![LYNCH, Thomas, Jr. (1749-1779). Clipped signature (“Lynch”), cut from a leaf in a book once owned by him. n.p., n.d., [c.1767].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2017/NYR/2017_NYR_14376_0344_000(lynch_thomas_jr_clipped_signature_cut_from_a_leaf_in_a_book_once_owned031637).jpg?w=1)
PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR
LYNCH, Thomas, Jr. (1749-1779). Clipped signature (“Lynch”), cut from a leaf in a book once owned by him. n.p., n.d., [c.1767].
Details
LYNCH, Thomas, Jr. (1749-1779). Clipped signature (“Lynch”), cut from a leaf in a book once owned by him. n.p., n.d., [c.1767].
19 x 38mm, mounted on 88 x 131mm card, in turn affixed to a larger piece of cardstock bearing an ALS by Lyman Draper (1815-1891), Hillsdale, California, 13 January 1890, attesting to the provenance.
The exceptionally rare signature of a Signer who died at age 30. Lynch died three years after signing the Declaration of Independence at age only 30; he was the youngest to die of any of the fifty-six Signers. This signature was clipped, like nearly all of the surviving examples, from a book in his library. The handwritten authentication of the historian Lyman C. Draper notes that “This Lynch signature was discovered & obtained from a descendant of a sister of the Signer, of North Carolina, since the printing of my Essay on the Autograph Collections of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence & of the Constitution – it was taken from the fly-leaf of a volume of Swift’s Works published in London, in 1766...”
Thomas Lynch Jr. of South Carolina sprung from an aristocratic family of planters, studied at Eton and Cambridge and read law in London. His father, Thomas Lynch Sr., served in the Continental Congress from 1774, but suffered a stroke in early 1776. His son went to Philadelphia to care for his ailing father and also to serve in Congress in his place. The Lynch’s were the only father-son team to serve concurrently in Congress. The young South Carolinian attended session during the eventful period of May to November 1776, and voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence, before he and his father returned to South Carolina. In 1779, the thirty-year-old Lynch and his wife left South Carolina for southern France on a ship that foundered. A total of eighty-one Lynch autographs have been inventoried by Dr. Joseph E. Fields; of these, the overwhelming majority derive from books owned by Lynch; fully 48 consist of a clipped signature. Lyman C. Draper, Director of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, obtained a group of clipped Lynch signatures from a descendant of Lynch between 1889 (when he published an Essay on the Autographic Collections of the Signers) and 1891, the year of his death. Among these were a series of clipped signatures from the title-pages of an eighteen volume edition of Swift, apparently purchased by the young Lynch when he was a law student in England from 1766 to 1770. A list of the present locations of these is given by Joseph T. Fields, “A Signer and His Signatures or The Library of Thomas Lynch, Jr.,” Harvard Library Bulletin, xiv, 2 (Spring 1960), pp. 210-252.
19 x 38mm, mounted on 88 x 131mm card, in turn affixed to a larger piece of cardstock bearing an ALS by Lyman Draper (1815-1891), Hillsdale, California, 13 January 1890, attesting to the provenance.
The exceptionally rare signature of a Signer who died at age 30. Lynch died three years after signing the Declaration of Independence at age only 30; he was the youngest to die of any of the fifty-six Signers. This signature was clipped, like nearly all of the surviving examples, from a book in his library. The handwritten authentication of the historian Lyman C. Draper notes that “This Lynch signature was discovered & obtained from a descendant of a sister of the Signer, of North Carolina, since the printing of my Essay on the Autograph Collections of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence & of the Constitution – it was taken from the fly-leaf of a volume of Swift’s Works published in London, in 1766...”
Thomas Lynch Jr. of South Carolina sprung from an aristocratic family of planters, studied at Eton and Cambridge and read law in London. His father, Thomas Lynch Sr., served in the Continental Congress from 1774, but suffered a stroke in early 1776. His son went to Philadelphia to care for his ailing father and also to serve in Congress in his place. The Lynch’s were the only father-son team to serve concurrently in Congress. The young South Carolinian attended session during the eventful period of May to November 1776, and voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence, before he and his father returned to South Carolina. In 1779, the thirty-year-old Lynch and his wife left South Carolina for southern France on a ship that foundered. A total of eighty-one Lynch autographs have been inventoried by Dr. Joseph E. Fields; of these, the overwhelming majority derive from books owned by Lynch; fully 48 consist of a clipped signature. Lyman C. Draper, Director of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, obtained a group of clipped Lynch signatures from a descendant of Lynch between 1889 (when he published an Essay on the Autographic Collections of the Signers) and 1891, the year of his death. Among these were a series of clipped signatures from the title-pages of an eighteen volume edition of Swift, apparently purchased by the young Lynch when he was a law student in England from 1766 to 1770. A list of the present locations of these is given by Joseph T. Fields, “A Signer and His Signatures or The Library of Thomas Lynch, Jr.,” Harvard Library Bulletin, xiv, 2 (Spring 1960), pp. 210-252.