[Rochester, New York State.] Manuscript ‘Arbitration Bond’, with ‘the very rare signature of Everard Peck, pioneer printer Father of Wm. F. Peck’ and that of Walter S. Griffith.

Accompanying this item is a piece of paper with the following note in a mid-twentieth-century hand: ‘Interesting because of the very rare signature of Everard Peck, pioneer printer Father of Wm. F. Peck’. He was a bookbinder from Connecticut who moved to Rochester around 1816 and opened a bookstore. He moved into printing and publishing, founded the successful weekly Telegraph newspaper and later became a banker. He was a generous benefactor of the early city, co-founding the University of Rochester and the Rochester Orphan Asylum and becoming a leader in the Female Charitable Society. He was a member of the Pioneer Society of Rochester and Western N. Y., founded on September 30th 1847 at the Blossom Hotel in Rochester. Membership was open to local residents who had lived in the area since before 1825. The Peck family papers are in the University of Rochester. See Griffith’s obituary in the New York Times, 26 November 1872. 2pp, folio. Fifty-two lines of text, with some underlining in red. In a worn leaf and discoloured leaf of paper, with chipping and closed tears to edges, but no loss of text. Folded twice into packet, docketed: ‘Walter S. Griffith / to / Lewis Setze / Arbitration Bond’. Signed by ‘Walter S. Griffith’ and witnessed by ‘E. Peck’. Begins: ‘Know all men by these Presents, that I, Walter S. Griffith, of the City of Rochester in the County of Monroe and State of New York, am held and firmly bound unto Lewis Selze of the same place, in the sum of ten thousand dollars, lawful money of the United States of America’. Sets out that ‘disputes and differences have arisen’ between Griffith and Selze with regard to ‘certain improvements and expenditures’ made to ‘a certain piece or tract of land lying in the City of Rochester, at and above the high falls of the Genesee River’, purchased by them from William W. Mumford. Griffith agrees to accept whatever award is made by the arbitrators Vincent Mathews and Ashley Samson.