Benjamin Franklin Papers
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To Benjamin Franklin from Hugh Meredith: Dissolution of Partnership, 14 July 1730

From Hugh Meredith:5 Dissolution of Partnership

DS: American Philosophical Society

[July 14, 1730]

Be it remembered, That Hugh Meredith and Benjamin Franklin have this Day separated as Partners, and will henceforth act each on his own Account. And that the said Hugh Meredith, for a valuable Consideration by him received from the said Benjamin Franklin, hath relinquished, and doth hereby relinquish to the said Franklin, all Claim, Right or Property to or in the Printing Materials and Stock heretofore jointly possessed by them in Partnership; and to all Debts due to them as Partners in the Course of their Business; which are all from henceforth the sole Property of the said Benjamin Franklin. In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my Hand, this fourteenth Day of July, Anno Dom. One Thousand seven Hundred and Thirty.

Hugh Meredith

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

5Hugh Meredith (c.1697–c.1749), an apprentice of Samuel Keimer, 1728, and an original member of the Junto, won BF’s friendship as an honest, sensible, observant man, a wide reader, though a poor printer and addicted to drink. After BF left Keimer’s employ Meredith’s father, Simon, grateful for BF’s good influence on his son, established the two as partners in a printing business. But Meredith was seldom sober and did his work badly; his father failed to provide all the promised capital; and BF was relieved to have Hugh voluntarily withdraw from the business, though he carried his name on the Gazette through May 4, 1732. Douglas C. McMurtrie, A History of Printing in the United States, II (N.Y., 1936), 28–9. Meredith moved to North Carolina and wrote a good description of that province, printed in the Gazette, May 6 and 15, 1731. As late as 1739 BF was helping him with loans and goods (see Simon Meredith to BF., July 29, 1739); he employed him to collect rags for paper, and noted in Ledger D, Dec. 3, 1749, that since providing Meredith with a stock of books to sell in the country, he had neither seen his former partner nor received any remittance.

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