Historic Share Available: #14 First Issued in 1731

Learning the unique history associated with a particular share is one of the more exciting aspects of becoming a shareholder in the Library Company. Consider the biography of Share 14, first issued to Junto member Richard Standley, a successful potter by trade whose business was housed on Market Street.In 1731, he appears in the Pennsylvania Gazette with an advertisement seeking to recover a crooked servant who had absconded with a black horse. Standley would lose everything when his pottery burnt to the ground, but the tragedy would inspire his brother, and next holder of the share, Valentine Standley to purchase some of the colony’s earliest available fire insurance in 1753. By trade Valentine was a brewer, and on the eve of the American Revolution he advertised that he made a “good Sixpenny Beer . . . [and] the best middling and Fourpenny Beer.”

Next, Share 14 transferred to Samuel Anderson, a military officer, physician, and politician. Anderson had an illustrious career in the navy, where he was named assistant surgeon in 1799 by President Adams and then saw promotion to full surgeon a year later. During the War of 1812 he formed the all-volunteer Mifflin Guards and ultimately rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Not one to settle for a single occupation, Anderson began serving as surgeon on the famous USS Hornet in 1824, at the same time that he was serving as a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives! He would ascend to the position of Speaker of the House by 1833 and later find employment as Sheriff of Delaware County, customs inspector, and justice of the peace.

Share 14 is available for purchase, as are a wealth of other shares each with its distinctive company of past shareholders. If you are considering becoming a shareholder of the Library Company or giving a share as a gift, let us help you find the perfect share. Take your place in the rich tradition of Library Company shareholding today!