which would bring water to the city from Lake Cochituate.

Much public debate about incurring the debt took place beforehand, but the celebratory gala and parade on October 25, 1848 was one of the largest in the city's history, memorialized in graphic prints and original music.

Josiah Quincy, Jr.

Josiah Quincy Jr.'s Signature

Josiah Quincy, Jr. attended Philips' Academy, Andover and graduated from Harvard College in 1821.

He was elected a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts in 1823 and became its captain in 1829 at the age of 27.

He was the author of Figures of the Past (1883).

As a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1837, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Massachusetts Board of Education. He built the Josiah Quincy Mansion in 1848.

He was elected to the Boston City Council in 1833 and served as its president from 1834 to 1857.

He served as mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849, and was treasurer of the Boston Athenaeum from 1837 to 1852.

His brother Edmund (1808–1877) was a prominent abolitionist, and author of the biography of his father and of a romance, Wensley (1854). A sister, Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy Waterston, was a writer; and another sister, Eliza Susan (1798–1884) was her father's secretary and the biographer of her mother.

Quincy had two sons — Josiah Phillips (1829–1910), a lawyer, who wrote, besides some verse, The Protection of Majorities (1876) and Double Taxation in Massachusetts (1889); and Samuel Miller (1833–1887), who practised law, wrote on legal subjects, served in the Union army during the Civil War, and was breveted brigadier-general of volunteers in 1865.