Library Company share #7 was first issued to Thomas Godfrey (1704-1749) on November 10, 1731.
Godfrey was a mathematician and glazier. By 1731, he was obviously acquainted with Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and his fellow Junto members. That group drew up “Articles of Agreement” on July 1, 1731 to found a library. Godfrey signed the document and was among the first group of shares issued four months later. These subscribers each invested forty shillings and “promised to pay ten shillings a year thereafter to buy books and maintain a shareholder’s library.”[i]
Godfrey was also named in the Library Company’s founding document as one of its first directors, and he served in that role from 1731 through 1734.
Godfrey and his family sublet a portion of the house rented by Franklin and his partner Hugh Meredith in 1728 for their printing business. Much later, Franklin wrote in his autobiography that Godfrey was a “self-taught mathematician great in his way . . . But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasant companion.”[ii]
In contrast, James Logan (1764-1751) was impressed enough by Godfrey that he offered him access to Logan’s personal library, and wrote to the Royal Society urging them to award Godfrey its prize for inventing a specific type of quadrant now known as Hadley’s quadrant. Godfrey did receive the award, and apparently used his 200 pound prize money to buy a clock.[iii]
After Godfrey’s death, his administratrix Ann Godfrey sold the share to Joseph Godfrey, glazier, on August 25, 1752. Given the matching surnames and occupations, one could surmise that the two were related. The transaction was recorded by the Library Company’s secretary, Benjamin Franklin.
Image: Detail from Share Record Book A, volume 171, Library Company of Philadelphia records (MSS00270).
The Library Company’s records provide no further details about Joseph Godfrey. He maintained the share for nine years, and then sold the share to Tench Francis, Jr. (1731-1800), merchant, on December 14, 1761.
Tench owned the share for two years, selling share #7 to his brother-in-law Edward Shippen (1729-1806), gentleman, on October 13, 1763.
In addition to being a shareholder, Shippen served as a Director of the Library Company from 1763 through 1768. By then, he had already been appointed judge of the admiralty and elected to Philadelphia’s common council. He served as a member of Pennsylvania’s Provincial Council in 1770.[iv]
Shippen was apparently ambivalent about the American Revolution, but he eventually regained judicial positions in the newly independent nation.[v]
He owned his Library Company share for seventeen years, and sold share #7 to his son-in-law Edward Burd (1749-1833) on May 17, 1787.
Burd was an attorney. He served as prothonotary of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1778 and 1791, and as Clerk of the Supreme Court in 1800.[vi]
Burd sold the share to his son Edward Shippen Burd (1779-1848) on April 12, 1806, but it was not recorded by the Library Company until May 5, 1808.
Son Edward became an attorney like his father, but he was also heavily involved in real estate and other business ventures.[vii]
Image: Edward Shippen Burd and family lived in this home on the corner of Chestnut and Ninth Streets. As stipulated in his will, the building was torn down after his widow’s death in 1861 and replaced with storefronts. Frederick De Bourg Richards, photographer, Mansion of Joseph Sims, Esq. On south[west] corner of Chestnut and Ninth Street, the ground extending to George, now Sansom Street . . . (Philadelphia, 1859). Photograph.
After his death, Edward’s executor Eli Kirk Price (1797-1884) sold the share to Joseph B. Townsend (1821-1896) on December 8, 1848. Price and Townsend were close; Price served as his mentor, and the two later became business partners.[viii]
Townsend owned the share for the rest of his life, and the share was associated with his estate well into the 20th century. The Library Company’s records show that Townsend’s share was forfeited in April 1932.
The Library Company’s Directors later reissued share #7 as share #1399, and it was sold to J. Kearsley Mitchell on January 7, 1937.
The share was reissued as share #7 by 1987.
Share History
- Thomas Godfrey (1704-1749), acquired share #7 on November 10, 1731
- Joseph Godfrey,acquired on August 25, 1752
- Tench Francis, Jr. (1731-1800), acquired on December 14, 1761
- Edward Shippen (1729-1806), acquired on October 13, 1763
- Edward Burd (1749-1833), acquired on May 17, 1787
- Edward Shippen Burd (1779-1848), acquired on May 5, 1808
- Joseph B. Townsend (1821-1896), acquired on December 8, 1848
- Reissued as share #1399, J. Kearsley Mitchell, acquired on January 7, 1937
Shareholders who acquired this share after 1950 are not displayed for privacy reasons.
Learn more about Library Company shareholding today.
[i] “At the Instance of Benjamin Franklin”: A Brief History of the Library Company of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 2015), 5.
[ii] Franklin’s quotation is from Dorothy Fea Grimm, “A History of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1731-1835,” (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1955), 26-28.
[iii] Grimm, 27.
[iv] University Archives & Records Center, “Edward Shippen 1729-1806,” University of Pennsylvania Libraries https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-people/biography/edward-shippen/ (accessed August 12, 2025).
[v] For more on Shippen’s politics, see American Philosophical Society, “Edward Shippen IV (67),” APS Members Bibliography https://membib.amphilsoc.org/member/pub/67 (accessed August 12, 2025). Edward’s daughter Margaret “Peggy” Shippen married Benedict Arnold (1741-1801), who was later decried as a traitor for helping the British during the Revolutionary War.
[vi] Emily S. Walters, Finding Aid for Edward Shippen Burd Family Papers, Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections https://archives.dickinson.edu/collection-descriptions/edward-shippen-burd-family-papers (accessed August 25, 2025).
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Dustin Frohlich, Finding Aid for Joseph Brevitt Townsend Papers Supplement, University of Delaware Special Collections https://findingaids.lib.udel.edu/repositories/2/resources/564 (accessed August 25, 2025).