Autograph receipt to Robert Carter for pig iron from James Manning by Manning, James - 1789

N.p. [Providence?]: November 14, 1789. Approx. 7½" x 12¼", central fold with neat professional repair, right margin a little ragged with small loss in the top right corner. "Robert Carter, Esq. in account with James Manning." James Manning (1738-1791), was the first president of Brown University (then Rhode Island College) elected in 1765. Manning graduated second in his class from the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) in 1762. He was licensed to preach by the Scotch Plains Baptist Church and ordained in 1763. This receipt, signed while he was president, is likely a bill to the college for a large quantity of building material and shows Manning's business contacts. It is a document to pay Philip and Zachariah Allen freight for 10 tons of pig iron from Baltimore, storage of same, and a commission. Philip Allen (1738-1794) was the master of the Sloop Providence. The name Robert Carter, shown at the top of the receipt, is very likely Robert Carter of Virginia to whose sons Manning became a foster father and who took them in as boarders so that they could attend college and not be exposed to southern slavery. Carter also funded the college and was a Baptist convert. The wealthy Robert "Councillor" Carter III (1727/28 -1804), President Manning's associate, was a plantation owner and onetime British government official. After the death of his wife, Frances Ann Tasker Carter, in 1787, Carter embraced the Swedenborgian faith and freed almost 500 slaves from his Nomini Hall plantation and large home in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1791 he began the process of manumitting slaves in his lifetime. His manumission is the largest known release of slaves in North American history prior to the American Civil War and the largest number ever manumitted by an individual in the US.