WHHA Independence Hall - Silver Rollerball - 13 piece Ltd. Edition

WHHA Independence Hall - Silver Rollerball

Numbered Limited Edition of 13 custom designed and crafted Rollerballs

• The WHHA Independence Hall Rollerball along with the WHHA Independence Hall Foutain Pen is a collection of exclusive customed designed and crafted high end writing instruments. Limited to just 13 Rollerballs and 13 Fountain Pens,  each pen is numbered 1-13 representing the 13 original states.
• Featuring the only documented Original 1735 Witness Wood® ever removed from Independence Hall.
• Custom Designed and Crafted hardware and fittings are solid silver, painstakingly crafted by our silversmail.
• Featuring 100% solid silver components the "Independence Hall 1776" centerband excentuates not only the the Independence Hall Witness Wood® that is literally part of the founding of American, home of the Contintental Congress, Declaration of Independence and US Constitution but also felt the footsteps and heard the words of our Founding Fathers. 
• The silver clip/finial was designed to allow and additional piece of Independence Hall Witness Wood® to be crafted and inseted as the finial.
• Each pen arrives in a hardwood presentation box, with a COA, Provence and silver cleaning cloth.
• 100% handcrafted in America (except for the nib) by our History Salvaged pen makers.

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Provenance - Independence Hall

Completed in 1735 it took two years to build Independence Hall home of the 1st Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence and where the Constitution was debated and put to paper.

During the renovation of Independence Hall in 1897-98, 16 of the original beams holding up the flooron which the giants of the era debated the future of the 13 Colonies were replaced under the supervisionof the project manager and superintendent of the Independence Hall, Samuel Reeves. Rather than discarding the beams, Reeves retained possession of the old timbers.

In 1912 Reeves sold the beams to John S. McQuade a builder and member of the Philadelphia CityCouncil for the purposes of cutting them up and making “relics”, but McQuade stored the beams for 12 years and in 1924 sold them to two brothers Walter and Clarence Deisroth owners of a paper box company in Philadelphia.

The Deisroth’s reduced some beams to 100,000 slivers and sold them as souvenirs during theSesquicentennial Exposition of 1926.

In 1956 the Deisroth’s company went into bankruptcy and at auction Mr. Henry Gouse a retired sales engineer and the Mid-Atlantic Tennis Champion of the 1940s bought the wood at auction along with what was left of the timbers, thousands of chips and sawdust.

Grouse stored the beams in a barn on his property on the outskirts of Philadelphia where he made gavels out of some of the beams and presented them over the years to: President Eisenhower, President Nixon, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and other political leaders. Grouse also gave 4 of the beams to Independence Hall and the National Park Service, confirmed in a National Park Service letter acknowledging “the gift”.

In 1975, Gouse was in his 80’s and his ex-wife “reluctantly” sold the remaining woodpile to an artist and attorney from whose estate History Salvaged acquire this Witness Wood®.

Mrs. Grouse only sold the Witness Wood® because of the high cost of living and her economic situation, she simply could not longer afford to keep the timbers and sold the Witness Wood® with the understanding that it would not be desecrated.

The new owners subsequently cut up much of the wood again into slivers, producing hundreds of thousands of history cards and memorabilia that were sold during the Bi-Centennial in 1976 all over the country and in many major department stores.

The remnant wood has remained drying out and deteriorating in storage since the 1970’s until History Salvaged's acquisition.