MARTIN VAN BUREN (1782-1862). Eighth President of the United States (1837-1841), his Presidency dominated by the severe economic depression following the Panic of 1837.
July 10th, 1840-Dated Ships Vellum Passport, measuring 14.5 x 10.5 inches, is boldly Signed, "M. Van Buren" at lower right and Countersigned by the Secretary of State below, Choice Very Fine. This passport issued for the Ship “William Lee” of Newport (RI), three round hole punches of about .5” diameter canceling through each signature. The ship was under command of Master Eseck Gifford, described as of three hundred ten and 81/95ths tons burthen, mounted with one gun and navigated by a crew of twenty-four men, and dated the tenth day of July in the year eighteen hundred and forty, at the District of Newport, State of Rhode Island. This document has a typical indented top margin, and bears fine engraved vignettes at the top depicting a full-rigged sailing ship at sea and a harbor scene with a prominent lighthouse and distant city skyline, and an Embossed Paper Seal of the United States at lower left. The document is numbered "2. Two." and is addressed "To all Persons whom these may concern." The vellum shows overall very clean, sharply printed with standard quarter-folds, the engraved and manuscript text presenting excellent strength and the manuscript portions great legibility. throughout.

The accompanying separate engraved portrait depicts Van Buren in his later years, engraved by W. Wellstood "from a recent life likeness" and published by Johnson, Fry & Co. of New York, within an elaborate oval frame of scrolled foliate ornament surmounted by a small perched eagle, with the facsimile signature "M. Van Buren" in flowing script beneath the portrait. The print presents with good clarity and contrast, showing overall toning consistent with age.
Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) was the eighth President of the United States (1837-1841) and the first president born a citizen of the new nation rather than a British subject. Born in Kinderhook, New York, to a Dutch-speaking tavern-keeper's family, he rose through New York politics as a shrewd lawyer and organizer, building the "Albany Regency" political machine and earning nicknames like "the Little Magician" and "the Red Fox of Kinderhook" for his political dexterity.

He served as U.S. Senator, Governor of New York, Secretary of State, and Vice President under Andrew Jackson, and is widely regarded as a principal architect of the modern Democratic Party and of the American two-party system itself.

His presidency was dominated by the Panic of 1837 and the prolonged depression that followed, which doomed his 1840 reelection bid against William Henry Harrison; his administration also continued the forced removal of the Cherokee along the Trail of Tears and refused to annex Texas.

He sought the presidency again in 1844 and ran in 1848 as the candidate of the antislavery Free Soil Party, a striking late-career turn for a man who had long conciliated the South. He died at his Kinderhook estate, Lindenwald, in July 1862, having lived to see the outbreak of the Civil War.
[Antebellum Period, Jacksonian Era, Rhode Island] [Martin Van Buren, Maritime History, Presidential History] [Manuscripts, Documents, Ships Passports, Engravings]