Leading to a major Supreme Court ruling
The President of the United States of America to the Marshall of said district, or to his deputy. Greeting...
Providence: October 12, 1801. Pro-forma broadside document (approx. 7¾" x 12¾") accomplished in ink. Official state seal and notations on verso: "Writ Head & Amory vs. A.M. Atwell." The Providence Insurance Company was founded in 1799 as the first insurance company in Providence. Its business was exclusively marine insurance, in merchant ships engaged mostly in the coastal, European, West Indies, and China trades. The company merged with the Washington Insurance Company (established 1800) in 1815 to become the Providence Washington Insurance Company, which remains a successful Providence institution. This writ commands the marshall, W. Peck, to summon Amos Maine Atwell (1765-1815), president of the Providence Insurance Co., and John Mason, late president of the company, to answer a complaint lodged by Joseph Head and Jonathan Amory of Boston, merchants trading under the name of Head & Amory. They claimed the recovery of twenty thousand dollars on an insurance policy and said the insurance company had not made good on its promise to pay. W. Peck noted on the verso that he has served the summons. The verso is also signed by David Leonard Barnes, as attorney The case is still cited in contract and corporation law today as "Head & Amory v. The Providence Insurance Company, Cranch II, 127: "An individual, has an original capacity to contract and bind himself in such manner as he pleases. He who acts by another, acts by himself. He who authorizes another to make a writing for him, makes it himself; but with these bodies, which have only a legal existence, it is otherwise. The act of incorporation is to them, an enabling act. It gives them all the power they possess." (See also Roelker & Collins, One Hundred Fifty Years of the Providence Washington Insurance Company, 1799–1949 (Providence, 1949). Item #55220
Price: $1,250.00
