Letter from Joshua Bates, London, to Mayor Benjamin Seaver, Boston, 1852 October 1
Description:
A letter from Joshua Bates to Benjamin Seaver, Mayor of Boston, in which Bates offers to donate $50,000 to the Boston Public Library, the funds to be used for the purchase of books. Bates explains that his donation would be contingent on several conditions: "that the building shall be such as shall be an ornament to the city, that there shall be room for 100 or 150 persons to sit at reading tables, that it shall be perfectly free to all, with no other restrictions than such as may be necessary for the preservation of the books."