GOV. NATHANIEL P. BANKS SIGNED MASSACHUSETTS JUSTICE OF THE PEACE COMMISSION, 1858, WITH OATH CERTIFICATE AND BRADY/ANTHONY CDV OF BANKS

GOV. NATHANIEL P. BANKS SIGNED MASSACHUSETTS JUSTICE OF THE PEACE COMMISSION, 1858, WITH OATH CERTIFICATE AND BRADY/ANTHONY CDV OF BANKS

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Partly printed document signed, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, March 29, 1858, appointing George B. Crane of Norton, Bristol County, Esquire, one of the Justices of the Peace within and for said County for a term of seven years. Signed at left margin by Governor Nath'l P. Banks and countersigned at lower right by Oliver Warner, Secretary of the Commonwealth. Engraved script and blackletter text on blue paper, with the blind-embossed arms of the Commonwealth at upper left. Dated in the eighty-second year of American Independence.

The conjugate leaf carries the completed printed oath certificate. It records that George B. Crane, Esquire, personally appeared on October 17, 1859 and took the oaths prescribed by the Constitution of the Commonwealth and a law of the United States to qualify him to execute the trust reposed in him by the within commission. Signed before Eliphalet Trask, Lieutenant Governor (in office 1858-1861). Bifolium, each leaf approx. 10 1/4 x 16 3/4 in.

Nathaniel Prentiss Banks (1816-1894) had served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives before taking office as Governor of Massachusetts in January 1858, only weeks before signing this commission. He held the governorship until 1861. That spring, Lincoln commissioned him a major general of volunteers. Banks went on to command against Stonewall Jackson in the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign and at Cedar Mountain. He later took the surrender of Port Hudson in 1863 and led the ill-fated Red River Campaign of 1864. Oliver Warner served as Secretary of the Commonwealth from 1858 until 1876.

Accompanied by a carte de visite of Banks.  Full-length standing portrait of Banks in civilian dress, top hat in hand, posed beside a column and drapery. Imprinted "Brady, N.Y." on the image. The back mark reads "Published by E. Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York, from Photographic Negative from Brady's National Portrait Gallery." Period ink identification "Hon. N. P. Banks" at top of reverse, pencil "10" below. Probably issued circa 1860-61, before his entry into military service.

A later portrait of Banks is a photomechanically printed half-length portrait of an elderly, white-haired gentleman with a full mustache, on a card mount approx. 5 1/2 x 8 in. overall. Believed to depict Banks in his later years.

CONDITION:  The commission shows original folds with light wear and minor separation along the horizontal fold, and scattered small foxing spots. Signatures are strong and fully legible. The outer blank page has remnants of old mounting tape at corners and edges and areas of bluish staining from former mounting; a partial papermaker's watermark dated 1856 is visible in transmitted light. The oath leaf has a small loss at the upper corner. The CDV is in good condition overall: light soiling to the mount, scrapbook-removal scuffs on the reverse, and a small surface scrape to the back mark. The later portrait has a tide-line water stain across the lower margin of the mount that does not affect the image.

 

A complete Massachusetts commission, signed early in Banks's governorship and retaining its executed oath certificate, paired with an identified Brady/Anthony carte of the future major general.   [jet][ph:L]

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