Description:
South Hadley Canal Lottery ticket. Rectagular piece of irregularly cut paper, suggesting that it was cut from a sheet of lottery tickets, printed on its edge with the series of script figure 8s, paper is also printed with the following inscription, "SOUTH HADLEY CANAL LOTTERY. No./ CLASS SEVENTH./12 (in ink)/ THIS shall entitle the Bearer to One Quarter of the Prize/drawn against its Number, if demanded within 12 months./ Deduction 12 1/2 per cent./ D/ QUARTER. No. 75, CORNHILL, BOSTON." The lottery raised money for improvements to the canal, which was completed in 1795. This lottery funded a series of locks to the canal to replace the incline plane which bypassed South Hadley Falls. This particular ticket was from the seventh or final class, which the managers announced from Springfield on December 1, 1804. The managers of the seventh class were Jonathan dwight, John Williams, Joseph Lyman, John Breck, and Samuel Lathrop. The Greenfield Gazette advertised this lottery from January 9 to March 27, 1805. On March 6, 1805, the managers announced the drawing would begin on May 9 and the Gazette would publish the results on May 29th. This lottery ticket does not have a manager's signature - such as Jonathan Dwight inscribed - so it may never have been distributed, which may account for its survival and good condition. There is an oil portrait in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum of a man holding a Massachusetts lottery ticket (presumably winning), 1790.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2000.75 |
