Lost Rights: The Misadventures of a Stolen American Relic
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Lost Rights follows that document’s epic passage over the course of 138 years, from the Indiana businessman who buys the looted parchment for five dollars to the antiques dealer who tries to peddle it more than a century later for $5 million. The parchment drifts from the living-room wall of a middle-class Midwestern family tree into the corruptible world of high-end antiquities before its journey ends with a dramatic FBI sting on the 32nd floor of a Philadelphia office tower.
Part history, part detective tale, part right-crime yarn, Lost Rights is a page-turner populated by unforgettable characters–the outrageous New England antique-furniture dealer, the real estate magnate seeking his next financial conquest, the folk-art practiced who stows the iconic document under his bed, and the small-known historian who divines the parchment’s most vital secret from a faded, barely legible, 200-year-ancient notation, among many others. And, of course, there is the broadsheet itself–priceless, yet ultimately worthless in the legitimate market.
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Lost Rights is an enjoyable read. When the Declaration of Independence was first proposed to the original 13 states North Carolina objected stating that it didn’t go far enough to protect personal freedoms. This led to the Bill of Rights which secured persons freedoms. It was adopted and one of three government clerks wrote out a copy for each state and a 14th copy for the Federal government. During the Civil War one of Sherman’s soldiers stole North Carolina’s copy and took it back home to Ohio. He quickly sold it and it was handed down through three generations of one family tree for the next 134 years. That’s the Cliff Notes version but Howard provides a very detailed, sometimes nearly too detailed, account of the document’s journey back to North Carolina. There’s a salty cast of characters who play their parts along the way. Howard gives us a behind the scenes take on the world of rare documents buying and selling. I was saddened to read that far too many state and federal documents have been lost, ruined by manufacturing accident, war, and carelessness and worst of all stolen, sometimes by the people charged with protecting them though for the most part that’s an anomaly. Ironically in order to provide the provenance of this particular Bill of Rights several seemingly valueless documents were required. A careful documents clerk’s distinctive markings clinched it as North Carolina’s copy. Howard emphasized that though this physical object is vital more vital are its words and what they mean for us as a country and individuals. He includes a quote from a fellow journalist, Mark Bowden, who said, “Any nation is, at heart, an thought.”
I recently read Wittman’s book “Priceless” about his career in the FBI specializing in stolen art objects and his account of his part in recovering this Bill of Rights dovetails with Howard’s though Howard’s is far more detailed.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
From Civil War battlefields to the hot lights of the Antiques Roadshow set to a right crime ending I won’t spoil, Howard gives you a front row seat to the action. The Bill of Rights itself also becomes a character, and it shapes every scene its in. If you’ve ever looked at a family tree heirloom and wondered its value or the road it has traveled to get where it is, you must read this book.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5