Original Photograph, Mortgage Deed, and Last Will and Testament of Joel Valentine (1791-1866), Bennington, Vermont

, 1860; Circa 1860 photograph of Joel Valentine of Bennington, Vermont, together with 1856 mortgage deed and 1866 certified probate court copy of Valentine’s last will and testament. Photograph is approximately 8" x 6 1/2", edges trimmed to fit an oval frame, and is accompanied by a 7" x 10" steel engraving on heavy paper, modeled after the photo. Both photograph and engraving are in excellent condition. The mortgage deed is handwritten by town clerk D.F. Squire, bears the signatures of two witnesses, and is signed, sealed, and dated by Elisha B. Day on March 6, 1856. There is some paper damage at the fold ends, with minor text loss. The will is the town clerk’s copy ( D.F. Squire), likewise handwritten, and executed in the court of Judge Thomas White on August 14, 1866. It contains the complete text of Joel Valentine’s last will and testament and bears the probate court’s official seal and five-cent U.S. Internal Revenue certificate tax stamp. There is some paper damage in the blank margins with, as above, minor text loss. Joel Valentine, born 1791 in Jackson, Washington county, N.Y., began life as a farmer, and later fought in the Wars of 1812 and 1814. His father served in the Revolutionary War. In peacetime Valentine became a clothier, and in 1821 married Miss Judith Wells. The next year the couple moved to Bennington and leased the Waibridge Fulling Mill situated at Bennington Falls, where they engaged in the manufacture of wool cloth. Lewis Cass Aldrich in "History of Bennington County, VT" writes that "few, if any, did more to shape the course of Bennington village in its early history than did Joel Valentine." A son, Alonzo B. Valentine of the Tenth Vermont volunteers, eventually took up his father’s business, the Valentine Knitting Company, and served Vermont as state senator, state agricultural commissioner, and delegate to the Republican national convention in 1884. A unique grouping of historic Vermont ephemera.